Author: Tomas Rutkauskas

Using the TMediaPlayer to play AVI is rather slow. When I play the same movies in 
the Windows mediaplayer everything works fine. I tried to import the TActiveMovie 
ActiveX control in Delphi 5 but then I get an error message when I want to compile 
my program. I can't even delete the control from my form. Is there another "easy" 
way to play AVI from Delphi without the delays from MCI?

Answer:

This code plays an AVI movie (in full screen). It links directly to the MCI devices 
of Windows.So it should be as fast as possible.

1   procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
2   const
3     longName: PChar = 'f:\media\ANIM1.MPG'; {Your complete FileName}
4   var
5     ret, shortName: PChar;
6     err: DWord;
7   begin
8     {Getting the short Name (8:3) of selected file}
9     shortName := strAlloc(521);
10    GetShortPathName(longName, shortname, 512);
11    {Sending a close Command to the MCI}
12    ret := strAlloc(255);
13    err := mciSendString(pchar('close movie'), 0, 0, 0);
14    {No error check because at the first call there is no MCI device to close}
15    {Open a new MCI Device with the selected movie file}
16    err := mciSendString(pchar('open ' + shortName + ' alias movie'), 0, 0, 0);
17    shortName := nil;
18    {If an Error was traced then display a MessageBox with the mciError string}
19    if err <> 0 then
20    begin
21      mciGetErrorString(err, ret, 255);
22      messageDlg(ret, mtInformation, [mbOk], 0);
23    end;
24    {Sending the "play fullscreen command to the Windows MCI}
25    err := mciSendString(pchar('play movie fullscreen'), 0, 0, 0);
26    {Use the following line instead of the above one if you want to play 
27  	it in screen mode}
28    err := mciSendString(pchar('play movie'), 0, 0, 0);
29    {If an Error was traced then display a MessageBox with the mciError string}
30    if err <> 0 then
31    begin
32      mciGetErrorString(err, ret, 255);
33      messageDlg(ret, mtInformation, [mbOk], 0);
34    end;
35    ret := nil;
36  end;