Ravi's VCD Player Ver 2.0 (Beta)

By Ravi Menon ( http://www.ravinm.com )
      RVCDPlayer is an interface to Microsoft Windows Media Player. It uses the Microsoft MediaPlayer ActiveX Control to play video and audio files. Ver 2.0 is currently in the beta stage and as such may contain a few bugs. Also, it may be subject to modification in the future.
If you find any bugs, please send me an email at rvcdplayerbugs@ravinm.com.

RVCDPlayer in the Legacy mode:


RVCDPlayer in the Compact mode:


The Playlist Window:


This documentation consists of the following:
  1. New In Ver 2.0
  2. Features
  3. Usage
  4. Menu Items
  5. Playlist Manager
  6. Limitations
  7. To Do List
  8. How to uninstall RVCDPlayer
  9. Codecs, Troubleshooting etc
  10. Notes
  11. Links

License:
This software is provided as-is without any guarantees. RVCDPlayer is totally free for personal use. You may make as many copies of this program as you wish and you may distribute this software as long as you retain this license. You may not sell it nor may you claim any form of ownership on this software. I cannot be held responsible for any issues arising out of the use of this software. I have tried to make this software bug-free but I cannot guarantee it.. After all, no software is really bug free.. Also, this being the beta version, it might have some bugs that I haven't detected yet.
New In Ver 2.0:
    Bug Fixes:
  1. Ver 1.0 had a problem that if you had a CD in your drive with a lot of files on it, RVCDPlayer would take a long time to load. This is because the program attempts to find Video files on the CD and the time it takes, is dependent on the number of files on the CD. Ver 2.0 does this in the background so that it starts up faster.
  2. The files found on the CD were not being sorted. Now, all files within a directory are sorted by the filename.
    New Features: (Why it is now 2.0 and not 1.1!)
  1. Added options to play all media files found on the CD (Unlike Ver 1.0, in which you had to run the Videos manually).
  2. A Playlist!!. I finally got around to adding a playlist manager.
  3. Implemented Zoom control options: The zoom now works in two modes: Custom and Fixed. In the custom mode, you can resize the video by resizing the window. In the fixed mode, you can choose one of the three available magnifications: 50%, 100% or 200%.
  4. Added Menu option to show play controls on the full screen.
  5. The Resume Videos functionality has been modified so that it now works with playlists.
  6. Two different interfaces: Legacy and Compact. (The Compact interface is kind of experimental. I may modify it later. Perhaps change the graphics...)
Features:
  1. Plays Mpgs, Asf, DAT and Avi files (Depending on the Codecs installed). Recognizes VCD2.0 disks and lists the appropriate DAT/MPG files. Also plays audio files such as Mp3,Wav,Mid etc.
  2. Automatically lists your CD Drives and lists all video files on the CDs. It also displays the file sizes of the videos. This is useful for VCD's that may contain more than one DAT files.
  3. Automatically loads the files on CD's when they are inserted into the drives. This feature can be turned off/on.
  4. Saves the last position of the video being played. The next time you open that video file, it will resume from the previous position. This option can be turned off/on.
  5. A full fledged Play list manager
  6. Two modes of operation: Legacy and Compact. I use the Compact interface to play audio files in the background. Also, in the Compact mode, the Video window is bigger so that you get more viewing space.
Usage:
RVCDPlayer started out as an easy to use VCD player. It still has that functionality. But now, I am attempting to create more of a media player with support for VCDs.You can use the player to view video files or to play audio files. You can create a Playlist that contains both audio and video files.
MenuItems:
  1. File
    1. Open Video File : Load a video file and play it.
    2. Refresh CD Drives: Refresh the Menu and toolbar with files from CD's in the drives. (If you turn of notification, you may use this option to refresh the menu/toolbar)
    3. Exit : Exit the program.
  2. Options
    1. Enable CD Notification: If this menu is checked, the player listens for CD notification messages from Windows and refreshes the menu and Toolbars automatically.
    2. Show Controls On Full Screen: If this menu is checked, the Play controls are visible when playing a video in the full screen mode.
    3. Resume Video From Last Pos: If this is checked, the player remembers the last position of the video file. The next time you open the file, it will resume from that position. Useful while playing large videos, especially VCD's. It remembers the volume name of the CD.
      While playing files from a playlist, it will automatically go to the last file that was played and resume it. For instance, if a playlist has 10 items, and stopped the player when it was playing the 6'th item, then the next time you open the playlist, it will skip the first 5 files and start playing from the 6th item.
    4. Clear Saved Positions: Clears all the remembered positions. (Except in Playlists stored on your PC)
  3. View
    1. Compact Mode/Legacy Mode:This menu item allows you to switch between the Compact and the Legacy modes. The Legacy mode is similar to Ver 1.0. The Compact mode has three windows : The Menu window which is a thin wide window at the top, the Playlist window and the Video window. The Menu Window and the Playlist Window are dockable. The video window popups when you start playing a video file. The playlist and video windows can be closed if you just want to play audio/video files in the background so that it takes up very little desktop space.
    2. Show Controls On Full Screen: If this menu is checked, the Play controls are visible when playing a video in the full screen mode.
    3. Full Screen: Works when you are playing a video.
    4. Actual Size: Resize video to 100%.
    5. Half Size : Resize video to 50%.
    6. Double Size: Resize video to 200%.
    7. Custom : In this mode, you can drag the video window and the video will be resized to fit the window.
  4. Drive [x]: There can be upto 4 of these menu's depending on the number of CD drives on your PC. Each of these menus list the video files found on the CD's along with their file sizes in KBs. They also have two sub menus: "Play All" and "Add All". "Play All" plays all the video files on the drive one after the other. "Add All" adds all the Files to the Playlist.
  5. Playlist
    1. Show Playlist: Shows the playlist window.
    2. Hide Playlist: Hides the playlist window.
  6. Help
    1. Contents: Opens this document.
    2. About: Shows the About box.
The Menu Items are also accessible through the toolbar. The toolbar has an Open button which you can use to open a video file. It also has multiple Drive buttons- one for each CD Drive on your machine. These buttons have drop-down menu items listing the video files found on the CDs.
Clicking on the third panel in status bar at the bottom of the Video window brings up a menu with a list of all files in the playlist. You can click on any of the files to start playing it.
Playlist Manager:
The Playlist Manager has the following buttons:
  1. Open : This button can be used to open a playlist
  2. Save : Save the current playlist to the disk
  3. Clear: Clear all files from the playlist

  4. Browse: Browse and add a file to the Playlist.
  5. From CD: When you click on this button, it shows a menu with all the media files found on the CD's. You can add a file to the playlist by clicking on the menu.
  6. Remove: Remove the selected entry from the Playlist.
The Playlist manager also has the following play control buttons:
  1. Play : Play the currently selected file
  2. Pause : Pause a file that is playing
  3. Stop : Stop playing a file that is playing

  4. Prev: Play the previous entry in the playlist.
  5. Next: Play the next entry in the playlist.
To reorder files in the playlist, you can select an entry and drag it to the appropriate location.
Limitations:
  1. Uses MediaPlayer ActiveX control. So, you need to have MediaPlayer installed along with the appropriate Codec files.
To Do:
This program is a Work in progress, so I will be updating it as and when I have enough time. Some of the things that I would like to add are:
  1. Create a Most Recently Used (MRU) list.
  2. Create a mechanism for skinning the player.
  3. If possible, I would like to change the graphics on the player. Not much of an artist when it comes to creating good looking graphics. If any of you folks are good at this, do send me some images which I could use..:-)
How to uninstall RVCDPlayer
To uninstall RVCDPlayer, first make sure that in the Options menu, you click on the Clear Saved Positions menu. This will clean up your windows registry. You don't have to do this, but it is always good to clean up unwanted registry entries.
  1. Open up the Control Panel (Open My Computer from the desktop, then double click on Control Panel).
  2. Double click on Add/Remove Programs.
  3. In the Install/Uninstall tab, select RVCDPlayer from the list.
  4. Then Click on Add/Remove. That's it.
This should remove RVCDPlayer from your system.
Codecs, Troubleshooting etc
Some of the common problems with playing Video files/VCDs are listed below. Hope this is of help to you all.
  1. Playing DivX Videos: Some .Avi's are encoded using special codecs called DivX. You need to have DivX installed on your PC to be able to view these video files. You can download them from the links section below
  2. Playing MPEG2 Videos: To be able play Mpeg2 videos (SVCD or DVD .VOB files), you need to have either a software DVD player installed or you need to have Mpeg2 Codecs. See the Links section.
  3. Playing VCDs: This is from www.vcdhelp.com
    Begin Quote

    VCD or SVCD playing problem
    If you have problem playing VCDs or SVCDs try these:
    First try with to play with both Windows Media Player 6.4+ and another player like WinDVD.

    If that doesn't work check this:

    In order to play VideoCD's on a PC (or even copy the dat files from a VideoCD in the CDROM drive to the PC's disk) you have to have the virtual device driver SCSI1HLP.VXD in Window's \SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS directory; otherwise, the file structure will not be recognized by Windows.
    My file was there but some program had changed it's extension. After renaming and rebooting, my VideoCD's now run without a hitch.

    End Quote
To find out which Codecs you have installed on your PC:
  1. Open up the Control Panel
  2. Double click on Multimedia
  3. Select the tab Devices
  4. The Video Compression Codecs entry lists all the video codecs on your PC
  5. The Audio Compression Codecs entry lists all the audio codecs on your PC
Notes:
I have tested this program with Media Player ver 6.4.07 on Windows 98 and on Win NT 4.0. I haven't been able to test it with other versions. I am pretty sure it will work with any version of the Media Player > 6.4. I haven't tested it on WinXP, so I cannot guarantee that it will work on XP. It should, but you never know.
I use this program to watch videos, so I have tried to ensure that it is bug free, but if you find a bug, please send me a mail and I will try to fix it. Also, if you find this program useful, do let me know.
Links
  1. Download DivX Codecs here: http://www.divx.com
  2. Download DVD/Mpeg2 Codecs here: http://members.home.net/maximusdvd/freecodecinstaller.zip
  3. Nimo Codec Pack: This is a single point installation for a lot of your codec needs. Has DivX, DVD, MP3 codecs among others. Just one file to download. http://nimo.everwicked.com
  4. Help on VCD/SVCD/DVD etc. Also, a lot of info about burning VCDs.:
    1. VcdHelp.com: This site has a lot of information on VCDs. Also, some useful guides on ripping DVDs, converting file formats (Avi to Mpg, Mpg to avi and so forth). Also has help on creating VCDs or SVCDs.
    2. Doom9.org: This is another good site if you are ripping and burning DVDs or VCD's. It also has a lot of freeware downloadable softwares for most of your ripping or conversion needs.



I apologize for the rather shabby documentation. I created this player for my own purposes, so I did not really spend much time on this documentation file.
Also, the links above are provided only because I found them really useful. I am not connected with any of them in any way. I don't claim credit for their work. Some of the links above might become invalid with time.