Movies won't play in edit mode

[BobMed]

This basic problem has been discussed before, but there are some
differences. When I'm in edit mode and right click on a movie, the
movie plays fine if it is an avi file. If it is mpg, wmv, or m1v, I
get the error message, "MCI error: The specified device is now being
closed. Wait a few seconds, and then try again." PowerPoint is hung
and I can't clear the error; the only way to close is to end the
application in Task manager.

I do not have (nor have I ever had) RealPlayer installed. The movies
play in screen show mode, but not while editing the file. All movies
run fine in earlier versions of PowerPoint, but another user with PPT
2003 has the same problem. The movies play fine in external viewers.
I've tried all the links in the previous posts. My registry entries
look correct, and (what appear to be) the proper codes are installed.

Can anyone help or point me in the right direction?

Thanks,
Bob

 

[Austin Myers]

Bob, PPT uses two different modes to handle the screen. One for playback,
one for editing. My very first effort would be to make certain all service
packs are in place, the video card driver is as up todate as possible, and
that DirectX 9c is installed. If that doesn't do the trick holler back.

Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team

 

[BobMed]

Hi, Austin,

Thanks for your suggestions. I installed DirectX 9.0 C and updated my
video driver (Radeon Mobility 9000 on a Dell Latitude D600). Our IT
department thinks all the service packs are installed. No joy. One of
the fellows from the IT department suggested I try deselecting
"Background printing" and "Embed True Type fonts". I don't
understand why either of those changes would affect playing a movie,
but Microsoft does have some weird interactions, so I tried them. My
response to him follows. Note that I did find a way to sort of bypass
the problem. Not a solution, but interesting, nonetheless.

1) Deselecting Background printing still yielded the error.

2) Embed True Type Fonts was already deselected. I selected it and the
file size went from 7.2 MB to 19.9 MB, and the error still occurred.
There are two suboptions - I tried them both, but neither worked.

3) Knowing there are some issues with the way files are saved with
Allow fast saves, I turned that off, but that still did not eliminate
the problem.

I then found one other interesting anomaly. While waiting for the
movie to play, I typed part of this note. I didn't get the error! I
did some more tests and found that if the PPT window is not the active
window, the error does not occur - the movie plays out and stops. I
did some more tests and verified this with other files and movies, as
well.

To see if there was a way to implement this, I opened a folder, made it
as small as possible, and put it in the corner of the screen. I then
went back to the PPT file, started the movie, and quickly clicked on
the "tiny window" item in the tool bar to bring it up. Sure enough, I
could see the move play out and stop. I then brought the PPT file back
to the foreground.

This is hardly a "fix", for three reasons. First, it is not very
practical to put the application in the background every time you want
to test a movie. Second, this does not work for movies that are set to
Loop until stopped. The error occurs when the movie ends, or when it
is stopped manually (by pressing Esc or Page Down, for example).
Stopping the movie puts the PPT file back in the foreground, and you
get the error. Third, if the movie is very short, you may not be able
to click on the tiny folder fast enough!

So, no fix, but one more bit of info to add to the mix. Does this
promt any ideas?

Thanks,
Bob