MediaLab Back Video is cropped

Hi,

I'm having a bit of trouble with an experiment I set up on my work computer and am now trying to run on my laptop.

1) The back videos are being cropped. The laptop is a widescreen laptop but for some reason ML is cutting off about an inch at the bottom of the screen (making it even more widescreen). Changing my resolution squashes the video AND doesn't fix the problem. I do know how to size the videos manually (this does solve the issue) but there are over 100 and I'd prefer some way to get the ML experiment to fit the screen size. Also having 2 separate que files for the 2 computers (same experiment) will be a bit tedious every time I need to make changes.

2) There is a noticable pause between videos on my laptop (between the user clicking an answer and ML moving to the next question). Videos work fine in Windows Media Player and Quicktime, and work fine in MediaLab they just seem to take long to load or something. My laptop's specs are good so don't think that is the problem. I suspect that this computer (running vista) is using a differenct codec or something to my work computer (running XP). Is there any way I can change this / set this manually or does anyone know what the prob might be.

Thanks in advance
jules

Jules,

In regards to the first item you've noted - you may want to try enabling the exact settings your work computer uses.
You've mentioned that changing the resolution didn't solve the problem; however have you tried using the resolution your work computer uses? In order for this fix to work, make sure that the window size is the same as your work's computer once the resolution matches. If this doesn't solve the issue, perhaps I can help write a tool for you that outputs the size of all the videos you're using. This may make it a bit easier to work with if you do indeed have to use the last option (manually adding in the video size).

In regards to the video loading issue - I believe the delay is due to the architecture Windows Vista uses. Videos should load faster in Windows Vista due to the DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 libraries being used to render the video. I'm not sure if anything can currently be done to increase the speed at which videos are loaded.

The 2010 copy of ML should be able to load videos much faster.

Regards,
Trevor