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This tutorial or FAQ doesn’t take the traditional format of Q & A. I’ve tried to write it in that format, and have found there is too much information to convey in that manner. To understand Multimedia use in Diji Album we need a clear understanding of its interactions with the Operating System. (Windows) Not to worry, most of the information presented is easily understood, and well within the average users ability to master. As an added bonus, we may just be able to solve some of those "other" Multimedia problems you’ve been having with your system.
Everyone knows what Multimedia is, right? For the purposes of this discussion we will be addressing two specific forms of Multimedia, sounds and movies, and their role in Diji Album. Diji Album has the ability to insert and play the following type of files. Video: QuickTime files (*.mov, or *.qt) created with versions one and two of QuickTime. (Versions three and four are not supported.) Audio Video Interleave (*.avi) Motion Picture Experts Group (*.mpg, *. mpeg, *.m1v, *.mp2, *.mpa, *.mpe) While other, less popular video formats exist, these are the most common and most likely to be used in Diji Album. Should you need to use one of the less popular formats I strongly suggest converting it to an avi or mpg format. Sounds: Audio Interchange File Format (*.aiff, *.aif, *.aifc) Motion Pictures Expert Group Layer-3 (*.mp3, *.m3u) Musical Instrument Digital Interface (*.midi, *.mid, *.rmi) Unix Environment (*.au, *.snd) Microsoft Wave (*.wav) Again, there are less common formats, but these are the ones most of you will be using. How does Diji Album handle Multimedia? The short answer, it doesn’t, it calls upon the Windows system services to get the job done. If Diji Album was to support every common multimedia format natively then it would be a collosal application of tens of megabytes which would be slow to use and distribute. Let me say that again, Diji Album does very little with Multimedia other than hand it over to Windows for play back. Why is this important? Because we could “fidget” all day with Diji Album trying to correct a problem when the real problem is in how Windows has been installed, setup, and modified. Almost every Multimedia problem in Diji Album has its roots in the operating environment, (Windows). So lets start with how Windows handles Multimedia. A common misconception is that it uses the Windows Media Player. It does not! Instead it uses a group of Advanced Programming Instructions (API) that is commonly referred to as the Multimedia Control Interface (MCI). These are a part of Windows Operating System and are present regardless of the installation or non-installation of Media Player. As an example of the MCIs use, consider that you can assign sounds to events or actions like starting or closing an application. Windows doesn’t start Media Player every time to “play” the sound; the function is built in to Windows itself. The MCI dates back a decade or so and was first introduced with Windows 3.x when Microsoft worked with a number of companies to develop a standard way to implement Multimedia on the PC. The MCI itself is built in a modular fashion so that newer, and improved modules or components could be added. Of course the biggest advantage to this is that software vendors could simply call upon the MCI to do Multimedia functions without having to write new program code to do the job. This is exactly how Diji Album is designed to work. Like everything, there is a downside. If a vendor wants more functionality then is provided by the MCI standard, they must write their own program to do it. Apple decided to do this with the release of QuickTime 3 and all later versions. That’s why only versions 1 and 2 work with Diji Album. Or more specifically, they work with the Windows MCI. So if this functionality is built in, why doesn’t it work on my system? There are a number of reasons this problem occurs. Remember when I said that the MCI is modular in nature? The most common problem is that one (or more) of these modules wasn’t installed with Windows, was removed, damaged, overwritten, or redirected. How could that happen? The installation part is easy. When Windows is installed you are given the option of installing Multimedia Tools. It may be that none or only parts of it were installed. To determine this go in to “Control Panel” and start the Add/Remove program and then select “Windows Setup”. Here you can scroll through the components of Windows that are installed. Make certain the Multimedia is checked and that all the Multimedia components are selected. Click OK and any missing components are installed. (Note: A re-boot may be needed for the changes to take effect.) What other things can cause these problems? The answer is, installation of third party applications. Remember we are talking about a “standard” way to deal with Multimedia? Unfortunately, some vendors don’t want to follow the standard and in an effort to make their application “better”, replace certain modules of the MCI. These modules can be drivers, *.dll files, or codecs. I guess the thinking goes something like, “Hey we have the best player out there so why would a user want to use anything else, go ahead and change it.” Well, at least I prefer this idea to thinking the competition would deliberately scramble the MCIs use for everyone else. What software does this? There are a bunch of them but the more common ones I have tested and know cause problems are, QuickTime 3, 4, and 5, Xing Player and Encoder, Real Player, WinAmp, and several of the video authoring programs. In most cases the changes made by these programs can be corrected without any ill effect. Notice I said “most” of the time. There are situations where by restoring the MCI to its original condition, you will not be able to use the third party software. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a handy way to test the MCI to make certain everything is in place and a specific file will play correctly before trying to use it in Diji Album? Turns out there is one. When you installed all of the multimedia components with Windows, you also installed a version of Media Player that works directly with the MCI. Wait! Do NOT confuse this with the “Windows Media Player”. Boy do I wish Microsoft had given them different names. Windows Media Player versions 6.x and 7.x are available as a download from the Microsoft web site. These players have nothing to do with Diji Album or the MCI, other than they too use certain modules for functionality. If you have a Multimedia file you want to test for compatibility try using the MCI Media Player. To do so search your computer for the program “mplayer.exe” (or “mplayer32.exe” or “mplayer2.exe” on some systems) and run it. This starts the MCI Media Player. Yes, it’s the same one you were used to in earlier versions of Windows. Remember, I said the MCI has been around a long time. Now with File – Open, navigate to the file you want to test and see if it plays properly. If it does, it should work in Diji Album just fine, if it doesn’t play correctly it will NOT work in Diji Album. Folks it’s a simple test and can save you from hours of hair pulling and low level cursing. All right, we understand Diji Album uses the MCI, how do I set it up properly? Fortunately we have created a small application which will test the formats on your system and offer to make corrections where needed. If you are having problems with Multimedia formats under Diji Album, I highly recommend that you download and run this program: MCI Tester (200KB)
What the heck is a Codec and why do I need them? Codec stands for COmpressor / DECompressor and it does pretty much what the name implies. They are used to compress Multimedia files for transfer and storage, and then to reverse the process for play back. If you have ever used “Zip” to compress a file you have the general idea. Why are there so many different codecs? Different forms of Multimedia compress very differently depending upon their contents. Consider the difference in the sound of a car engine running and a full orchestra playing music. The engines sound is of a very low frequency and repetitive, while the orchestra produces a full frequency of sound with little repetition. Obviously the engine sound would compress much differently than would the orchestra music. So we use a different tool or codec to get the job done. The same analogy holds true for video. Codecs are constantly being upgraded and the technology envelope pushed in order to compress the file smaller without loosing quality during playback. The good news is that Microsoft foresaw the need for future codecs and built the MCI so we can simply install them as needed. In plain terms, a codec is just another module of the MCI and the MCI makes it available to other software, in our case, Diji Album. There are literally hundreds (thousands?) of codecs in use today and no one would have all of them installed on their machine. However there are the “common” ones that should be on every machine. In order to determine which codecs are install on your machine go into Control Panel and double click Multimedia. Click on the Devices Tab and look for “Audio Compression Codecs” and “Video Compression Codecs”. Click on either of these to see a list of the codecs installed. Here is a list of some of the most common codecs:
In putting this information together I have tried to track down sites where codecs could be down loaded. I found two things: First, folks that create codecs tend to play it very close to the chest. That is you won’t find much in the way of web sites that have lots of them for down load. And second, the companies change the URLs to their sites on a regular basis so placing them in this document is a waste of time. So the best advice I can give is to use your favorite search (I recommend www.google.com) and go hunting on the web. Up to this point we have been dealing with how to play multimedia “natively” in Diji Album. By that I mean using the standard method of, Insert>Sound/Video. There is also another way to do this. To play a file externally (which is a necessity for all non-supported file formats, such as QuickTime, Real Media,) you may use Insert>File and navigate to the file and insert it. This will call the player that is associated with that file type. This of course assumes you have the correct player installed on your system.
I’ve included this section as many users ask why their presentation works on one machine and not another. As you can see from all the above information it isn’t so much a Diji Album problem as it is an environment (Windows Setup) problem. We simply have no way of knowing in advance how the receiving user has his/her machine setup. What can be done to maximize success in transporting albums? Don’t create a presentation with critical timing on a fast machine and expect it to work the same way on lesser machines. If you have a video playing, don’t add to the computers workload by having other animations happening at the same time. Likewise, it is not practical to try to time the flipping of pages to the tune of the background music. Use Multimedia file formats that are likely to be found on most machines. For video this is the AVI format using the Cinepak codec or the (preferred) MPEG format. For audio use the Microsoft wav format. I can hear the grumbling already about quality and file size. Folks, if you want to distribute the presentation to others you have to use the lowest common denominator. Remember, a big file that plays properly is a lot better than a small file that doesn’t play at all. That about covers the “generic” information on using Diji Album and Multimedia. I’m certain there are a number of issues that are specific to your machine and presentation, but I couldn’t possibly cover all of them in this document. If you have read through this information, made the suggested changes, and still encounter problems or issues please contact support for assistance. Based in part on FAQ by by Austín Myers, Microsoft MVP
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