.MOV not playing in Embedded Win Media Player

Question

I have a video embedded on a webpage. I have to use windows media player due to client requirements and another layer of complexity is that this is all offline content. The purpose of this system is to give users access to documentation while offline. I'm sure there's much better ways of delivering this content locally but again per client requirements it is a necessary evil.

ISSUE: The video on the splash page will not play in windows media player in the browser. If i open the full desktop media player the video plays just fine.

ERROR:

 Windows Media Player error C00D11B1
 Windows Media Player can't play the file.

CODE:

<object classid='CLSID:22d6f312-b0f6-11d0-94ab-0080c74c7e95' width="650" height="366"
      codebase='http://activex.microsoft.com/activex/controls/mplayer/en/nsmp2inf.cab#version=5,1,52,701' 
      standby='Loading Microsoft Windows Media Player components...' type='application/x-oleobject' >
<param name='filename' value="../Video/Intro.mov">
<param name='animationatStart' value='1'>
<param name='transparentatStart' value='1'>
<param name='autoStart' value='0'>
<param name='ShowControls' value='1'>
<param name='ShowDisplay' value='0'>
<param name='ShowStatusBar' value='0'>
<param name='loop' value='0'>

<EMBED type='application/x-mplayer2' id='mediaPlayer' name='mediaPlayer' displaysize='4' autosize='0' 
       bgcolor='darkblue' showcontrols='1' showtracker='1' 
       showdisplay='0' showstatusbar='0' videoborder3d='0' width="650" height="366"
       src="../Video/Intro.mov" autostart='0' designtimesp='5311' loop='0'>
</EMBED> 

NOTE: The assumption with this tool as that the user has no internet access so, consequently the codebase attribute is worthless but I left it there just to see the effect.

Answer 1

I get the same error (C00D11B1) with an a player app based on MediaElement -- due to Codec problems (either missing codec or badly written codec). As I understand it, MediaElement and MediaPlayer classes use the same WMP libraries. Did you try converting the MOV file to WMV? MP4 is a crap shoot since it is a container for many different types of codec data. When you converted to MP4, the converter may have simply copied the MOV encoded video data into the MP4 file. BTW, some MP4s will play fine on the Primary display but not on the Secondary display -- I think the codecs have trouble doing the math since the Seconday display origin (upper left corner) does not start at (x,y = 0,0).

Installing a codec pack (like K-Lite) may help. But if you are distributing your app to a user community, the best solution would be to use WMV files since Windows machines should support that format without adding new codecs.