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1998-03-14
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(set TAB to 8 caracters to get the original display)
*************************************************************
WARNING: Res-change on the Falcon, see at the end of this DOC
*************************************************************
WARNING: TT without graphic card, see at the end of this DOC
*************************************************************
TELLO Guillaume
240 rue Estienvrin
49260 Montreuil Bellay
FRANCE
Email: gtello@planete.net
Download M_PLAYER from http://www.tripnet.se/~mille (Thanks Mille!)
****************************************************************************
M_PLAYER.PRG DOCUMENTATION Version 2.15β
(Thank you Dave for your correction!)
****************************************************************************
It's a Quick Time and AVI player with sound,
and a FLI/FLC/FLH, SEQ, PI1+DLT, FLM player.
It can also CREATE Quick Time files (Images & sound)
********** Shareware ****************
If you want to register, please send 15DM, CAN$15, US$10, 60F or
7UKP to me or to my bank:
Crédit Agricole Anjou Mayenne/49000 Angers (France)
Account n°10434852000
North America User, you can register (US$10) at:
Nima Montaser Hardware and Software Specialists
Homa Systems House ATARI Graphics and Multimedia
P.O. Box 52127 nima@magmacom.com
Ottawa, ON K1N 5S0 aa414@freenet.carleton.ca
Canada Tel:(613)722-0901 Fax:(613)722-9061
URL: http://www.magmacom.com/~nima
G E N E R A L C O N S I D E R A T I O N S
*******************************************
Capabilities:
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
Can create Quick Time movies from a serie of images (and an
optional sound), images formats are:
- TGA2 16 or 24 bits (to RLE16 compression)
- IMG ('ximg', 256 colors) (to RLE8 compression)
Sound formats are:
- AVR, 8/16 bits, mono/stereo
- WAV, 8/16 bits, mono/stereo
(see below BATCH files, and SLIDSHOW.DOC)
Can play eight types of animations:
- *.MOV (Quick Time)
- graphics with:
CVID (compressed yuv)
RLE8 (grey or col), RLE16, RLE24, RLE32
SMC8
RAW1, RAW2 (grey or col), RAW4 (grey or col)
RAW8 (grey or col), RAW16, RAW24, RAW32
RPZA (15 bits)
YUV2, YUV9, YVU9 (uncompressed yuv)
- sound mono/stereo, 8/16 bits with TWOS or RAW format
- switch for image-sound synchronisation
- switch for sound
- *.AVI (Video for Windows)
- graphics with:
CVID
CRAM16, CRAM8
MSVC16, MSVC8
RLE8
RGB8
YUV9, YVU9
- sound mono/stereo, 8/16 bits with TWOS or RAW format
- switch for image-sound synchronisation
- switch for sound
- *.FLI/FLC/FLH (Autodesk Animator)
- *.SEQ (Cyber Paint)
- *.PI1 + *.DLT (Cyber)
- *.FLM (Kinetic Microsystems)
- *.FLM (Lexicor, anims ST Low only)
- graphics only
- normal speed or maxi speed
- loop mode (Shift key)
(for PI1 + DLT, you must select the PI1 file, then the DLT
file must share the same name and be located into the same
directory: c:\EXAMPLE.PI1 and c:\EXAMPLE.DLT)
- step by step mode
- every frame displayed (auto or not)
- can save this frame into a TGA file (auto or not)
- doesn't work with NOVA or TT 256 colors
- *.BAT (Batch files for slideshow):
- simple language to load and display a serie of images
- image format:
TGA 2 uncompressed (your POV creations for example)
IMG ('XIMG' and 256 colors)
more formats will be added in the furture
(see SLIDSHOW.DOC)
Hardware requiered:
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
- TT + NOVA, High Color (32768 colors) or 256 colors and plenty
of RAM.
- TT + Crazy Dots 2, same as above
- TT without graphic card (256 colors)
- Falcon, True Color (32768 colors) and plenty of RAM (Outside
accepted! Afterburner 040, ScreenBlaster, Blow up,
Centurbo I)
- PowerBook with MagicMac (but the sound...)
Damn!, I've got 16Mb of TT RAM, and DMA sound can't be played from it!
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
Well, you should set the 'TT Load' and 'TT Malloc' flags of the
program to keep the largest possible amount of ST RAM free. TT RAM is then
used to load the remaining sound data if it doesn't all fit into ST RAM.
While playing, this data is then copied into ST RAM by blocks till the end
of the animation. A copy of 1.5Mb takes 0.5sec. You may get some small
gaps in the sound while it is being copied across.
R U N N I N G T H E P R O G R A M
*************************************
The files:
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
M_PLAYER.PRG ; the program
M_PLAYER.RSC ; the dialogs (put into the same folder!)
MPLYR_FR.DOC ; french documentation
MPLYR_EN.DOC ; english documentation (Thanks Dave!)
MPLYR_GE.DOC ; german documentation (Thanks Martin)
MP_ICONS.RSC ; 4 icons made by Julien Chauveau for your desktop.
SLIDSHOW.DOC ; batch files and MOV-Maker
HISTORIC.TXT ; the history
COMMANDS.DOC ; the options of the command line (TTP mode)
Running:
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
You can double-click on it (you'll get the fileselector), here
you can specify the filename or a mask (*.MOV).
You can also drag and drop one animation on it (the fileselector
will be skipped).
First dialog:
1) The first part indicates the name and the type of file
detected.
2) The green box gives informations about the video data (size,
number of frames, compression) and if the compression is supported or
not. If you have selected a sound-only file, you will get a message
saying 'No graphics found'. This dialogue also indicates whether the
video format is supported or not. If it is not supported, M_PLAYER
will still play any sound data that may be present, but there will be
no video.
3) The orange box gives information about the sound (frequency,
resolution, channels). Some frequencies and resolutions (4bits) are not
supported. Sometimes you'll get the 'Supported' message but you get no
sound: this means that the system has run out of memory. If there is no
sound data present, You will get the message 'No Sound'. The file will
still play but it will be in video only.
4) The 'Play Sound' box selects/deselects sound playing (subject to
sound data being present of course!).
5) The 'Synchronize' box selects/deselects synchronization between
sound and video (subject to sound and video data being present of
course!).
4b) 'Max speed' is a switch for FLx/SEQ to display the frames
without any delay between them.
5b) FLx: else (when max speed isn't set), you can select here the
correct speed in frames per second.
6) 'Informations...' gives informations.
7) 'Go!' starts the animation. If sound data needs loading, playback
will be delayed and you will see a dialogue box saying 'Loading
sound...'.
If "(Alt) Go!" is available and that you use it, you'll enter the
Step by step mode (see below).
With a BATCH file, 'Alt' key toggles between slide-show and
create-movie.
8) 'Cancel' does just that.
Statistics:
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
At the end of an animation, a BOX with statistics is displayed, if
the movie was only a sound file, this box is skipped:
* Total frames: the number of video frames in the file.
* Frames displayed: the number of video frames actually displayed
(100% without sound synchronisation, sometimes less with synchronisation
because some of them have been skipped to 'follow' the sound data).
* Total time: the duration of the animation in seconds.
* Average: number of frames actually displayed every second.
Program ending:
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
If you've started with a fileselector, you'll be back in it after
every animation. You must choose 'cancel' from the selector to quit.
With drag and drop, you'll return automatically to the desktop.
How to stop an animation?
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
With the 'Control' key.
Step by Step mode
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
** Fileselector **
You must specify the path where the TGA files will be saved, their
default name is:
FRM00001.TGA (up to 99999 different files!)
You can change the first 3 characters by entering them into the
'File name' field of the fileselector. They will replace 'FRM'.
** Mini Menu **
(S) save: saves the current frame
(A) all : saves all the frames (starting at the current one), you
can stop that with the Control key.
(a bell during saving indicates a write error, maybe Disk
full or else)
(Q) quit: quits
Esc : same as above
(R) run : displays automatically the frames until you use the
Control Key.
Other : any other key advances one step ahead into the file.
** TGA Files **
format: TGA 2 uncompressed, header is 18 bytes long:
Long $00000200
Long $00000000
Long $00000000
Word width (Intel)
Word height (idem)
Word $1820
Then the pixels line by line with 3 bytes per pixel:
Blue/Green/Red.
S O M E Q U E S T I O N S
***************************
How was it done?
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
Dieter Fiebelkorn sent me his own work (in 'C' language) that
could display CVID frames from an AVI or a MOV file. I made the
translation into ASM, then I added the (little) GEM interface, the DMA
sound, the synchronisation, the NOVA and Crazy Dots 2 support.
As version 1.1, the AVI file parsing has been totally re-written
to use the 'idx1' section and get the sound more easily.
With version 1.2, the FLI/FLC format is supported and the
synchronisation has been improved with some files (less frames skipped).
Version 1.22 allows all formats to be played with 256 colors (with a
graphic card). That was only possible with CVID before.
I used ASSEMBLE (Brainstorm), the fastest and the best assembler
I've ever seen.
The size of the program
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
Dieter's version builds a very large table (512k, to convert
CVID colors into 16 bits) each time it is launched. Because this needs
floating point routines (if no 68882 is present), I prefered to
include this table directly onto the disk (versions 1.00 to 1.20).
But, I found that 530Kb was a bit big on the disk and into
memory (for instance, a CRAM16 movie doesn't need it). So I took back
Dieter's method and now this table is built in memory only if
required, and so does not need a coprocessor. That's what the delay is
between the main dialog and 'Loading sound...'.
Frequencies
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
MAC or PC files have mainly use one of 3 frequencies: 11kHz, 22kHz
or 44kHz. When M_PLAYER loads the sound, it makes a frequency conversion
to get 12,5kHz or 25kHz or 50kHz which are the DMA frequencies (each 8
bytes per block, it repeats the last byte, so getting 9 bytes and that's
all).
Bugs?
¨¨¨¨¨
Yes, possibly! My program crashes when:
- Metados works now (version 2.70)
- The animation is larger than the screen (you should try, maybe
it won't crash for you), then use a virtual screen.
- Turbo Veille bug fixed (V1.36).
- Extendos bug is fixed (V1.36, thanks to Yu-Ou Wang)
- Freedom bug fixed (V2.05)
- FPATCH2.PRG can correct some sound problems.
Thanks to:
- Pascal Ricard (Pierrevert, France, Falcon 4Mo)
- Julien Chauveau (Méron, France, Falcon 4Mo)
- Hervé Piedvache (Paris, Falcon 4Mo)
- Dave Brook (Stony Sratford, England, TT 20Mo + Crazy Dots 2)
- Magnus Kollberg (Sweden, Falcon 4Mo)
- Martin Rothaemel (Germany, TT 8Mo + NOVA)
- Yu-Ou Wang (Paris, Falcon 40MHz)
- Oliver Skelton (South Croydon, GB, Falcon + BlowUp Hard 1)
- Jacobo Morro (Spain, Falcon)
- Rémi Vanel (France, Falcon)
S O M E T E S T S
*******************
Here is my system:
TT 32MHz, 2 Mo ST RAM, 16 Mo TT RAM, NOVA 32768 colors, CD-ROMx2
68030-cache is ON and the program runs into TT RAM.
My screen mode is 640x480x32768.
Most of those animations are taken from CDs sold with French
magazines, so If you're not French you won't be able to find them
easily. But these tests will give you an idea of the possible speed.
- The AVI tests were done before I added the sound. So the results
are without synchronisation so they are displayed at maximum speed.
With synchronisation, I get a minimum of 90% of frames displayed.
CD Atari Compendium
Path: FILES\MISC\JAGUAR\AVI, size 160x120.
file | total time | frames/s
----------------+---------------+-------------------
DEFENDER | 9,6 | 26.5
HIGHLAND | 24.6 | 25.9
IRON2 | 16.9 | 25.9
PENGUINS | 5.9 | 25.4
PITFALL | 12.5 | 26.2
RAYMAN | 11.8 | 25.8
ULTRA | 9.9 | 25.4
WMCJ | 9.8 | 25.8
----------------+---------------+-------------------
CD Loisirs CD n15
MYTHES\VIDATA, size 368x276
AVLEVFR | 70.2 | 15.0
----------------+---------------+-------------------
PC Fun CD FUN n17
root, size 320x240
PCF17 | 6 | 13.9
----------------+---------------+-------------------
- the MOV files are synchronised, sometimes frames must be skipped
(because the display is too slow). The size is always 320x240.
PC Fun CD FUN n17
path GUIGNOLS
file | frames displayed/total| frames/s
----------------+-----------------------+-------------------
JOHNNY | 78/111 | 10.6 (good)
TAPIE | 59/87 | 10.1 ( " )
VILLIERS | 18/42 | 6.5 (sometimes frozen)
----------------+-----------------------+-------------------
GEN 4 CD n°87
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
path CLUBEURO\VIDEOS
DEFI | 277/279 | 6.8 (good)
----------------+-----------------------+-------------------
path VIDEO
G4NEWS | 4851/5376 (6 minutes!)| 13.5 (good)
G4TDN3D | 1523/3060 | 7.4 ( " )
G4RSCI | 3462/3844 | 13.5 ( " )
G4TBM | 1561/2136 | 10.9 ( " )
1G4RPAN | 1905/2358 | 11.8 ( " )
G4INTRO | 246/496 | 7.5 (good)
G4PCON | 291/577 | 7.5 (good)
Well, this is the END...
******************************
TT + NOVA users
******************************
I made 2 softs for you:
- Color TT that gives you color-icons on the desk (without any
alternative desktop as Gemini or other, this saves RAM!). Doesn't
work well with NVDI.
- VIDINOVA.PRG that drives the VIDI ST 12 video card in
640x480x32768. Images can be: 320x240x16 grey, 320x240xcolor or
320x480xcolor. Saves IMG files (16 grey) or TGA files (color).
The original soft from ROMBO worked only in ST low res! Should
work too with Crazy Dots2.
I give those 2 softs (for 1UKP each) with every registration of
M_PLAYER, (1UKP -> 7,5Franc -> 1,5$ -> 2DM).
As they don't cost much, there won't be any support on them.
********************
Res-change on Falcon
********************
The programs, if not lauched in True Color, switches to TC to
display an animation. I give no warranty about the safety of my routine, I
won't pay for any damage caused to your monitor (the routine has been
succesfully tested from 16 and 256 color modes, it didn't work from
monochrome or 4 color modes).
The only way to avoid this switch is to launch M_PLAYER in TC from
the desktop.
If your monitor makes a 'clunk' at every res-change, you should be
careful, if it doesn't and seems to support it, well, do what you want.
***********************
TT without graphic card
***********************
The displays switches to 320x480x256 to play the animations. If
the height allows it, the animation is doubled to correct the aspect
ratio, if the width is greater than 320 pixels, the image is reduced to
its half: finaly, every animation up to 640x480 is accepted.
Limits are those of the NOVA 256 colors mode:
- 16bits or TC animations are replayed in grey
- other animations are replayed in colors (<=256)
- no step by step mode
The display is slower than with a graphic card, because instead of
writting directly into the video RAM, the program uses a buffer witch is
re-encoded bit by bit into the video RAM.