Website - past events

I don't know if it's just me, but when I try to look at the "Past Events" section of the main website I can't view any of the photo's. It opens up Windows Media Player and then gives me some error message and closes.

It may be related to my 'ye-olde-wind-up' PC - just wondered whether anyone else experienced problems ?
I also think - and don't want to be too controversial (but ..) - that it would be better just to have a page of images that people can view, rather than trying to be too clever with this slideshow malarchy.

Just my two-pence worth.

I have the same problem Chris & my PC is reasonably up to date!!

Cheers,

Nige

Chris just post your events for this year Autoitalia would be a start

On my PC It opens windows media player and plays a slide show of pictures, to quote many commercial software houses "working as designed".

Do we know what the error message is, how long people have been experiencing this problem, do you have the latest version of Windows media player, the past events slide show is not an new feature.

Ok, at work using Windows 2000 and Media Player 6 (I know !!) it opens up Media Player but gives the error "ClassFactory cannot supply requested class".

I'm not sure if it's the same error message at home (Win 98 and MP 10) but the end result is (ie it doesn't open).

Not sure if that helps ?

Hi Chris
Have a look in this section at the topic mentioning slide shows of past events. The issue is raised in there.
I had this problem too.
Dave

Chris / Dave

The file on the server as far as I know is an .avi file.
Therefore it is presumably down to the PC which applicaton opens this file.
Do you have any problems with other avi files.

I have just dug my old win 98 pentium 3 laptop out and connected.
It plays them perfectly in an old version of real player.
and then opened them in win media player version 7.
again opened with no problem.

You may get error messages if you don't have the DivX codec installed.
Media Player 9 or 10 should download and install it automatically,
however this does not always work.
You can download it from here www.free-codecs.com/
( thanks Stephen)
If you are still getting problems have a look at the Microsoft site.
support.microsoft.com/search/default.asp...&cus=False&x=15&y=14
But you will need to hurry Microsoft will no longer support
'98 including Me from July this year!!
I hope this helps a little if not e-mail me giving full details of the error
you get.

Thanks for the help Francis (and everyone else) - I'll try downloading new Codecs and see if that works.

I wonder how many other (non forum) members are having the same problem ?

DivX :shock: !? Seriously, you shouldn't be using esoteric proprietary software/codecs on a website if you want people to be able to use it!

A handful of lines of JavaScript would give you a much more universal “slide show” effect, which would work in a web-browser rather than having to open a media-player. With some PHP you could just dump the images in a folder on the server and it could read the directory-listing and play the images in a random order.

Here's some links to some “cut 'n' paste” JavaScript slide-show code:
JavaScript Slide-Show 1:
JavaScript Slide-Show 2:
Google Search:

If you guys must do it as an AVI, you should point people to the latest XviD codec rather than the proprietary DivX one.

[Latest XviD codec for Win32 I could find (Google)]

from

www.koepi.org/xvid.shtml

ONE STEP AT A TIME BOYS N GIRLS

We've only just got the forum page up and running

It's always good to operate with an attitude of continuous improvement

And yes, I HAVE updated the events page Frosty

I've tried this out on my PC and the avi files play fine, but if a large number of people cannot access the slideshows via this method then we'll maybe need to look at some alternatives, such as using some javascript or just posting a load of thumbnails.

Also, the quality of the images on the avi slideshow is worse than the original images, and the file size is much bigger than if the pictures were downloaded individually.

I'll add this to the ever-expanding list of things to do!

Nice one Neil - thanks for that.

If you weren't tinkering with scripts and java and html and stuff then you'd only be out enjoying yourself in an Exxy. Hmmm ...