Cannot watch Quicktime videos in-game?

[Skyye Copeland]

Hi everyone :)

Hoping someone can help me. This has been driving me nuts for weeks now and I can't figure out how to fix it. First and foremost, I currently use the latest Phoenix Viewer.

I have the latest Quicktime installed (7.6.9) on my Windows XP machine. Quicktime itself works fine. It runs, I can watch movies in my Web browser, in Quicktime player, etc.

However, whenever I play Second Life and try to watch movies in-game, Quicktime videos do not play at all - it will actually switch my media control off when I try.

Flash videos, however, stream perfectly fine. But if I happen to click a video that's in Quicktime format, it will not play. Friends can watch the videos - I cannot - and they have the same version of Quicktime, same version of SL viewer, etc.

Does anyone know how I can fix this?

I tried uninstalling my current version and installing an earlier version of Quicktime - I tried uninstalling/reinstalling Phoenix Viewer - even tried Emergence and Viewer 2 with the same result. Just on those last two viewers, the Quicktime video will play for about 3 seconds, then it will freeze up and the audio will skip. Finally, it just switches my media control off.

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

[Void Singer]

if you mean mp4 video, then the problem is that there is an authentication token that youtube installed, and must be current ant part of the URL for the stream.(you tube keeps changing how this works so it can be tricky)

if you mean that others are seeing these videos and you are not (when both of you are trying to view at the same time), it's possible that the video in question is blocked for your country/location. if you have access to the url for the video try opening it in your normal web browser to see if this is the problem. (if it is, there isn't much that can be done)

if neither of those is the problem, and you are able to watch the same videos with v2 or another viewer, than contact Phoenix Support (they have a wiki, and inworld help group which is almost always staffed)

[Skyye Copeland]

Thanks for responding

 

It's usually any form of Quicktime video - mp4, mov, etc... These videos I can view in my regular Web browser, but cannot view in SL. I wouldn't say I can view the videos in another viewer, because my experience with other viewers is the Quicktime video will only play for a few seconds before it freezes and just shuts off. On Phoenix, it just will not play at all. No picture, no sound.

 

Friends are able to see the video I'm trying to watch without a problem (at the same time I'm trying to watch in-world) - they all use Phoenix and have the same version of Quicktime as myself - so it's just all very confusing and I'm just clueless on how to fix it lol

[Peewee Musytari]

Try the tips on: http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/doku.php?id=media

If none of that works I would recommend joining the Phoenix Viewer Support group inworld as they will know if there are any bugs specifically related to their viewer.

[George Orellana]

Hello, it is possible your firewall is blocking a certain file (I think its called SLplugin or something of the sort), try adding the Phoenix viewer folder from the Programs folder to your firewall's trusted files, then close SL and restart. A PC restart wouldn't hurt either. Hope it helps. 

[Skyye Copeland]

Thanks for responding

 

There's nothing wrong with the viewer, I don't think - because as I said, friends with Phoenix viewer can view these videos that I'm not able to see. I'm also unable to view them on other viewers, which leads me to believe it's something on my end, not the viewers'.

 

It's only Quicktime - I'm able to view Flash videos - so watching videos in Phoenix, Viewer 2, etc works in general - just not the Quicktime videos.

 

Maybe it's possible that I'm missing a file in my Phoenix that enables me to watch Quicktime videos? That's the only idea I have that it could be something up with the viewer - otherwise, I don't think it's a viewer issue at all :\

 

That's why I'm asking here, hoping maybe someone had a similar problem and knows a fix for it. I'll still contact Phoenix support, though, just to see if they have any suggestions. Thanks again!

[Skyye Copeland]

Thank you for the suggestion!

 

I don't have my Windows firewall turned on - but I do have AVG Anti-Virus running and added Phoenix and the SLplugin to its "allowed" files - and it didn't seem to make a difference for me - also tried with AVG turned off, still nothing

[Peewee Musytari]

I appreciate that you say you don`t think it is viewer related, but if it works for you on your browser then it would seem that it is an SL issue more than a computer one, even if it isn`t specific to one viewer.

The SLPlugin have been causing several issues recently, various fixes work for different people and for others nothing seems to work. One that does work for some people is:

Find the slplugin in the SL Viewer folder, on mine it is in:

(C:) - Program Files (x86) - Phoenix Viewer - SLPlugin.exe

Right click the plugin & go to Properties "Compatibilty" Tab & change the compatability mode to Windows 95

[Skyye Copeland]

Thanks again for responding

 

Compatibility is already set to Windows 95 - so I tried just changing it to Windows 98 to see if by chance it helped - it didn't lol

 

I very much appreciate all the suggestions I'm getting! I'm just so sorry it's frustrating and I'm a pain in the butt lol

[George Orellana]

Are you sure you have the latest Phoenix Viewer? I think it is 908 or 809 I forget. Try completely uninstalling it and make sure you have removed all the files, CCleaner is a good tool to use to uninstall programs. Then reinstall a fresh copy of the viewer. Hope it helps.

[Skyye Copeland]

Yep, I've uninstalled/reinstalled several times - just did so again right now for the heck of it lol Still nothing - and I do have the latest version - 908, so *sigh*

 

I contacted Phoenix support, now I'm just waiting for a response from them - hopefully I can get this resolved either here or from them

 

Thanks again for your suggestion!

[Prokofy Neva]

I've had this repeatedly happen on the regular SL viewers and the only solution I've found is to turn off the virus-catcher on the computer, and if you don't have a separate AVG type program running, indeed, looking at the Windows firewall function and try turning that off.

Yes, that's annoying, because it raises concerns about catching viruses.

However, I do have to say that in 6 years of running Second Life, I've never seen that Second Life *itself* as a program ever exposed me to viruses. I'm not saying that's possible, but it really does seem unlikely, as the makers of SL aren't going to casually allow their viewer to become a distributor of malware. I think they're pretty scrupulous about that thing and I'm not even sure of the mechanics of how that would work.

So yes, it does mean turning off your anti-virus programs at least temporarily.

One way you can tell that it's not some other factor, i.e. failure to have the latest Quicktime, failure to deed media properly on group land, etc. is if you can see the movie playing inside your "about land" media tab but can't see it in the TV device.

[Skyye Copeland]

Thanks for the suggestion

 

Unfortunately, I've tried running SL with my anti-virus software turned off and still was unable to watch Quicktime vids. I'm still just confused as to why it's just Quicktime formatted videos - I'm able to view Flash videos and my media players all function properly otherwise.

 

Still waiting to hear back from Phoenix support, as well - thanks to everyone who is trying to assist me!

[Skyye Copeland]

OK - after trying a million things, I tried something so simple (and I feel so stupid for not trying it sooner lol) and now, Quicktime movies seem to be streaming fine for me again.

 

Phoenix has 2 viewers for Windows - a standard one and an SSE2-optimized one. I've been using the SSE2-optimized viewer because my CPU supports SSE2. It never occurred to me (until now) to try the standard viewer, so I did and now all seems well again.

 

I have no clue why, how or what the difference is between the two viewers - what one viewer has that the other one doesn't, etc... - all I know is I can watch videos again with the standard one. Here's to hoping my problem is solved! lol

 

Thanks everyone for all your suggestions and support! Hopefully others can find this thread helpful if they're experiencing similar problems