Africabiz Online's
editorial team is taking one month break from August 1 to August 30.
Therefore, this delivery covers two months: July 15 to August 14 - Issue
N° 99 / Vol 1; and August 15 to September 14 - Issue N° 100 / Vol 1.
The next issue N° 101 / Vol 2 will be online on September 15, 2007.
-
ARE YOU EXPERIENCING JERKY VIDEO/ DVD PLAYBACK? PART
III: HAVE THE RIGHT ADOBE FLASH PLAYER / ACTIVEX CONTROL INSTALLED
To troubleshoot jerky video/ DVD playback, we have to explore four lanes
for solutions: (1) Detect
what is (eventually) wrong with the graphic card; (2) Investigate
CODECS (Compressing Decompressing Software) to see if the right (efficient)
one is installed on the system; (3) Make sure that the right
or latest Adobe Flash Media Player(s) / ActiveX Control update/ upgrade are
installed, and (4) Verify
that there is no memory-leak when
playing videos.
Current issue deals with (possible) problems linked to the wrong
Adobe Flash Player / ActiveX Control installed in your browsers (Internet
Explorer, FireFox, Netscape, Opera. Etc.)
Indeed, each brand
of browser needs its own Flash Player. That is just a consequence of the browser
war!
And to make things worse, when you do install the right one for a brand it
may produce some "disturbance" with the one installed in another brand and
fool the whole matter to leading to jerky video playback in each different
brand of browser.
For instance, the "wrong"
Flash Player installed in Internet Explorer, may put out of order the smooth
video playback by Mozilla Firefox.
So it is utterly important to have the right Flash Player
installed in each brand of browser you have on your system.
The problem is simple for Mozilla Firefox for the browser itself, in case the
Flash Player is missing - will signals that a missing Adobe Flash Player plugIn
should be installed if one visit a page that features media/ video. Then you
accept the install and everything should be OK.
That is not the case with Internet Explorer. When visiting a media page, Internet
Explorer will ask for the installation of the missing Flash Player - stating
that the visited-page needs Flash Player version 6 or above to be correctly
viewed, and asking you to uninstall any other installed
Adobe Flash Player before installing the "right" one.
However, when one does uninstall any existing Flash Player (using
the uninstall tool provided by Adobe), the Flash Player plugin installed
in Mozilla FireFox is also uninstalled. And if one succeeds to install what
is deemed the "right" Flash Player for Internet Explorer (that is
the newest version of Adobe Flash Player /ActiveX Control downloaded and installed
straight from Adobe
Flash Player Download Center), it may not be the right one for Mozilla
FireFox, that would be still requesting the install of a missing Adobe Flash
Player plugin when one visits a media page. And doing so, one
get jerky video playback in both Internet Explorer and Mozilla FireFox, because
Internet Explorer is optimized by Microsoft to play streaming-video
- and FireFox play Flash Video (FLV/SWF) better.
Although, if you do have Window Media
Plugin for FireFox installed, you would notice that when experiencing
jerky video playback in Internet Explorer for msn.com video, you would be getting
smooth video playback in FireFox for msn.com video. Strange isn't?
- WHAT TO DO TO HAVE THE RIGHT FLASH PLAYER IN EACH
BROWSER BRAND?
The problem of jerky video playback is experienced by thousand and thousand
of people. A search on the Internet with the following criteria "jerky video
playback" will show you that the problem is a common experience for a lot of
people.
So what to do to have a smooth playback enjoying media/ video and DVD on your
system? (1) Perform tricks and tips suggested
in previous delivery about having the
right drivers for the graphic card. (2) Install additional codecsas
per previous issue, and do the following to have the right Adobe Flash
Players on your system in accordance with browser brands:
Normally one should experience smooth
media/video/DVD playback after performing
tips and advises given in issues 97 & 98 and
in this
delivery. However, the jerky playback annoyance may persist if reboots as per
yellow box above and other suggestions in gray boxes below are not followed
to the point.
Next delivery (Issue
101 - Sept 15, 2007) will summarize the problem of jerky media/video playback
and discuss about media players applications.
Close
applications: Install and uninstall (drivers
and applications) are effective only if active applications are
closed.
Those in the system
tray and also main processes in Windows Task Manager (Crtl + Alt
+ Del and kill processes). It is also better to close down your AntiVirus
application and exist your Firewall application. That means you
should disconnect your Internet connection to avoid virus and Trojan
attacks. Operating that way, you would minimize
DLL conflicts during the install process.
(Scroll down to Freebie Section for more.)
Forgetting to proceed as above advised, may result in jerky video
/ DVD playback even if you do have the right Adobe Flash Player installed!
Macromedia
Shockwave: Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Flash Player assists viewing interactive
web content like games, business and entertainment presentations.
In addition
to the Flash Player and ActiveX Control, you would also need to install Macromedia's
Shockwave Player that works in harmony with Macromedia Flash Player to powering
all kinds of interactive web contents and astounding animations
- embedded in webpages.
Completely
remove drivers: When one installs an application or device's drivers,
score of DLL (Dynamic Link Library) are installed in the system. Not only
in the folder of the application but also in other parts of the system, in
/windows/system32/ folder and in temporary folders, and linked to other existing
applications.
Therefore,
when one uninstall a device's driver or an application through the normal
uninstall process (Start/ Control panel/ Add Remove Applications) or (Start/
Control Panel/ System/ Hardware/ Devices Manager/ Device/ Properties/ Uninstall
Drivers) all DLL are not removed.
To have a perfect reinstall of a new package
of drivers for a device, it is absolutely necessary to remove all DLL during
the uninstall process. There is one application that does it perfectly: Driver
CleanerNET
-
A REPLACEMENT FOR WINDOWS TASK MANAGER: MICROSOFT PROCESS EXPLORER
In line with subject exposed
above in Control Your Desktop, here is Microsoft Process
Explorer: An advanced
replacement to Windows Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) that shows
you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded
on your system.
The display consists of two sub-windows. The top window always
shows a list of the currently active processes, including
the names of their owning accounts, whereas the information displayed in the bottom window depends
on the mode that Process Explorer is in:
- 1-
If it is in handle mode (VIEW/ LOWER PANE VIEW/ Handles) you'll see the
handles that the process selected in the top window;
- 2-
If Process Explorer
is in DLL mode (VIEW/ LOWER PANE VIEW/ DLLs) you'll see the DLLs and memory-mapped
files that the process has loaded.
Process Explorer also has a powerful search
capability that will quickly show you which processes have particular handles
opened or DLLs loaded.
The unique capabilities of Process Explorer make it useful for tracking down DLL-version problems or handle leaks, and provide insight into the way Windows and applications work.
Process Explorer works on Windows 9x/Me, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows
XP, Server 2003, and 64-bit versions of Windows for x64 and IA64 processors,
and Windows Vista.
In relation to Control Your Desktop subject above outlined, Process Explorer
shows the score of DLL that an application could generate and why it is compulsory
to close down/ kill active processes before uninstalling a device's drivers or
application software in order to avoid conflicts between DLLs.
Just to have an
idea about how interlinked DLLs of a specific application can be with Microsoft
system DLLs, click on your AntiVirus .exe file in Process
Explorer's top panel and see the intricacy of relationship!
There are some advanced replacement to Windows Task Manager on the Internet.
However, Microsoft Process Explorer stands the competition and is free. Visit
Microsoft's download page to grab your copy
of this marvelous piece of software
.
Close
applications: Install and uninstall (drivers
and applications) are effective only if active applications are
closed. 
