Cosmo Player 2.0

ActiveMovie/DirectShow

Cosmo Player 2.0 requires ActiveMovie 1.0 or later in order to support video and compressed audio (the MovieTexture, AudioClip & Sound nodes) within VRML worlds. ActiveMovie is a set of Microsoft services that support playback of multimedia streams. Microsoft has changed the name of ActiveMovie to DirectShow, which will be bundled with DirectX beginning with DirectX 5.1 and also comes bundled with Internet Explorer 4.0, so you may be familiar with it under that name.

If you see the message "ActiveMovie not available. Video will be disabled. Audio which is not uncompressed WAV or MIDI will be disabled." in the Cosmo Player Console (visible when an error occurs or when you press '/' on the numeric keypad), you will need to download and install ActiveMovie. A self-extracting archive of the ActiveMovie support package can be downloaded from the Cosmo ftp site (amovie.exe).

Upon installation of ActiveMovie, you may find that multimedia files (.mpg, etc.) on your system have different icons. This is because ActiveMovie changes the default file associations for these file types. See www.microsoft.com/directx for additional information on ActiveMovie/DirectShow.

DirectX

Cosmo Player 2.0 requires DirectX in order to support audio playback. Spatialized audio requires DirectSound3D, available in DirectX 3.0 or later. Without DX3, audio will be pseudo-spatialized by varying the left/right pan.

Windows 95

If you see the message "Direct X 3.0 or later not detected. Spatialization will be limited to simple left/right pan calculation." in the Cosmo Player Console, you will need to install DirectX 3.0 or later if you desire to hear full spatialized audio. DirectX 5.0 or later is recommended for Windows 95 users for better performance. A self-extracting archive of the DirectX 5.0 runtime is available from the Cosmo ftp site (dx5eng.exe).

Windows NT

Versions of Windows NT 4.0 up to and including Service Pack 2 include Direct X 2.0. In order to upgrade to Direct X 3.0 for full spatialization support, you will need to install Windows NT Service Pack 3, available directly from Microsoft's site:

Windows NT Service Packs

Cosmo Player 2.0' s multimedia format support depends upon the version of ActiveMovie/DirectShow installed.

Without ActiveMovie, the following formats are supported:

• WAV - uncompressed audio
• MIDI
• Animated GIF89a

With ActiveMovie 1.0, support for video and various compressed audio formats becomes available, in addition to the above formats:

Additional video formats:

• AVI
• QuickTime - the particular flavors of QuickTime supported depend upon the Video for Windows codecs installed. By default, this will include Cinepak & Indeo compression only.
• MPEG 1 Systems & MPEG 1 Video

Additional audio formats:

• WAV - compressed and uncompressed variants
• MPEG 1 Audio - Layers I & II
• AIFF

We have compiled the following suggestions based upon our experience and feedback from VRML content developers. First note the release notes at the bottom of this page.

• Include multiple URLs in the AudioClip and MovieTexture nodes. For example, if you desire to use an MPEG1 audio file in an AudioClip node, include a .WAV format file as a fallback for those browsers that cannot support MPEG Audio only streams.
• Use MIDI for ambient sounds and/or lengthy music. For example, you could use MIDI AudioClips triggered by proximity sensors to create appropriate background music for different rooms/regions of your world. Be aware of the limitations to using MIDI clips mentioned below.
• Use MPEG 1 Layer II Audio (.mpa) files for most other sounds, especially audio that should be spatialized. Note that you can use .mpa files as the URL for an AudioClip node with CP2.0, the MovieTexture node is not required. The only caveat with MPEG1 Audio is that when looping sounds, a click may be heard at the transition from the end of the media to the beginning. This is due to a limitation of the format.
• For best results with MovieTexture nodes, use video with a frame rate of 10fps max and frame sizes <= 128x128. OpenGL limits textures to powers of 2 sizes (e.g. 128 x 64, 32 x 32), so better performance can also be achieved by encoding the video at an appropriate size.
• Use Animated GIFs in the MovieTexture node if you require transparency or support for negative speeds.

1. MIDI seeking is not supported. Thus, MIDI files can only start playing from the beginning.
2. MIDI playback will not be spatialized. It is attenuated for distance from the listener.
3. Only one MIDI clip can be playing at a time.
4. MIDI playback does not obey the "Mute when window inactive" preference.
5. Pitch shifting of audio (in Audio Clip) is limited to a ceiling of 100KHz. In other words, a 22KHz clip can only be shifted a maximum of about 4.4. Pitch-shifted audio is not filtered, so audio content should be frequency limited based upon the maximum pitch shift factor expected and the 100KHz ceiling. The same limitations apply to the MovieTexture node when used as an audio source.
6. MovieTexture nodes do not support negative speeds for MPG/AVI/MOV files.
7. MovieTexture video decoding can degrade rendering performance. In general performance is much better with video encoded at lower frame rates (e.g. 10fps) and smaller sizes (e.g. 128 x 128).
8. Animated GIFs have the following restrictions: the offset (positioning) field is not supported, non-constant frame rates (delay times) are not supported, and, as all the GIF subimages found in an Animated GIF are converted to textures at load time, extremely long Animated GIF files are not recommended.
9. The alpha channel is not supported for any video formats, except you may use transparent animated GIFs.

I do not hear audio in all worlds known to have audio content.

1. Verify that audio works normally outside of Cosmo Player 2.0. Double-click on a .WAV file from within Windows.
2. Bring up the Cosmo Player VRML console ('/' on the numeric keypad) and look for diagnostic messages relating to the audio subsystem.

I do not hear audio in a particular world.

1. Check the VRML console to verify that there were no errors retrieving the audio content.
2. Verify that the content type is supported by your installation of Cosmo Player 2.0. In particular, without ActiveMovie/DirectShow, only .WAV & MIDI will be supported.

I do not see video from MovieTextures.

1. Verify that ActiveMovie/DirectShow has been installed.

Video from MovieTexture nodes appears in a separate popup window.

1. Re-install Cosmo Player 2.0.
2. Technical Note: This symptom means that the Cosmo Player media filters are not registered. If you wish, you may manually register the media filters with the command 'regsvr32 cm_dshow10.dll', rather than re-installing. Be aware that regsvr32 may not be present on your system.