WD, MovieMaker and Vista

[Weather Display]

hi
yes, the full install has that new moviemaker

one thing ...if not using the windows media encoder at all, i.e the .bat file is not running,,,,then the finish.txt will not get created..,.,and so moviemaker.exe will not know when to exit...but will time out after 35 minutes
are you seeing that behaviour?
(solution is  i get the mpg to flash to create the finish.txt)

its good this new mpgtoflash means its a solution to get movie files created under vista
(but it was not cheap, cost me $300 US (luckily  I have had some donations from people on the forum to cover my costs , thanks guys!)
 

[TheBreeze]

I will try the full install as you say.

As for the moviemaker, as far as I can tell, when not using the encoder to create the wmv files, moviemaker starts and parses all the files and creates the mpg files, and then MPGtoFlash pops up for a second or 2, and then shows as an icon in the system tray for maybe 5 seconds as it creates the swf files, and the it closes.  About 10 seconds the moviemaker icon also closes and that is all.  (I have upgraded to AM2 Athon 64 X2 5400 with 2 GIG DDR2 mem and SATA II 250 gig Raid drives...)

I will try tomorrow to run with task manager up and see if it is actually totally closing, and I will also chech the state and date of the start and finish files while it is doing the auto movie creations.

If I check any box to create the wmv files, the dreaded error comes back.

But we have a working system, and I will let you know what I find and see.

Cheers

[TheBreeze]

Brian - finished family dinner early - more palay time.

Here is the scoop - with Task manager open - click on make all day video and moviemaker shows in task manager, then MPGtoFlash appears both in task manager and on the main screen.  When it is dismissed to the system tray, both moviemaker and MPGtoFlash are in the systray and the TaskMgr.  Then - MOVIEMAKER is closed, and the MPGtoFlash is closed maybe 5 seconds later.  Both are gone from the systray and the taskmgr.

Here's the kick - date of the start.txt in the WDisplay folder - 12/23/2006 at 9:21PM
                       date of the finish.txt                                 12/23/2006 at 10:57AM

It seems moviemaker does not care nor wait and closes.  The finish.txt is left over from all the experimentation earlier today.  The swf file is indeed created.  My next step is to include the upload of the file to the WDL webpage.

Craig

By the way, the full install worked as you said.  No more approvals required.

[Weather Display]

ok, then i must have taken care of the closing if WME not used at all....so thats good 

[TheBreeze]

Back, sooner than I thought - just clicked the upload boxes.

Then, the exact sequence was
moviemaker started, MPGtoFlash started, moviemaker ended, MPGto Flash ended, FTP started and uploaded Lastdayvideo.swf and it is on the site and verified.

Craig

That is very good!!

[Weather Display]

i suspect not having upload the files to my web site in the .wmv setup section is making moviemaker not wait around and close
(but then the mpgtflash program is taking care of the uploads needed of the .swf file you see 

[Weather Display]

ps, to you have a web page with it updating? 

[TheBreeze]

From what I can tell, as soon as the swf file is completed, the Last day/lasthour swf file is uploaded to my website and available for WDL.  I was able to edit the index.html file to point to the swf file rather than the wmv, and it works fine.  Need to incorporate the html code you posted, but that will come.  I will run Vista thru the night and see if the webcam starts up again in the morning.

Re screensavers - I do not use them - I just let the monitor go off (power settings) after 30 minutes.  I am leaving it on for this machine to see if it is the screensaver, power, or something else effecting the wdwebcapture program.  I will let you know.

Craig

[Weather Display]

i see your web cam button is not working in WDL
you need to add this:
- <instWebcam2>
  <url>http://home.rochester.rr.com/ccucchi/jpgwebcam.jpg</url>
  <urlNight />
  <caption />
  <embedded>0</embedded>
  <x>5</x>
  <y>40</y>
  <size>50</size>
  <linkUrl />
  <title />
  </instWebcam2>
to your WDL xml config file

and you could even have the webcam button open the .swf file...i.e change to load the .swf instead of the .jpg

[TheBreeze]

Thanks Brian - I have just done that with the .swf file.  Works just fine!!  There are still lots of things I need to do with WD and WDL. 

I installed a brand new copy of both on the vista side so as not to contaminate our testing with leftovers from the XP installation.  Now that the major hurdle of the Web Movie is behind, I will continue to configure the Vista system to mirror the XP.  I switch back to XP every 12-24 hours to do real work and to let the XP WD install download from the VP console so log files and such are kept up to date.  On WDL the Station name under XP is On the Shore of Lake Ontario - when Vista is feeding it, it is On the Vista of Lake Ontario - that way I can keep them staright 

When we are finished here and WD runs smoothly (as it is seemingly doing), I will back up the XP drive, reformat and do a clean install of Vista, WD and all applications. (My wife thanks you for getting me to the point where I can spend 1 full week installing a new operating system and all apps.....  )

Merry Christmas    - will continue on Tuesday.

Craig

[TheBreeze]

Brian - here are my observations from the past few days.   The movie part of the code works just fine for swf files!!

I have 2 concerns (minor) 

1.)  If you look at the two attachments, the size of the mpg files ( I copied the source jpg files from one install to the other to the webcam folder) is pretty close at about 88MB.  However the XP based machine wmv yields a 819k files size.  The Vista machine swf yields a 2.7MB file - over 3 times larger.  Much longer upload time required every hour plus significantly higher traffic rate.

2.)  Also, is there a way to put a 2,3 or 4 second pause at the end of the file when playing?  - when it is played it immediately loops and starts over again.  A pause would be a good indicator to the user the file is finished. (since there are no playback controls like in Media Player.)

It has created every hour both files and just keeps chugging along!  Nice job.

More to follow.

Hope you had a Merry Christmas.

Craig

[TheBreeze]

Brian - last bit of feedback on this issue.

For the past 6 days or so the system and WD have been solid as a rock.  The jpgs get created and copied perfectly, and the mpg and swf files do the same once an hour.  Timing of only during daylight hours works as well.

By the way, the vp update at the program start (when there are hours of data to suck down and then write out) happens about 5 times faster in Vista than in XP.

Craig

[Bashy]

Bit of an old thread but i am having issues with moviemaker and vista

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:   APPCRASH
  Application Name:   moviemaker.exe
  Application Version:   8.0.0.0
  Application Timestamp:   2a425e19
  Fault Module Name:   kernel32.dll
  Fault Module Version:   6.0.6000.16386
  Fault Module Timestamp:   4549bd80
  Exception Code:   0eedfade
  Exception Offset:   0001b09e
  OS Version:   6.0.6000.2.0.0.256.1
  Locale ID:   2057
  Additional Information 1:   acf9
  Additional Information 2:   68629f2ae8da45d54e227d85ef632a7a
  Additional Information 3:   7404
  Additional Information 4:   477712c2d95dfede4351034784d1c2f5

I have enabled all wd programs an wot not to run in compatibility mode for xp
I am the administrator so no worries there, everything thing else appears to be
working, just not the moviemaker

using build 16

[TheBreeze]

Are you creating swf files or wmv files?  Brian and I have been working on getting WMV files created with Vista 64, but not successful yet.  SWF should not be a problem..

Craig

[Bashy]

The problem is with the WMV on 32 bit