Can't get movies to play

[jarvis24]

[edited from support email]

I'm trying to tell MediaLab to play a Quicktime movie clip, which I have
copied in the same directory as the experiment etc. When the time comes for the clip to play, there is nothing on the screen apart from the usual medialab background colour, which lasts exactly as long as the videoclip, and then moves on to the next item in the experiment. Any ideas?

First thing to try is to see if this video plays ok in the Windows Media Player on the machine where the movie isn't playing properly (since MediaLab uses the WMP as its video engine).

Also, take a look at this link:

www.empirisoft.com/support/showthread.php?t=572

The movies play great, but only in Quicktime. Is there any way to convert QT to MediaPlayer files without having to buy new software?

There are numerous free conversion programs out there. I've only used QuickTime which will convert .mov to .mpg or .avi. It does however require the Pro version which is $29.99 from Apple.com). In some cases the conversion can affect the movie quality. You could also try clicking "use enhanced video" on the MediaLab Preferences menu. That function was designed to help users play native QuickTime files but some have had trouble with it not playing the first of a set of videos. Another thing you can try is downloading the 3ivx codec from www.3ivx.com. I believe some users have had luck playing QT movies with the WMP after this codec has been installed.

I have also heard that with the newest version of the Windows MediaPlayer, many Quicktime videos will play but some won't--seems it may depend on how Quicktime encodes the video. If anyone know what makes the difference, please let us know or post it.