thanks for this report Caroline.  It's to be hoped that FS comes up with a
solution seeing that on-line listening and viewing of protected streams is
becoming much more widely spread I should think and by no means limited to the
UK.  My guess is the BBC techies haven't come across this problem before, or
else they're keeping Mum for fear of someone exploiting another loophole,
(smile).  Downloading of audio files meant for streaming must be against the
agreement the BBC has entered into.

Potentially this could be a problem for other screen readers that use
protection schemes - though Dolphin HAL/Supernova is the only one I can think
of immediately - so let's see if we hear of similar problems from Dolphin
users.

Certainly an issue I shall take note of and your logical procedure of
illimination has paid off and been very useful to the list I would think.

All the best.

Ray

Caroline Ford wrote:
Ray,

I've heard back from the BBC (no use at all, I'm afraid, as they didn't even
properly address the issue I raised), and have also had several messages
from Sight and Sound who have involved Freedom Scientific as well.
Unfortunately it seems that the DRM on the iPlayer files is detecting the
interface Jaws uses to interact with the screen which is preventing the
iPlayer files being played.  There is no workaround except to unload Jaws
before trying to play a WMV file.  At least there is a workaround, which is
perfectly usable, but it's a shame it's necessary.

I wonder whether other WMV files with DRM protection suffer from the same
problem, but I don't have any to try except these from the BBC, so I can't
say if it's something peculiar about the DRM used by the BBC or if the same
problem would exist in all cases.

So I'll just have to remember to unload Jaws before launching Media Player
and all will be well.  It will be interesting to see if there will be a fix
in any future version of Jaws or if it's a problem which they just can't
resolve.

Thanks for all your interest, and your earlier hunch about the DRM files
interfering with Jaws proved to be just about spot on.  And for the vast
majority who probably aren't interested in this subject at all, at least I
hope this explanation might prevent someone else spending the amount of time
on this that I have over the last couple of weeks.

Caroline.

-----Original Message-----
From: pc-audio-boun...@pc-audio.org [mailto:pc-audio-boun...@pc-audio.org]
On Behalf Of Ray
Sent: 09 November 2009 22:46
To: PC Audio Discussion List
Subject: RE: Problems Playing WMV and MOV Files

Blimey Caroline, certainly shows persistence on your part!  So glad your
process of illimination has got the result you want.  (The Beeb may yet
reply).

Just to comment that, has it happens, I have no Vista or JFW, still using XP
pro.  I'd certainly be interested to hear if the tech gurus giving JFW
support
in the UK have an answer for this cunnundrum.  the list would benefit by
hearing such an explanation.

For what it's worth, I run an external synth on both my XP machines so the
sound card never has to do double duty for speech and sound.  As you say
though you certainly wouldn't be taxing that that sound card of yours doing
what you are doing.

You wonder if, somehow, theythe drm and JFW protection scheme are
responsible
for this behaviour, but the clue must lie in the fact that you can load JFW
(after) beginning to play the BBC material.  It as as if the DRM scheme is
looking to see if anything else can digitally swipe the protected material
before it'll start playing.

As a final aside to a possibly over lengthy post, the Jarte Word Processor I
use "looks" to see if a screen reader is running and if one is, then
disables
features of the program that screen readers can't get along with.  (You can
defeat this inspection of course by loading the screen reader after Jart has
loaded.  Just a a possibly erronious comparison but anyway, let us know if
you
get some sort of explanation and whether upgrading causes the problem to go
away.

All the best.

Ray

Caroline Ford wrote:
Ray,

I did as you suggested and, after exhausting all other possibilities, I
contacted the BBC.  I have received an acknowledgement but nothing else
after five days, which I'm quite surprised about.

I was determined not to give up on this though, so have tried all I could
possibly think of.  I have downloaded two separate codec packs, deleted the
DRM information in Vista as suggested on the BBC site and allowed Windows
Media Player to re-create it, checked that my sound card and graphics
drivers are up to date, and checked and double-checked the recommended
settings for Windows Media Player.  Absolutely nothing worked.

I then transferred the file to a PC running XP and it played perfectly first
time.  This still didn't explain why things didn't work in Vista, but at
least it indicated that the file wasn't corrupt and that WMP is capable of
playing WMV files, which I was beginning to doubt.

One final idea occurred to me this evening.  I unloaded Jaws, then tried to
play the file, and for some inexplicable reason, it started playing.  I do
not understand why as my sound card (Realtek High Definition) is more than
capable of playing more than one sound at a time, but this was finally the
solution which did the trick.

I have no idea what it is about Jaws which is blocking the playback of the
file, but have contacted the Jaws dealers in the UK to ask for an
explanation.  In the meantime, it's easy enough to unload Jaws first, and I
can even re-load it once the file is playing with no ill effects.  I just
wish I'd thought of this about a week ago!

Thanks for your interest, and this is a solution I won't forget in a hurry.
I have just received Jaws 11, so will install that and see if it suffers
from the same problem.

Caroline.




To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to:
pc-audio-unsubscr...@pc-audio.org

__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature
database 4589 (20091109) __________

The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.

http://www.eset.com




__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature
database 4589 (20091109) __________

The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.

http://www.eset.com


__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature
database 4593 (20091110) __________

The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.

http://www.eset.com


__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature
database 4597 (20091111) __________

The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.

http://www.eset.com


__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature
database 4601 (20091112) __________

The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.

http://www.eset.com


__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature
database 4607 (20091114) __________

The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.

http://www.eset.com


__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature
database 4610 (20091115) __________

The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.

http://www.eset.com



__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature
database 4610 (20091115) __________

The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.

http://www.eset.com





To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to:
pc-audio-unsubscr...@pc-audio.org




To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to:
pc-audio-unsubscr...@pc-audio.org

Reply via email to