Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[aussie1]

Just installed the this version. The program opens a window called "ActiveMovie Window" for several seconds and then closes the window. This event repeats every few seconds in an endless loop.

[JimH]

I don't think that's our window.  Something else may be opening it.  Did you try a google search?

[aussie1]

This never happened on my computer until I installed your latest version. Also, the problem only occurs when the Media Center software is running. So, it was caused by something done during the install of v.12.0.222.  Previously, I was running v.12.0.179 with no problems.

Did a quick Google search and see that others have this error, perhaps a setting in Windows Media Player or a codec issue. I won't be able to dig into this more until tonight after work.
S

[JimH]

It could be a DirectShow filter being used when MC is thumbnailing.  Looking at TaskManager might tell you.  If so, it may be an optional setting you could change.

Check the FAQ here and near the bottom look for a thread by Yaobing on video and DirectShow.

[Yaobing]

I have seen it happening a couple of times. It happens during thumbnail building, and defies logic. I can not explain why it happens since I have every possible ways covered (so I think). I will have to dig deeper.

[aussie1]

Thanks for the replies.

An update to what I found.

The other change made to my system was the installation of iTunes (against my will actually - universities are using the iTunes platform for distribution of content...I'd love it if I could use MC to access sites such as http://itunes.stanford.edu/ rather than being locked into the iTunes store software. Is this possible?...but I digress)

So, the following behavior was occurring:

1. Run MC by itself - the ActiveWindow problem occurs

2. Use MC to play my media, but keep iTunes running in the background - the problem goes away

After using my computer in situation number 2 for a while, I went back to running MC by itself. The ActiveMovie window problem seems to be gone. The only setting I changed was to stop iTunes from prompting me to make it the default music player.

Strange..but the problem seems to be resolved for now.

[Yaobing]

Strange..but the problem seems to be resolved for now.

There is a problem only when MC tries to build thumbnails of certain video files. Once the thumbnails have been built, MC would not attempt it again. Maybe that is why you are not seeing it now.

[aussie1]

That could be. I have a TV tuner card in this computer and use it to record TV programs. (I use different software to record, then import the files into MC for playback.) These are the only videos in the library.

When the ActiveMovie window was flashing, the window was usually dark black. But there were times when a TV picture appeared in the window. I assumed this was the live TV feed, but it could have been coming from the recordings.

[aussie1]

FYI...I just removed the video recordings from my library and re-imported them. The flashing ActiveMovie Window returned. The Importing Media box shows that MC is "Updating thumbnails."  This definately appears to be the cause.

The video file format is the default created by GB-PVR. The file extension is .mpg. I'm guessing that this is MPEG-2, but my knowledge of video formats is limited.

Also, it looks like MC is not having success creating the thumbnails. Every file has a video reel symbol.

S

[jmone]

What Version are you using (I was getting this alot last week as I moved items in our of the Library and and reorganised my HDD Folder Structure outside MC)?  I found that the latest version still does the Thumbnailing (one a sec or so) but the Active Movie window seems to be better supressed than a few of the other builds recently (don't know why!) - so if your not using the latest version try that one.

As mentioned previously, thumbnailing uses your playback codec settings to grab a frame (that is why the active windows sometimes appears as it is actually playing the first bit of each file).  One with the real still showing have either yet to be thumbnailed, can not be played by the filters you have selected OR MC for some reason just skipped it (it happens!). 

Thanks
Nathan

[glynor]

I got a handful of these windows yesterday.  It was just after MC auto-imported a group of WMV files, and it was building thumbs for them.  I figured it'd check it out this weekend.  I was using the beta build from yesterday.