XL2000: How to Use Visual Basic to Play an AVI File

'API and Constant Declarations.
'The function declarations must each be typed on one line.

Declare Function mciSendString Lib "winmm" Alias "mciSendStringA" (ByVal _
   lpstrCommand As String, ByVal lpstrReturnStr As Any, ByVal wReturnLen _
   As Long, ByVal hCallBack As Long) As Long
Declare Function GetActiveWindow Lib "USER32" () As Integer

Const WS_CHILD = &h40000000

Sub PlayAVIFile()

   'Dimension variables.
   Dim CmdStr As String, FileSpec As String
   Dim Ret As Integer, XLSHwnd As Integer

   'The name and location of the AVI file to play.
   FileSpec = "C:\WINVIDEO\BLASTOFF.AVI"

   'Get the active sheet's window handle.
   XLSHwnd = GetActiveWindow()

   'Opens the AVIVideo and creates a child window on the sheet
   'where the video will display. "Animation" is the device_id.
   CmdStr = ("open " & FileSpec & _
      " type AVIVideo alias animation parent " & _
      LTrim$(Str$(XLSHwnd)) & " style " & LTrim$(Str$(WS_CHILD)))

   Ret = mciSendString(CmdStr, 0&, 0, 0)

   'Put the AVI window at location 25, 120 relative to the
   'parent window (Microsoft Excel) with a size of 160 x 160.
   Ret = mciSendString("put animation window at 25 120 160 160", _ 
   0&, 0, 0)

   'The wait tells the MCI command to complete before returning
   'control to the application.
   Ret = mciSendString("play animation wait", 0&, 0, 0)

   'Close windows so they don't crash when you quit the application.
   Ret = mciSendString("close animation", 0&, 0, 0)

End Sub