Water Babes

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Text File | 1995-08-25 | 32.0 KB | 768 lines

************************************************* * WATERBABES * * Copyright 1995, TOP Interactive Productions * * WINDOWS VERSION README NOTES * ************************************************* WHAT'S IN THIS DOCUMENT 1. System Requirements 2. Installation 2.1 Quicktime For Windows 2.2 WaterBabes Screen Saver (Silicon TV) 2.3 Kudo Image Browser 2.4 Changing Color Display Mode To 64k Colors 2.5 Running WaterBabes Interactive Program 3. WaterBabes Interactive Program User Guide 4. WaterBabes Screen Saver (Silicon TV) User Guide 4.1 General Instructions 4.2 Using The SilTV Editor To Preview Files 4.3 Copying Files From The CD-ROM Disk To Your Hard Drive 4.4 Using The SilTV Editor To Create A Playlist File 4.5 Using Play To Test Your Screen Saver File 4.6 Invoking Your Screen Saver In Windows Program Manager 4.7 Screen Saver Tips 5. Kudo(R) Image Browser 6. TroubleShooting 6.1 Performance Issues 6.2 Hardware Incompatibilities 6.3 Video Card Problems 6.4 Sound Playback Problems 6.5 Memory Requirements 6.6 Using SMARTDrive 6.7 Customer Service and Technical Support 1. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS This section lists the minimum and recommended hardware requirements for WaterBabes. If your system does not meet these requirements, WaterBabes may not run or the programs may have very poor performance. HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS 25 MHz 486SX processor (33 MHz preferred) 4 Mb of RAM (8 Mb preferred) 256 color SVGA video card with a resolution of 640X480 (64k colors preferred) SoundBlaster compatible sound card Double speed (or faster) CD-ROM drive WaterBabes requires Windows 3.1 or later running in DOS 5.0 or later. Also, QuickTime for Windows 2.0.3 or later must be installed on your computer. See Installation section in this file for information on installing QuickTime. 2. INSTALLATION You can install the component programs for WaterBabes using the Windows Program Manager. When you install the WaterBabes Screen Saver, a Silicon Television group and a Kudo Browser group will be created in the Program Manager that will let you start the various programs. The actual program files for WaterBabes will remain on the CD-ROM disk. For best results, follow the steps in the order presented below. 2.1 QUICKTIME FOR WINDOWS All WaterBabes component programs require that QuickTime For Windows 2.0.3 or later be installed on your computer. If you do not have QuickTime for Windows, or have an earlier version running on your computer you should install QuickTime for Windows 2.0.3 using these instructions. a. Insert the Waterbabes disk in your CD-ROM drive. b. From the Windows Program Manager choose the Run... item from the File menu. c. Enter d:\qtinstal in the command line box, where d: is the drive letter of your CD-ROM drive. (If another letter is used for your CD-ROM drive you should use that drive letter instead of d:. For instance, if your CD-ROM drive is called f: then enter f:\qtinstal in the Command Line box.) d. The Install program for QuickTime For Windows will start. Follow the instructions in the Install program. During installation, if you are asked to upgrade existing QuickTime files on your computer, select Yes. You must upgrade them for the installation to succeed. If you are asked to remove QuickTime files on your CD, just select Skip. e. The Install program will create a group called QuickTime For Windows in your Windows Program Manager. 2.2 WATERBABES SCREEN SAVER (SILICON TV) a. Insert the WaterBabes disk in your CD-ROM drive. b. From the Windows Program Manager choose the Run... item from the File menu. c. Enter d:\scrnsvr\setup.exe in the command line box, where d: is the drive letter of your CD-ROM drive. d. You will be asked where you wish to install Silicon Television on your computer. The default directory is c:\siltv. Type in a new directory name if desired. Press OK to begin installation. e. When installation is complete, you will be asked if you wish to view the associated Readme file. f. Restart your system after installation to insure that the HotSpot feature functions correctly. 2.3 KUDO(R) IMAGE BROWSER a. Insert the WaterBabes disk in your CD-ROM drive. b. From the Windows Program Manager choose the Run... item from the File menu. c. Enter d:\winstall.exe in the command line box, where d: is the drive letter of your CD-ROM drive. d. During installation, you will be asked if you wish the program to modify your Autoexec.Bat file to include the line: share.exe /l:500 /F:5100 You must allow the installation to make this modification for the program to run successfully. e. When the installation is complete, the program will ask you if it should restart Windows. Select Yes. 2.4 CHANGING COLOR DISPLAY MODE TO 64k COLORS For best results, it is recommended that you run WaterBabes using 64k colors. You can do this by changing the Video Display driver in Windows Setup. a. In Windows Program Manager, open the Main group and select Windows Setup. b. Select Change System Settings, then choose 640 X 480 X 64k Colors in the Display list box. If there seem to be problems when running 64k colors, try using a 256 color driver. 2.5 RUNNING WATERBABES INTERACTIVE PROGRAM You can run the WaterBabes program directly from the Windows Program Manager, or use the Program Manager to create an icon to run the program for you. In either case, before you start you should look on the CD-ROM disk to find the name of the WaterBabe file for that disk (WTRBABE1, WTRBABE2, etc.). To run WaterBabes from the Program Manager: a. Insert the WaterBabes disk in your CD-ROM drive. b. From the Windows Program Manager choose the Run... item from the File menu. c. Enter D:\WTRBABEx.exe in the command line box, where d: is the drive letter of your CD-ROM drive, and x is the number of the WaterBabes file (ex: wtrbabe1.exe, wtrbabe2.exe, etc.). d. Click OK to start the WaterBabes program. To create an icon to run WaterBabes: a. In the Windows Program Manager, open the Silicon Television group. b. Choose the New... item from the File menu. Click the button next to Program Item, then click OK. c. Enter the following information. Substitute the number of the WaterBabe file for x in the instructions below. In Description: WATERBABESx In Command Line: D:\WTRBABEx.EXE Click OK to exit. 3. WATERBABES INTERACTIVE PROGRAM USER GUIDE You can click on any area of the screen when the cursor becomes an arrow. Clicking on areas of the screen when the cursor is a circle will have no result. The following commands are available. All commands are not available on all screens: BACK Returns you to the previously selected screen. MAIN Return to Main Menu. NEW Displays information on new products. NEXT Moves you to the next screen in sequence. QUIT Exits the program. USER TIPS Move the cursor over this item to get suggestions on using the program. Figure icons appear on some screens. Clicking these will take you to the page for that WaterBabe. If you increase a movie or picture to full size, just click on the picture to reduce it to the smaller size. 4. WATERBABES SCREEN SAVER (SILICON TV) USER GUIDE The Silicon TV Editor allows you to create a custom screen saver file using movies, sounds and still images from the WaterBabes CD-ROM disk. You can control the size, movement, display attributes, and volume of these items, and even invoke a password that must be entered before your screen saver can be disabled. 4.1 GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS When you install the WaterBabes Screen Saver, a Silicon TV group is created in your Windows Program Manager. This group contains the following icons: SILTV EDITOR Create and edit lists of files to include in your screen saver. Preview movies, sounds and still images. EZTV Edit playback characteristics of your screen saver. These functions are also included in the SILTV Editor. PLAY Run a Playlist previously created in SILTV Editor. HOTSPOT Used internally. Clicking on this icon minimizes the icon, but performs no other action. The following steps generally describe the procedure to create a custom screen saver using WaterBabes movies, sounds, and images: a. Use the SILTV Editor Preview feature to decide which files will be included in your screen saver. b. Copy your selected files from the CD-ROM disk to your hard drive. (If you create a screen saver playlist file directly from the CD-ROM disk, your screen saver will only work if the CD is in the drive.) c. Use the SILTV Editor to create a playlist file. (Make sure you only select files present on your hard drive, not files from the CD-ROM disk.) d. Invoke your screen saver in Windows. Please see the Screen Saver Tips section below for limitations on combinations of files that can be used in a screen saver. 4.2 USING THE SILTV EDITOR TO PREVIEW FILES a. In the Windows Program Manager, open the Silicon TV group and double-click on SILTV Editor. b. In the Files In box, select a Drive, Directory and a file type (under List Files Of Type) to display a list of available files. Full motion video and sound (.MOV) files and some still image (.PIC) files are located in the \MEDIA directory. The \JPG directory contains larger still image files. The \CONTENT directory (and its subdirectories) contain Windows bitmap images (.BMP) files. If you select the correct drive and directory and no files appear in the list, make sure you have selected the correct type of file to be displayed in the List Files Of Type box. c. To see which files you might want to include in your screen saver, highlight any file in the Files In box (not the actual playlist) and press Preview. Press Stop to end any preview. The Movie Size option in the Preview section of the screen controls the size of images in Preview, not their size when your screen saver is running. The Test button at the bottom of the screen should only be used to display movies or sounds (.MOV) files. If you use it to display still images, you may have some difficulty interrupting the display and returning to the editor. d. Make a list of your desired files and their location on the CD-ROM disk for later copying to your hard drive. 4.3 COPYING FILES FROM THE CD-ROM DISK TO YOUR HARD DRIVE a. Open the Windows File Manager (found in the Main group in the Windows Program Manager). b. Click on the Drive button for your hard disk drive (usually C:). Click on the file folder for the SILTV directory to open it. c. In the File Manager menu, click Window. Then click New Window. A second directory window will appear on the screen. Move or size the windows so that you can see both at the same time. d. In the second window, click on the Drive button for your CD-ROM drive. Click on the file folder of the directory containing the file you wish to copy. e. Highlight the file or files you wish to copy. Drag the file name to the SILTV directory folder in the first window. Note that all files on the CD-ROM disk have a Read Only attribute. When you copy files to your hard disk, this Read Only attribute remains. You may have to turn off the Read Only attribute on these files if you wish delete them from your hard drive. For information on file attributes, type Help Attrib at the DOS prompt. For further information on using Windows File Manager to copy files, click on Help in the File Manager menu. 4.4 USING THE SILTV EDITOR TO CREATE A PLAYLIST FILE Creating a playlist file allows you to combine multiple WaterBabes sounds and movies together into one screen saver. Remember that you will want to first copy the files that will compose your screen saver to your hard drive, rather than creating a playlist directly from your CD-ROM drive. The SilTV Editor consists of four screens: Playlist, Playback, Setup, and Licensing. Access these screens by clicking on the tabs across the top of the screen. PLAYLIST Allows you to create a list of files and save them as a single screen saver. Contains controls to browse through files and add or remove them from your list. Allows you to preview files. PLAYBACK Allows you to control the size, speed, volume, and movement attributes of items in your playlist. SETUP Allows you to assign a password that must be entered before your screen saver can be interrupted. LICENSING Displays product licensing information. To create a Playlist: a. In the Playlist box, enter a name for your file (e.g. MYLIST). b. In the Files In box, select a Drive, Directory and a file type (under List Files Of Type) to display a list of available files. Remember to select the files from your hard drive, not from the CD-ROM disk! c. Once you have file names displayed in the File In section, use the Add or Add All buttons to insert files into your Playlist. You will see selected files appear in a list on the right of the screen (this area displays the actual contents of your playlist). Use the Remove or Remove All buttons to remove items from this list (or simply highlight an item and drag it to the trashcan icon on the right of the screen). You can change the order of items in the list by highlighting an item and dragging it into the position desired. d. Once you have created a playlist, click Save to save the list. e. Click on the Playback tab at the top of the screen to change playback characteristics if desired. The Playback Screen allows you to control the size, speed, movement and overall volume for your playback list. Any features selected will apply to all items in your playlist. The Show Movies section on this screen allows you to control position and movement of images on the screen (floating, bouncing, centered, etc.). If you choose to have images float, use Float Speed to control the rate at which they move. The Options section on this screen allows you to select special additional display characteristics such as trails, frame around images, etc. The Seconds Within Movies option allows you to set a wait time between items in a playlist. IMPORTANT: setting this value to 0 can cause your screen saver not to perform correctly! You should set this value to at least 1 second. The Volume option allows you to control playback volume. The Video Wall section allows you to select the size of images during playback. f. Click on the Setup tab at the top of the screen if you wish to enable the password for your screen saver. If you enable a Password, your password will be required to interrupt your screen saver when it is running. To Enable Password, click on the checkbox next to this item. Then click Change Password. In the Change Password screen, enter your password in the New Password and Retype New Password boxes. Click OK to save your password. (You must enter the same password in both boxes before clicking OK or pressing the Enter key.) g. Once you have finished selecting all the features of your screen saver file, return to the Playlist Screen and click Save and OK. 4.5 USING PLAY TO TEST YOUR SCREEN SAVER FILE The Play icon in the Silicon TV group will run your complete playlist. Press the spacebar to interrupt play if desired. If you have enabled a password, you will have to enter the password to stop Play. 4.6 INVOKING YOUR SCREEN SAVER IN WINDOWS PROGRAM MANAGER Once you have created a playlist, you must follow these steps to invoke it in Windows. If you do not invoke the playlist, your images will not appear as your screen saver. a. In the Windows Program Manager, open the Main group and double-click on the Control Panel item. b. Double-click on the Desktop item. c. In the Screen Saver list, click on Silicon Television. d. Set the Delay time if desired. This is the amount of time your computer will wait (without a key press or mouse click) before running your screen saver. e. Press OK to save your selections. When your screen saver is running, pressing any key or clicking the mouse will stop the screen saver. 4.7 SCREEN SAVER TIPS a. The Seconds Between Movies option must be set to at least 1 second for your screen saver to function correctly. Most problems with screen savers are caused by this value being set to 0. b. If you wish to have a still image (.JPG, .PIC, or .BMP file) as your screen saver, you should create a playlist with ONLY ONE of these files in it. If you include more than one still image in your list, only the first will be played by the screen saver. c. If you mix still images and movies or sounds in your playlist, the screen saver will play all items until it plays your still picture, but will not play any following items. d. Do not use the Test button to test a still image; you may have trouble stopping the display. e. Bouncing or moving attributes (selected under Playback) work best with still images. They can cause movies to appear choppy, or cause them to skip frames. 5. KUDO(R) IMAGE BROWSER The Kudo(R) Image Browser is an image catalog. It helps you to organize your logos, clip art, illustrations, and movies. When you install Kudo(R), you will find a Readme file and a Self Contained Help System in the Kudo Browser group in the Windows Program Manager. Please see these files for complete information on using Kudo(R). 6. TROUBLESHOOTING 6.1 PERFORMANCE ISSUES The following suggestions will improve performance of the WaterBabes Interactive Program: a. Turn any network software off. b. Turn any active screen savers off. c. Close other open applications or windows. 6.2 HARDWARE INCOMPATIBILITIES The WaterBabes program has been designed to work with the hardware components of a wide variety of computer systems. In some cases, however, certain hardware components may not be compatible with the Waterbabes program. The WaterBabes program requires that hardware components be capable of displaying QuickTime movies. When you install QuickTime For Windows, a QuickTime group is created in the Windows Program Manager that contains a Readme file. This Readme file lists hardware components compatible with QuickTime For Windows 2.0.3. If you have a video card or sound card that is not compatible with QuickTime 2.0.3, your system may not be able to run the WaterBabes program. If you are experiencing problems running the WaterBabes program please check these compatibility lists. We also recommend that you check the following sections of this Readme file for possible solutions. In many cases, a simple change to your system configuration will make it possible to run the WaterBabes program. 6.3 VIDEO CARD PROBLEMS If you cannot run the WaterBabes program because of a video card incompatibility you may get messages such as "An error has occurred in your application" or "General Protection Fault". If this happens on your computer, we recommend that you try the following possible fixes. a. Change the QTW.INI file settings. The QuickTime For Windows initialization file, QTW.INI, will be found in your Windows directory. This file controls the way the QuickTime movies are played. In some situations, altering the Optimize line in the [Video] section of QTW.INI will fix video problems. (If you do not have video problems, you should not change the Optimize line because the performance will degrade.) You can use the Notepad editor to make changes to the QTW.INI file. The normal Optimize setting is: [Video] Optimize=Hardware Changing this section to: [Video] Optimize=Driver will fix "false positive" bugs where QuickTime For Windows thinks it knows what video chipset is present, but is in fact wrong. If you still have problems, you can try changing to: [Video] or to [Video] Optimize=BMP Optimize=DIB These settings will work in most cases but the performance will suffer considerably. b. Obtain new Windows display drivers. If you are experiencing video display problems, it is often a good idea to check with your video card vendor to see if more recent versions of the Windows display drivers are available. Many vendors are continually improving their display drivers to address compatibility problems. c. Change the Windows video display driver. If you have additional Windows video display drivers available, changing to another display driver may fix video-related problems. To change a Windows display driver use the Windows Setup program found in the Main group of the Program Manager. Choose the Change System Settings command from the Options menu and choose another display driver from the Display list box. Note that for best playback results we recommend that you choose a driver with 64k or more colors. After you change the video display driver you should restart Windows and reinstall QuickTime For Windows on your computer. 6.4 SOUND PLAYBACK PROBLEMS If you do not hear sound when running the WaterBabes program we recommend that you follow the steps outlined in this section. In general, if you can hear waveform sound playback from other Windows programs you will hear sound in WaterBabes. If you do not hear sound: a. Check the hardware compatibility list in the QuickTime For Windows Readme file in the Quicktime group of the Windows Program Manager. b. Make sure that your sound card is properly installed and that your speakers are connected. If your speaker(s) has a power switch make sure it is turned on. You should also adjust the volume adjustment knob on your speakers and/or on the external faceplate of your sound card. c. Make sure that the sound card software has been properly installed and that Windows sound drivers were installed. d. If your sound card uses a sound "volume level" or mixer program, you should use this program to adjust the sound volume level in Windows. For instance, SoundBlaster sound cards come with the Creative Mixer program; this program is usually located in the SoundBlaster group in the Program Manager. e. You can check the sound playback from the Sound control panel. To check sound playback, run the Windows Control Panel program in the Main group of the Program Manager. Click on the Sound icon to display the Sound dialog box. Click on one of the ".wav" files in the Files list box (e.g. chimes.wav) and press the Test button. If you do not hear any sound, your Windows sound system has not been properly setup. f. Make sure that no other programs are running when you run WaterBabes. If you follow these steps, you should be able to hear sound while running WaterBabes. 6.5 MEMORY REQUIREMENTS The WaterBabes program requires 4 Mb of RAM memory. The computer should be running Windows in 386 enhanced mode with virtual memory enabled. The virtual memory should be configured to work with a permanent swap file. A swap file that is 8 Mb or larger is recommended. As a rule, the larger the swap file the better your video performance will be. If there is not sufficient memory for the WaterBabes program you may experience error messages or very poor performance when video movie sequences are displayed; you may also have missing or incorrect sounds and colors. The following suggestions will help ensure that you have sufficient memory to run WaterBabes. To check the amount of memory available: a. Choose the About Program Manager... menu item from the Help menu in the Program Manager. b. The amount of free (i.e. unused) memory will be displayed in the lower part of the About Program Manager dialog box. The amount of free memory should be 8,000 KB or more. The System Resources should be greater than 40%. If your system is low in either free memory or system resources you should close some windows or quit applications you are not using. To create a virtual memory swap file or to modify the current swap file: a. Start the Control Panel program found in the Main group of the Program Manager. b. Double-click on the 386 Enhanced icon to display the 386 Enhanced dialog box. c. Click on the Virtual Memory... button to display the Virtual Memory dialog box. d. Click on the Change>> button to change the virtual memory settings. e. In the New Settings section change the Type to Permanent. The number in the New Size box should be the same as the Recommended Maximum Size value. f. Click the OK button to use the new virtual memory settings. A query dialog will ask if you want to make changes to virtual memory settings. Click on Yes to accept the new settings. 6.6 USING SMARTDRIVE In your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, you may have an entry for a utility called SMARTDRV. This software provides caching for your hard disk and CD-ROM, and in many cases improves the speed of your computer. But for QuickTime movies, it can slow down or disrupt the playback of the movies. For best results, you should turn off caching for the CD-ROM by adding the /U option to your SMARTDRV command, as follows: C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE /U If there are other options (such as /X, or /DOUBLE_BUFFER) in your current SMARTDRV command line, you should leave them as they are, and just add the /U option. For example: C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE /X /U If you don't have SMARTDRV in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, don't worry about it! For more information about SMARTDRV, type HELP SMARTDRV at the DOS prompt. 6.7 CUSTOMER SERVICE AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT If you have problems running WaterBabes, please read the preceding notes first. In many cases, a simple fix will solve your problem. If you still experience difficulties when running WaterBabes, please send e-mail to babeman@earthlink.com or a fax to the attention of Technical Support at 818-972-4251. Please include the following information: a. A detailed description of your problem and any messages that were displayed. b. A list of the hardware components in your computer system. This includes the type of processor, the CD-ROM drive, the video card, and the sound card. Also include the DOS and Windows version numbers. c. The amount of free memory available and the amount of hard drive space that is available. There are so many different combinations of equipment and software, that it's difficult to know what is going on without all the information describing a system. Your report will help make future issues better.