Jayson, mail me off-list, and I'll send you an instructional movie I made following a
previous request, explaining one approach to solve this problem.
Below is a previous reply to the same question from the horse's mouth:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mauricio Piacentini" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2000 4:07 PM
Subject: Re: Problem: Direct Media Xtra - unexpected Flashing MPEG
> Mark is correct. There is a combination of factors that cause the black
> flash at beginning (and sometimes at end) on most Windows systems. This is
> the default behavior for Microsoft's DirectShow when opening a new window to
> play a media file, and you can see the exact same thing if you open a file
> with the Windows Media Player (well, they put a spinning animation there in
> a black background, but you can still see the brief black flash.)
> The way I understand this issue is that the window is created and displayed
> before the first video frame is decoded. This has to do with the
> network-friendly nature of DirectShow, where you queue a command but you do
> not wait for it to complete immediately. That's why the flash is most
> noticeable on slower systems, or when opening large files.
>
> There is also a different cause for a flash, which sometimes is magenta.
> Some video drivers flash a colored rectangle when they create an overlay
> surface. On most machines an overlay surface (where supported) is created by
> DirectShow, since this is the fastest possible way to display video.
>
> We tried to remove this flash in DirectMediaXtra using two different
> solutions: one is to force the window to be created only after the first
> frame is available, and the other is preventing overlay surfaces from being
> selected by the DirectShow engine. Both solutions are bad, and have not been
> implemented in the release versions of the Xtra. The reasons are simple: if
> you force DirectShow to wait for the first frame the whole system will
> "freeze" during this time. If the first frame does not arrive (for any
> reason) than you need to force quit Director. And in some machines the only
> way to get decent performance is to allow DirectShow to use overlay
> surfaces, or your video will play like a slideshow. So we decided to use
> exactly what Microsoft uses in the Windows Media Player: this unfortunately
> means black or magenta flashes on some machines at the start and/or end of
> videos.
>
> There is a possible workaround: put your sprites offstage and start then
> paused. Then move them to the stage a few frames later, and resume playback.
> The black flash will occur offstage, and you will not see it... The magenta
> flash associated with the overlay surface painting will still occur on the
> small number of video drivers that exhibit this behavior, though.
>
> Regards,
> Mauricio Piacentini
Bertil Flink
Creative Media
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jayson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2000 10:42 PM
Subject: <lingo-l> Video / Directmediaxtra Question
> I'm using the directmediaxtra
>
> When jumping to the marker where the mpeg starts to play the sprites on
> stage flash before the mpeg plays. I've tried preloading the movie and
> frames, and my problem still exist.
>
> Please help!! I'm making a business card presentation for my client.
>
> -Jayson
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to
http://www.penworks.com/LUJ/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list,
email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
