Virtual XP Question

[Art Todesco]

I just got a new PC with Windows 7. There are a few programs that just
don't run under Windows 7. So, I installed the Virtual XP thing. I
must say, it is pretty impressive having a complete XP machine running
in a window under Windows 7. One of the program, an older graphic
drawing program, works very well. Another program is a video editing
program. In Virtual XP, this program opens correctly and behave almost
perfectly with the exception of the video overlay. The video is just
not visible. Does anyone know if there is a way to make the overlay
visible on the Virtual XP machine? Or, am I just out of luck here?
Thanks.

 

[Paul]

I just got a new PC with Windows 7. There are a few programs that just
don't run under Windows 7. So, I installed the Virtual XP thing. I
must say, it is pretty impressive having a complete XP machine running
in a window under Windows 7. One of the program, an older graphic
drawing program, works very well. Another program is a video editing
program. In Virtual XP, this program opens correctly and behave almost
perfectly with the exception of the video overlay. The video is just
not visible. Does anyone know if there is a way to make the overlay
visible on the Virtual XP machine? Or, am I just out of luck here?
Thanks.

See if the video editing program has more than one option
for video overlay. It could use a hardware overlay plane,
VMR7 (Video Mixing Renderer), VMR9, or there is some other
option for later OSes (Enhanced Video Renderer). Some of
those are software methods.

One problem with hardware overlay planes, is there is only
one, and frequently some software grabs it, and then other
software can't use it. If you use a software based implementation,
there are better odds of sharing as needed. For example,
on a computer with two monitors, if you use hardware overlay,
the video content may be viewable on one monitor, but give a
blank area if moved to the other monitor.

*******

"Windows XP mode" uses RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol), which
means any video operations, aren't going to be done exactly
the same way they would be in a "native" WinXP situation.
Your Windows XP machine is as if it was a remote computer,
and you're making the screen appear on your Windows 7 machine.
The fact that the network connection distance is "zero feet"
long, doesn't change the realities of the protocol stack.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_xp_mode#Windows_XP_Mode

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Desktop_Protocol

I don't know if there is a feature set list around somewhere
for RDP, to be able to predict what options would work
for overlay.

Paul