9/21/2011 7:54:52 PM

We are running a multi-venue setup with live worship in each venue. Our pastor then preaches live in one venue and we encode the a progressive .wmv file using Microsoft Expression Encoder to our central database on our server. As long as the encoding starts before we begin playing in the other venue everything works well. I use a template .wmv so I can add the .wmv file to the program. We have been doing this as part of our service for over 8 months and 2 months of testing before that.

Everything has been working well......until this past week. The file wouldn't play and we had to use the back up file (a complete .wmv file from an earlier service).  I investigated monday more and figured out that the file will play fine in Windows Media Player while being included. However, when played through SongShow I get a red X and and alert the file is not in a playable format. Once the encoding is ended the file will play fine through SongShow.

I am running Windows 7 Professional machines, nothing has changed on the systems for several months. I did try rolling back a few builds on SongShow and that didn't seem to fix the issue.

I tried calling support, but after waiting a few days to "hear back from the developers" they said they don't support that use or function and couldn't help anymore then suggest I post on the forum.

If anyone has any ideas please let me know.

9/21/2011 9:27:21 PM

So if I understand correctly, you are attempting to play a video file while its still being encoded. Interesting. I can say that we have never tested that function nor has it occured to us to do so. In any case, I am curious to understand how it ever worked in the first place, and what may have caused it to stop working. What builds of SSP have you rolled back to? Are these builds ones where this function used to work?

9/22/2011 9:04:15 AM

We have been doing this for over 8 months as part of our services. Basically it was a free way to do a "live feed". I put live in " " because the restriction is the encoding has to start aprox 5 secs before you start playing the file. To read more about progressive file types you can see here Oour setup was to use Microsoft Expression Encoder 4, http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/encoderpro_overview.aspx The free version works well. We used the live broadcasting setup and the VC-1 profile (High Speed Broadband). The file archive would be set the SSP_data drive and our videos folder. I made a template that I would overwrite so that our operators would only have to click on the already embedded .wmv  file to play after we communicated to them that encoding had started. The files are still playing through windows media player, just not through SongShow (I get a file type not recognized alert).

I rolled back to the 9/9/2011 and 9/14/2011 builds. We were running the 9/9/2011 build two weeks ago when it worked. It doesn't work now, even after the roll back.

Let me know what other info you need.

9/29/2011 8:43:12 AM

Here is some more information that will hopefully help use get to a resolution. I get the alert "Unable to use fill type: Video File. Reason: An internal application error has occurred. Contact technical support if this problem persists".

I was able to run the file type on an older version on songshow untile I did an update to the current version.

9/30/2011 9:34:33 AM

So it worked with 9/9, you updated to 9/14, it didn't work, you re-installed 9/9 and it still doesn't work. It seems to be associated with something other than SSP then. If 9/9 worked before it should work now. Re-installing 9/9 would have removed anything associatd with 9/14. This is an interesting use of streaming video technology that we'd learn more about so we'll follow up directly with you on this.

9/30/2011 11:17:00 AM

thanks, I look forward to hearing from you. I will send you my church e-mail offline. I would be happy to help with anything. It has saved us a lot of money compared to other solutions.