The TricksPlayer is a video player based on Macromedia's Flash technology. It was especially designed for users to watch videos of pen tricks and other manipulations over the web. This means that it has great features such as slow motion and frame-by-frame playback, which can slow down the video and make any trick easier to understand. And being a Flash based application, it means that you only need a web browser (the one that you're using to view this page at this moment) and a free Flash plug-in. Many sites offer free videos, but due to the large number of video player applications and computer platforms, the videos may not always play for all intended users. TricksPlayer solves this problem by using only a Flash plugin, which is very common (and getting increasingly popular) to view web sites these days. You don't need to install anything, or download any codecs. The TricksPlayer was created from scratch by one person, and with lack of time, the TricksPlayer is functional, but not perfect. I appreaciate any feedback you can give me about it, and suggestions for improvements.
All you need is a browser (Internet Explorer and Netscape are the most popular at this time) and the Flash plugin. If you don't have them, or would like to download the latest version, click on the links below.
Once you have a browser and the Flash Plugin, you'll be able to just go to the page with the videos and use the TricksPlayer. The TricksPlayer itself is very easy to use, but if you have problems, there's also a help button to get you familiar with the application.
To play the TricksPlayer videos that you can download from the web, you'll first need to download the TricksPlayer. This helps you save time by downloading the videos only once, and then playing them back from your own computer. The TricksPlayer itself is very small (about 40 Kb at this time), and takes less than a minute to download (even on slow connections). On top of that, you don't need to install any files; simply save them somewhere (your floppy disk if you wish) and open them up.
Note: You do not need to download the TricksPlayer to see videos on the web. Downloading the TricksPlayer only allows you to view the videos from your own hard disk.
Once you have the TricksPlayer downloaded to your computer, you can get new videos and add them to the list simply by changing a small text file. In future versions of the TricksPlayer, you'll be able to make your own video files (using Flash) and play them using the TricksPlayer.
First, choose from one of the links below. These files are compressed using WinZip.
If this is the first time you donwload the TricksPlayer, you may want to download the TricksPlayer full package. This includes all the files needed to use the TricksPlayer, plus all the videos currently available at Pentrix.
Last updated: November 30, 2003
Download the TricksPlayer Full Package (.zip format, 2.94 Mb)
If you wish to only download the TricksPlayer (maybe you don't need all the videos). You can download the TricksPlayer by itself, and then download each video separately. If you do so, you'll need to change the video_menu.xml file to keep only the tricks that you have downloaded. Instructions are included.
Download the TricksPlayer Standalone Package (.zip format, 40 Kb)
The last option is for those who already have the TricksPlayer, but would like to update the tricks list (video_menu.xml) to contain all the recent tricks on Pentrix. This saves time for those who don't want to bother manually editing the file.
Download the latest Tricks List (.zip format, 5 Kb)
After you have chosen your download, you'll just have to uncompress all files to a folder of your choice, and open the video.html file (read the included documentation for more details). If you have not downloaded the Full Package, you'll also need to download individual videos and save them to the same folder. To download individual videos, go to the video listing, right-click on the Download link, and choose "Save Target As..."
Once you have all files in your folder, you can access the TricksPlayer simply by opening the video.html file in your browser. For more information, read the included documentation in the package you downloaded.
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions about the TricksPlayer, feel free to contact me at contact@pentrix.com