Hi again,
You can test this with Homer.avi and with the attached patch.
I'm testing it on Windows XP with PD Vanilla 0.41-2 and gem snapshot of 22 april 2008. I have DirectX 9.0c and QuickTime 7.4.5 installed.
This is not a difference among gem versions: this is a difference of behaviour of pix_film on the same (almost current) version of gem depending on whether you use quicktime or directx to handle videos.
The patch is a slightly modified version of the help patch for pix_film. There's a radio button to choose whether to load the file with quicktime or directx. And there's a toggle to turn the gemhead on/off.
Here's how to test it.
1) Turn on the gemhead toggle 2) Choose "directx" on the radio button 3) Bang the openpanel and load homer.avi 4) Create the gemwin. Note that you're actually seeing the last frame, which is quite questionable. 5) With the gemhead turned on, move the frame number forth and back and leave it at 0. You're now seing the first frame. That's OK 6) Turn off the gemhead toggle 7) Move the frame number up to frame 77 or so (do not exceed the length of the file) 8) Now turn on the gemhead toggle. You're still seing frame 0. Not good. 9) With the gemhead turned on, move the frame number back and forth again to frame 77. You're now seing frame 77. That's ok 10) Turn off the gemhead toggle. 11) Move the frame number to 0. 12) Turn on the gemhead. You're still seing frame 77. Not good.
Conclusion: when pix_film receives a frame number while its chain's gemhead is off, it won't change the frame number, and when you turn the chain on, it will be still displaying the old frame untill it receives a frame number again.
In my opinion this is the WRONG behaviour; however this may even possibly be questionable.
Now close PD, reopen it and the patch, and repeat the whole experiment, but choose "quicktime" at point (2).
You will observe the following differences: - at point (4) you'll be seing the first frame, which is more reasonable - at point (8) you'll be seing frame 77. Kinda what I would expect - at point (12) you'll be seing frame 0. Kinda what I would expect
conclusion: when pix_film receive a frame number, it accepts and remembers it even if the gemchain is off. When the chain will be turned on, it will display the frame corresponding to the last number he has received.
You may question which one is the correct behaviour (quicktime behaviour in my opinion) but what's certainly too bad is that it behaves differently depending on whether you're using DirectX or QuickTime.
All this obliges me to patch things in a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT way depending on the platform I use; I used to use quicktime. If I now switch to DirectX I'll have to change all my patches.
Can anyone confirm the same results on other platforms? (err... does DirectX exist at all on other platform than windows?)