Because the thread continues executing while the AVI clip is displayed, one common use for an animation control is to indicate system activity during a lengthy operation. For example, the Find dialog box of the Microsoft® Windows® Explorer displays a moving magnifying glass as the system searches for a file.
An animation control can display an AVI clip originating from either an uncompressed .AVI file or from an .AVI file that was compressed using run-length encoding (RLE). You can add the AVI clip to your application as an AVI resource, or the clip can accompany your application as a separate .AVI file.
The capabilities of an animation control are severely limited and are subject to change. If you need a control to provide multimedia playback and recording capabilities for your application, you can use the MCIWnd control. For more information about the MCIWnd control, see the multimedia documentation.