April OS/2 Shareware

Multimedia Winners

This month we look at some of the Multimedia Utilities that we consider essentials.

By Christopher Relf

It had to happen -- PMView 2.0 is now PMView 2000. This program's been around for a while, and with every release it just gets better. I know that PMView has been mentioned before, but it is really one of those applications that has stood the test of time (it's been around for longer than I've been using OS/2).

PMView is a robust general purpose graphics viewing and manipulation utility. Normal file manipulation functions are available, including colour (conversion, decrease colours used, gamma correction, brightness, contrast, RGB balance), selection transformation (mirror, rotate, sizing) and it supports an enormous number of graphics file formats. PMView provides advanced image filtering thatÆs useful for removing noise from (or adding it to) images, edge detection, multi-directional contour, embossing, Laplacian and general low-high-pass. The great thing about the filtering is that all of the default filters are customisable, and new filters can be defined easily. PMView also has a built-in slideshow function, where your images can be strung together and displayed. In slideshow mode, you are presented with a small control panel and windowed notes for each image. PMView also has TWAIN support for quick image acquisition using TWAIN-compliant scanners and image capture devices (most are these days). If you use Windows at work, you can download the 95/98/NT version from the PMView Web site. Overall, PMView is a stable and powerful graphics utility.

The Albatros Media Player plays just about any multimedia file format and if you come across one that it doesn't support, it will probably be in a future release. The Albatros Media Player supports the playback of any media directly supported by MMPM/2, as well as MOD and audio MPEG files (as long as you have a soundcard). Albatros is extremely selfless when it comes down to CPU usage, so you can literally whistle while you work. The shareware version Albatross allows you to define five song lists, each one capable of including files in any format supported by Albatros -- MODs (MOD, XM, MTM, ULT, STM, and S3M -- remember those?) WAV, VOC, MID (soundcard dependant), AU, AIFF, MPEG, AVI, MPEG 1 video (CDI, DAT, M?T, M2P, MPG and VBS), FLC, FLI and QuickTime if you get an additional Codec from IBM. To create a play list all you have to do is drag a file onto Albatros and it is dropped on to the current play list. Also, if you have the correct drivers installed, Albatros can utilise DART (Direct Audio Real Time) for a much-improved sound output. If you have an external mixer (like aMixer reviewed below), you can specify it as the default mixer for use with Albatros. There isn't really much more to say about Albatros Media Player except æit does it allÆ. 

Well, this application certainly didn't have a great start. The installation script provided with QuickMotion 2.0 is enabled through ZipLock 2.0, a WIN-OS/2 application, so if you don't have WIN-OS/2 installed then you wonÆt get the chance to see (or hear) QuickMotion in action. If you don't have WIN-OS/2 support, but you do have Windows 3.11 or 95 floating around on your system somewhere, you can run the installation through that, and then use the program under OS/2 -- APC doesn't quite understand why QuickMotionÆs authors chose to do this. Anyway, stepping off the soapbox -- if you can use ZipLock to decompress the installation files into the directory of your choice, you should be able to run the install.cmd under OS/2 and everything should be fine. That said, the installation of QuickMotion 2.0 copies a few files to your workstation, including a couple of demonstration movies (yes, the ever-popular QuickTime demo is there) and a QuickMotion folder to your desktop. The program itself extends MMPM/2 to allow 12 types of QuickTime format, QT-VR (virtual reality), QT-MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) and Windows-style AVI movies to be supported under OS/2 -- a great idea. Another program called QuickFlick is also installed, as is a native 32-bit OS/2 movie player and streaming video/audio plugin for Netscape Navigator. If you want to add QuickTime functionality to your OS/2 desktop, then QuickMotion is definitely worth a look, despite the demo version being quite heavily crippled.

If you are unhappy with OS/2Æs default sound mixer and you have a Sound Blaster-compatible soundcard, you might like to try aMixer by Cornel Huth. Although not an entirely new utility, it gives you more control over your sound output than the resident OS/2 mixer, so you can tweak it a fraction more. ItÆs Controls include volume, balance, bass, treble, more levels and balances -- that's already much more than the default mixer can do, but there's more. It also has Gain in and out, input and output connections, Automatic Gain Control, and save/load mixer settings. There's also a feature called SyncLock(tm), to automatically program the mixer to load your settings at regular intervals. Intervals range from one to 32 times a second, at idle or normal priority (on demand). aMixer is an OS/2 PM application, and therefore MMPM/2 is not required, and is very useful.

Have you ever received a sound file you couldn't read? Perhaps a SUN Sparcstation or Macintosh user who sent you a file in some odd format? In these situations SOX is one of those utilities that is handy to have sitting in your toolbox. In the words of the programÆs author "SOX is intended to be the Swiss Army knife of sound processing tools . . . sooner or later it comes in very handy." You can use SOX to convert files between formats, and it supports a wide range of them: AIFF, AU, CDR, DAT, HCOM, RAW, SB, SF, SMP, SW, UB, UL, UW, VOC, and WAV. If you have a file and you can't determine its audio format (for example, by the extension), you can use SOXÆs auto switch feature to discover it -- SOX had no trouble with any of the formats we threw at it. In addition to simple conversion between formats, you can alter the files -- for example, it will blend stereo (or even quadrophonic) sound files into mono. Other sound effects include changing the sample rate, adding echo delay lines, applying low, high and band-pass filtering, examining sample loops and grabbing the looped parts, reversing a sample (great for hunting down those satanic verses and naughty messages), adding masking noise to avoid buzzing voices, and the infamous Fender Vibro effect. Overall, you may not think that SOX looks useful, but hang on to it; you may find it invaluable one day.