New solution for playing videos (free)

Hi!

I'm now writing this for the second time because of annoying time out of writing new thread.

Now, again, and more shortly this time.
In our church we use PowerPoint for song lyrics and presentations. For videoclips we have been using Windows Media Player with method "drag it to secondary monitor (=projector) and back", it doesn't look so professional.

My new solution.
We use Media Player Classic (MPC) for playing videos. Right clicking videoclip makes new option "Play with projector". This option opens MPC to secondary monitor and resizes it to fullscreen and starts playing, at EOF it closes player. All this is made with little tweaking of MPC and WinXP settings.

Short instructions:
Open My Computer and take Tools / Folder options / file types Then select for example AVI, "more settings" (I have finnish WinXP here...) Add / Function: "Play in video screen"
"Application": "C:\Program Files\K-Lite Codec Pack\Media Player Classic\mplayerc.exe" /play /fullscreen /close /monitor 2 "%1". Now change MPC logo to 1024x768 black JPG and hide all setting by pressing "1" (unhide with "3") not from numpad.

[SBC]

I use Sunday Plus for our church services. Through the program I can show videos and insert powerpoint files. There is no draging and droping to the secondary monitor screen. After using Sunday Plus in 2001 for the first time, I've never created anything in powerpoint. It has made a huge impact on both of our worship services.

Sunday Plus is priced resonable for what it has to offer. You should check out their website at www.sundayplus.com

Yes, I tested Sunday Plus, Easyworship, Media Shout and few others worship softwares. But with this open source solution we saved about $400. And we don't have to train our people to use new software.

MPC de-interlaces videos when playing them and so the quality of moving object is much more better than with normal worship softwares.

[MediaGuy]

I'm all in favor of open source (got a linux box sitting next to my left knee as I type) - but it's been my experience that piecing together a presentation for worship through multiple programs is a recipe for disaster. Either your presentation looks clunky and unprofessional, or (more commonly), the chance for operator error increases exponentially - causing embarrassing moments in church services.

Everybody has their own opinions, but worship software will eventually be worth way more than what you paid for it.

Of course worship softwares make the services look a bit more professional and have more functions (live feed, etc). I have used Easyworship a lot. I only wanted to share my idea of a free and easy solution for playing videos. This kind of setup can be enough for some churches.

[bobbyv4HIM]

We have a small church and we use Songshow. Powerpoint slides can be used within the program. I have 14 Bibles in our Logos reference set and SongShow retrieves all as needed.
Videos are loaded to the program and executed immediately. (that part is slick)
Some Pastors may not use but a couple of translations but my Pastor from Sonrise Christian Fellowship Cedar City Utah would use several regularly. (50+ Scriptures per message on occasion) The incredible part is that his back was to the screen and he would recite them word for word. I have not met any other Pastor with that great of gift. (and I know quite a few) The Logos interface was a plus for us. http://www.sonrisechristianfellowship.com/

[Tweed]

Originally Posted by marcusn

My new solution.

Thanks Marcus. One thing everyone is forgetting about a solution like this, is that MPC can play pretty much any type of video media. I think this is a cool thing and can give more options.

We use SSP but still have need for projecting different things that don't work through SSP.

I'll try to see if I can make it work on our system.

Thanks again

[owaits]

Why not check out Screen Monkey. It is much better suited to what you want to do and it is free.

www.screenmonkey.co.uk

[Tweed]

I can't get screen monkey to download..says persistent cookie comment...

Is there a direct link?

Originally Posted by Tweed

I can't get screen monkey to download..says persistent cookie comment...

Is there a direct link?

Here you go tweed - from Tweed

http://www.download.com/Screen-Monke...-10489084.html

[owaits]

I am sorry about that! DNN has been playing up ever since my Website Provider upgraded to ASP 2.

As you said you can get it from www.download.com.

One thing you may be interested in is that Screen Monkey uses the same video playback engine as MPC so in theory you should be able to play anything you can play in MPC.

[buggyboy]

I'd like to add a vote of thanks to marcus.

you put me on the trail of a temporary solution that I can make work "NOW".

I've modified you batch file to allow starting a video at a desired position.

MPC includes a "startposition" commandline switch. snytax = /startpos hh:mm:ss

thus, my batch file is like so...

#####################
set /p startposition= [Start position? hh:mm:ss]

"full\path\to\mpc.exe" %1 /play /startpos %startposition% /fullscreen /close /monitor 3
######################

set /p startposition= [Start position? hh:mm:ss]

this first bit sets a variable called %startposition% with whatever the user inputs when this window pops up. the bracketed portion is what is displayed as a message.
the user would type 00:01:27 to start the video 1 minute and 27 seconds in.

"full\path\to\mpc.exe"
you'll have to add your own path to mpc.exe.

%1
this is the file name of the file you drop onto the batch icon. be aware, there are no quotes around this. the result of %1 is "filepath\filename.ext". so useing quotes around %1 like "%1" causes double quotes around the results...like ""filepath\filename.ext"". this breaks the batch file. mpc will open and give a "file not found" error.

/play
this is needed to allow the use of "/close" later.

/startpos %startposition%
this is where that variable we created gets inserted.

/fullscreen
obvious right?

/close
this tells mpc to close after it's finished.

/monitor 3
this sends the program to monitor 3. you may need to change that.



since i use vlc for audio stuff (playlists etc) I can keep mpc in hidden mode (using "1" and only unhide (using "3") to cue videos).

I'm going to go test this tonight. I'm pumped to get a quick solution.

I suspect I'll want to get a more comprehensive solution later...but that will take time.

thanks again.

[buggyboy]

Quick update. the previous file i posted tested out fine with one exception.

if the user does not specify a start position and instead just hits enter, the file will play in a window on the projection screen. this is because the %startposition% variable is empty, which then passes the command line argument "/setpos " instead of the required "/setpos 00:00:00".

the solution is to add a default setting to the variable.

here's the whole file....
#############
@echo off
SET startposition=00:00:00
set /p startposition= Start position? hh:mm:ss
"path\to\mpc-hc.exe" %1 /play /startpos %startposition% /fullscreen /close /monitor 3
############

the @echo off provide a cleaner text prompt.

hope that helps someone.


thanks again.