Mpeg playis in another window

SuperLab SuperLab 4 Support
1

I created an experiment on my home computer. When I burn the project to a cd and take it to the lab, Each of the mpegs plays in a new window. This window is called the “ActiveMovieWindow.” I then have to manually close each window for the experiment to continue. This is obviously not a good thing when I need stimuli to be presented immediately after the video.

I think it must just be some kind of codec or something that is missing on the computers in the lab. i can run the experiment from a disc on the home computer, so it is not the act of burning and attempting to run from a cd rather than the hard drive.

Suggestions?

2

The Movie plugin on Windows uses DirectX 9’s VMR9 to play movies. This is highly dependent on a powerful video card. There is a limit to the number of independent movies that can be created independently, but this is a machine-specific limitation. If you go beyond this limit, they begin appearing exactly as you described. I tried this on a couple of machines here in the lab. One can play six, and another plays only a couple less. Configuring your experiment to load stimuli as needed instead of all at once can help with this.

Make sure you have the latest drivers for your video card and that you have the latest version of DirectX installed. SuperLab 4.0.1 was built and tested against the February release of DirectX 9.0c, though DirectX 9.0c was updated less than a month ago.

3

Thanks. Ill try to update the drivers, and even update media player and see how that works out.

4

SuperLab doesn’t use the media player. It directly uses DirectX to display the video, hence the limited format support.

5

I assumed the update for media player included updated directx. That’s why I was going to update it as well.

6

I suspect it doesn’t, but I don’t know for certain.

7

Updated video drivers. Did windows update. Updated directx. Still does the same thing. Any other suggestions?

8

Still having the same problem. Any suggestions?

9

Did you try configuring the experiment to load stimuli between trials (the default)?

Otherwise, try running it on a computer with a better video card–or try upgrading the video card.