Tips on Video cues

[Mike Daniell]

If you sometimes lose the video image (eg the screen goes black) when playing video cues, or some videos do not play properly if at all, then the following tips provided by SCS users may help:

• Install the latest codecs from the K-Lite codec pack.
• Reduce the video acceleration in Windows Media Player (WMP 11, that is). Go to WMP. Sync, More Options, Performance, and move the video accelerator slider to the mid position.
• Similar to the previous dot point, but if you don't see a "video accelerator slider" then this may be relevant: Using Video Overlays should be switched off in Media Player in order to project image with SCS and Nvidia Quadro FX cards. (To be found in Extra... Options... Acceleration... Advanced.. Use Overlays)
• Also similar: if you don't see either the "video accelerator slider" or the "Acceleration" panel, but you do have a checkbox labelled Turn on DirectX Video Acceleration for WMV files, then make sure this checkbox is clear.

Thanks to Andy Terry, RRew and Boes Diertens for the above suggestions.

[Willarki]

Something else to check is the bit rate. I discovered, quite by accident, that a variable bit rate can cause problems. Noticed this in particluar when playing two cues back to back. Seems like the bit rate is set from the 1st cue and stays that way. Easiest solution was to encode everything with the same fixed bit rate.