Windows Media Player ActiveX Buffer
 

Hello,
I am trying to write an application that plays a video and allows the user to set 2 points, A and B, on a timeline and when the video plays and reaches point A, it then skips directly to point B. I have currently written it in VB using the Windows Media Player ActiveX control and I simply have the program set the current position of the time slider to time B immediately after reaching point A. This does work; however, there is a moment in which the video freezes. I am assuming this is due to the fact that the buffer contains the data to play the next few seconds of video after point A, so when it skipped immediately from A to B it had no buffer data for video from B onward so it needed to 'catch up'. Note: I am playing the movie directly from a DVD disk, so it is also probably the laser needing to physically change positions, but if I could get it to put that data in the buffer before time, it would eliminate the video freeze, correct? Now, my question is: is there a way to control what goes into the buffer? I am thinking that the answer to this will probably be no because I am not certain if the Windows Media Player ActiveX control allows that depth of access into what is actually going on behind the scenes in the video playing process. I am willing to rewrite the program around something other than the Windows Media ActiveX control. I read some about directShow and am considering this as another option but I don’t know if it can do what I am looking for it to do. So, if this is not able to be done with the Windows Media Player ActiveX control, can someone point me to something else to build the program around that will allow that type of access to the buffer. Also, I am quite uncertain of how to go about controlling the buffer; I don't really know what to search for to find help on how to code something like this, so help on where I can get information on how to do what I am trying to do would be helpful also. (I am not limited to VB, but could use Java or C++ as well, but preferably VB)

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.