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. 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