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Microsoft Codecs Bite

I just finished my rugby video application, and one huge area of risk was the Microsoft video codecs. The ones that they ship with their operating systems don't play in the sandbox well with .Net video playing code.

Specifically, when I would pause a movie, and programmatically advance the frame counter, oftentimes I would get a black screen and the movie was playing but the graphics were not being painted.

I connected a slider bar to navigate the video, and the slider bar sometimes worked and at other times, I would move the slider to a new position and hit play, and the movie would resume playing at the old position. It was hit or miss.

I finally got fed up, and converted the video .avi to div(x). Then I downloaded the DIVX codec from DIVX (quel surprise) and after installation, the video software components worked better than expected.

Not only did I get better screen resolution, but the slider worked as smooth as butter, and the degree of accuracy in frame positioning was an absolute precise delight.

You can get the free DIVX codec pack from here:

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