MCI-Browser is a simple player for audio and video files without a lot of mouse clicks.
The MCI-Browser plays all formats that are supported by DirectShow or the Windows Media Control Interface (MCI).
Why two multimedia interfaces?
MCI is the old-fashinoned interface from the Windows 3.0 era. So MCI-Browser works under the very first version of Windows 95 as it does with Windows NT 4.0 without any Service Pack. And it's very simple to program it, there for that's what I started with long time ago...
DirectShow is the uptodate interface that can properly handle multiple video and audio streams in a file. unfortunately I had started the development of MCI-Browser using Visual Basic where I can use a subset of DirectShow only.
If a file is opened for write by another application DirectShow refuses to play the file even shared read access is allowed. In this case MCI-Browser create a temporary copy and plays it.
Since V1.80 renaming and deleting of played files no more fails with ERROR_SHARING_VIOLATION thanks to some trickery:
If renaming fails then it creates a hardlink with the new name and keeps trying in the background to delete the old file name which usually works when the next files is played.
If deleting fails then it sets the hidden attribute to the file to make it disappear from the list and tries in the background to delete the old file name.
If deleting did not succeed until MCIbrowser is closed then it creates a self deleting CMD file which deletes the files a moment after it closes.
You can integrate external applications. They appear in the popupmenu of the filelist under 'Open with...'.
Useful Apps maybe
DivFix,
AviPreview,
GraphEdit and
MPlayerClassic.
Incomplete AVI files can be repared using
DivFix. If you put the DivFix.exe into the MCI-Browser folder of if you enter its path into the MCIBrowser.ini, then MCI-Browser executes DivFix for this file when needed (for a temporary copy, not the original).
If a video 'occationally' plays with lower quality or strange in any way, usually a nasty DirectShow Filter has obtruded on your system. To see which filters are used for a media file there is the Microsoft tool GraphEdit.
After starting the program don't click open (this opens a filter graph). Click in the File menu 'Render Media File'. Once you have identified the nasty filter, you can unregister this filter or lower its priority (the merit). A tool for this purpose is the DirectShow FilterManager.
Back to the MCI-Browser:
A commandline can be used for going directly to a folder or to play a file. Since V1.80 non-ANSI charset characters are no more a problem, even it still cannot display them.
You can select several files too (as known from the Windows Explorer) which are played successive then.
For playing all files you can either check the 'all' checkbox or you can select all files.
Using the GoTo button you can go to before assigned folders. Microsoft would call it 'Favourites'...
Using the CopyTo and MoveTo buttons you can move or copy files to before assigned folders. You can press Alt+1 to 9 on the keyboard too to move or Shift+1 to Shift+9 to copy files.
The volume control "File" is locally only, the others are system wide:
"Wave" is for the Wave 'input' of the soundcard, "MIDI" for the FM synthesizer input and "Master" for the output to the boxes.
Screenshot:
Overview Shortcuts:
| left/rigth arrow |
seek back/forward 1 second |
| Shift+left/rigth arrow |
seek back/forward 5 seconds |
| Ctrl+left/rigth arrow or S/D |
seek back/forward 10 seconds |
| Alt+left/rigth arrow or A/F |
seek back/forward 60 seconds |
| Ctrl+Shift+left/rigth arrow |
seek back/forward about one frame |
| up/down arrow or E/C |
play next/previous file |
| Alt+1 to 9 |
move file(s) to folder No 1 to 9 |
| Shift+1 to Shift+9 |
copy file(s) to folder No 1 to 9 |
| F2 |
rename file |
| F5 |
play / pause |
| Del |
delete file(s) (finally, after asking) |
| Shift+Del or R |
delete file(s) (finally) |
| Numpad +/- |
In overscan mode video zoom in/zoom out |
| Double click on the video |
Switch between fullscreen and back |
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