Binaryworld - PlayAVIPictureBox - Playing an AVI file in a PictureBox synchronously ... [ VB.net -> Multimedia ]

<System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("kernel32.dll")> Shared Function _
  GetShortPathName(ByVal lpszLongPath As String, _
  ByVal lpszShortPath As System.Text.StringBuilder, _
  ByVal cchBuffer As Integer) As Integer
End Function

' Play an AVI file in a PictureBox synchronously.
'
' fileName is a string containing the full path of the file.
' window is the PictureBox in which you want that the movie
' is played; the movie is automatically resized to the picture box's dimentions
'
' Notes: requires the ExecuteMCICommand routine

Sub PlayAVIPictureBox(ByVal fileName As String, ByVal window As PictureBox)
  Const WS_CHILD = &H40000000

  Dim commandString As String
  Dim shortFileName As New System.Text.StringBuilder(260)

  ' retrieve the file name in the short format (8+3 chars)
  GetShortPathName(fileName, shortFileName, shortFileName.Capacity)
  fileName = shortFileName.ToString()

  ' open the device
  commandString = "open " & fileName & " type AVIVideo alias AVIFile parent " _
    & window.Handle.ToString() & " style " & CStr(WS_CHILD)
  ExecuteMCICommand(commandString, False)

  ' resize the movie to the PictureBox size
  commandString = "put AVIFile window at 0 0 " & window.Width.ToString() & _
    " " & window.Height.ToString()
  ExecuteMCICommand(commandString, True)

  ' play the file
  commandString = "Play AVIFile wait"
  ExecuteMCICommand(commandString, True)

  ' close the device
  commandString = "Close AVIFile"
  ExecuteMCICommand(commandString, True)
End Sub