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.. _playing-mpg-and-avi-files:

Playing MPG and AVI files
=========================

Panda now supports AVI format for textures in Panda.

Usage
=====




.. code-block:: python
    
    myMovieTexture=loader.loadTexture("myMovie.avi")
    myObject.setTexture(myMovieTexture)



The movie subsystem is implemented using FFMPEG. Therefore, it supports all of
the formats that FFMPEG supports. The functions to control the movie are as
follows:



.. code-block:: python
    
    movie.play()
    movie.stop()
    movie.setTime(t)
    movie.getTime()
    movie.setLoopCount(n)
    movie.getLoopCount()
    movie.setPlayRate(speed)
    movie.getPlayRate()
    movie.isPlaying()



If you want to hear the movie's audio as well, you need to load it twice: once
as a texture, and once as a sound file:



.. code-block:: python
    
    mySound=loader.loadSfx("myMovie.avi")



Then, you can synchonize the video to the audio:



.. code-block:: python
    
    myMovieTexture.synchronizeTo(mySound)



From that point forward, playing the audio will cause the texture to update.
This is more accurate than synchronizing the video manually.

For powers-of-two limited graphics hardware
===========================================


If your graphics hardware does not support non power-of-two texture, your
movie texture size would be shifted up to the next larger power of two size.
For example, it you have a movie of 640 x 360 in size, the generated texture
would be actually 1024 x 512. The result is a texture that contains a movie in
the lower-left corner, and a black pad region to the right and upper portion
of the texture.

To work around this limit, you have to display just the lower-left portion of
the texture. To see a complete demonstration of this process, see the Media
Player sample program.

Issues
======


The video texture works by decoding on a frame by frame basis and copying into
the texture buffer. As such, it is inadvisable to use more than a few high res
video textures at the same time.

Certain encoding formats do not work. So far, DV format has been determined
incompatible with Panda.