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1991-11-12
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MPEG FEVER
===========
(Version 1.0)
Shell for creating and working with ~MPEG animations.
MDB Software
0 MPEG FEVER is POSTCARDWARE
----------------------------
If you use this program you must send me a postcard. Use it to tell me if
there is anything you would like to see in MPEG FEVER or if there are
any bugs. If you want a 68000 and coprocessor ~version then send me a
disk with a stamped addressed envelope.
CHAUSSY Laurent
50 rue du bout d'en haut
77570 Mondreville
FRANCE
Email : bidouill@ibm580.ensicaen.ismra.fr
I Contents of the FEVER.ZIP archive and installation
----------------------------------------------------
MPGFEVER-|
|-68000-|
| |-ENCODE.TTP (68000 version of the encoder)
| |-DECODE.TTP (68000 version of the decoder)
| |-MPEGUTI.TTP (68000 version of MPEGUTILS)
|
|-68030-|
| |-ENCODE.TTP (68030 version of the encoder)
| |-DECODE.TTP (68030 version of the decoder)
| |-MPEGUTI.TTP (68030 version of MPEGUTILS)
|
|-68030+82-|
| |-ENCODE.TTP (68030+copro version of the encoder)
| |-DECODE.TTP (68030+copro version of the decoder)
| |-MPEGUTI.TTP (68030+copro version of MPEGUTILS)
|
|-VISU-|
| |-MPEGDSP.TTP (Colour viewer for the Falcon)
| |-PLAYMPEG.TOS (NB viewer for the Falcon)
| |-MPEGPLAY.TTP (Very slow colour viewer)
|
|-DOC-|
| |-ENCODE.TXT (Manual for the encoder in English)
| |-DECODE.TXT (Manual for the decoder in English)
| |-MPEGUTI.TXT (Manual for MPEGUTILS in English)
| |-FEVER.TXT (This file)
| |-FAQ.TXT (Answers to the most frequently asked
| questions about MPEG animations in English)
|
|-INFOMPEG-|
| |-INFOMPEG.TTP (Small utility in English)
| |-INFOMPEG.DOC (The document)
|
|-ESSAI-|
| |-CINDY.MPG (An animation with CINDY !!!)
A hard drive is recommended (essential). For the ST user I advise you to
put the machine into high resolution and for others use a resolution of a
minimum of 640*640. MPEG FEVER works with MINT, but it hasn't been
cleaned up yet; this will be done in a future version.
Once the archive has been decompressed, run the program and go to the
Configuration menu and the path selections.
- Click on the disk icon next to "Encoder :" and find the ENCODE.TTP
which corresponds to your processer~.
- Do the same with "Decoder :" and DECODE.TTP
- And again with "MpegUtils :" and MPEGUTI.TTP
- With "Viewer :" find the viewer in the VISU folder (MPEGDSP.TTP is a
good choice on the Falcon.)
- Save the configuration by clicking on "Save" in the Configuration menu.
There! It's all configured!
To see the possibilities with MPEG FEVER, try to decode the CINDY.MPEG
animation and then re-encode it.
II Why this program?
--------------------
Since the first DSP MPEG players appeared some time ago I realised that
there wasn't anything on the Atari for making these famous animations.
Having Internet access, I started hunting for sources of programmes
which did MPEG animations. After several weeks of research I eventually
found several utilities.
The three which I put into MPEG FEVER are the best of those I could
find. I had compiled and debugged them but I wasn't happy with the way
in which they had to be used. So I created MPEG FEVER which is a shell
which allows convenient use of the three programs (like POVSHELL with
POVRAY).
MPEG FEVER was developed on a 40Mhz Falcon 030 with Pure C 1.1 and
the marvellous BIG 1.93 (thanks to Claude Attard).
III Why several versions?
-------------------------
To check compatibility, I ran a test with a 32Mhz Falcon in VGA 16 colour
resolution on the CINDY.MPG animation which is made up of 30 images. The
test was done using the TGA format.
|-------------|-------------|
| Decoder | Encoder |
|-------------|-------------|
68030+82 | 2 min 33 s | 7 min 54 s |
---------|-------------|-------------|
68030 | 2 min 33 s | 28 min 20 s |
---------|-------------|-------------|
68000 | 3 min 23 s | 1 h 13 min |
---------|-------------|-------------|
IV The menus
------------
A few comments on the menus:
* "Paths" allows the configuration of paths to the different programs.
* "Save" allows the selection of all the paths chosen in MPEG FEVER to be
saved.
V The Encoder
-------------
* The Super Diskette icon allows the selection of a path and a file name.
This name then appears in the button on the right of the diskette.
* The Film icon allows viewing of the animation using the selected viewer.
* The program offers pop-up help~ menus. To access them, hold down the
Control button and move the mouse pointer over the window.
* The "MDB Inside" icon saves a file containing all the parameters needed
by the Encoder.
* Located in the "MPEG" box are the parameters allowing the selection of
the type of MPEG you want to create. For the current players on the
Falcon you have to use MPEG I with N=1 and M=1. Effectively, these
players only accept animations compatible with XING. These animations can
only be comprised of type I images and no P or B types.
* In the "Images sources" box is a "chain" icon which, once a path has
been chosen, allows the name and picture type information to be filled in
automatically. This only works with TGA or GIF pictures (I very much
doubt that you will be using other formats.)
* In the "Compression" box are the parameters which determine the
quality of the animation created. Make the following calculation:
3 * (X display) * (Y display) * (Images/s)
and divide this number by a factor of between 5 and 10 (integer number);
this will give you the number of Bits. The "VBV buffer" is generally best
left at 20. It can happen that the NB player for the Falcon throws out
some nasty cr*p if you choose too high a Bits number.
I don't know why it does that, as the colour player doesn't. On the other
hand, don't try to make the animations too small (over-fast animation) or
too big (too slow an animation). A figure in the order of 160 by 120
seems to be a good compromise.
* The comments line will be saved in the heading of the MPEG animation.
You can enter anything you like except spaces.
EXAMPLE
-------
You have just finished a super animation using POV and you have 50 TGA
pictures:
TOTO1.TGA (or TOTO0001.TGA) (The length of the generic name
TOTO2.TGA (or TOTO0002.TGA) must not exceed 5 letters)
.
.
TOTO50.TGA (or TOTO0050.TGA)
1) Choose the path and the name of the animation.
2) Choose the path and the name of the folder where the animation's
compression statistics will be saved.
3) Choose the path and the name of the file containing the parameters to
be used by the Encoder. If you select an existing file parameter, all the
options will be updated.
4) Choose the path for the pictures. re-enter the generic name TOTO to
the right of the diskette, select TGA format and click on the chain icon.
If all your pictures are the same size and everything else is OK, all the
other parameters will be entered.
5) Select MPEG I and N=M=1.
6) Choose the compression parameters.
7) Enter a comments line (without any spaces).
8) Click on Apply.
9) Once created, you only have to click on the film icon to view the
animation.
If the Encoder produces the message "VBV delay overflow", don't take any
notice, just try to set the compression parameters so that it doesn't
reappear. This message will always appear wean the animation is too
small.
VI The Decoder
--------------
If you have read all the above I shouldn't have too much more to explain.
The "Level of detail" selects whether screen messages are brief or very
detailed. (1 is a good value.)
The rest is well explained by the pop-up menus.
EXAMPLE
-------
You have obtained a super MPEG animation over the Internet but
unfortunately it is incompatible with the Falcon players.
1) Select the animation in question.
2) Select a path where the pictures will be stored, ensuring plenty of
space on the disk), a generic name and a picture format. (If you want to
retrieve specific pictures, it is best to select the TGA format, but if you
only want to re-encode it afterward, I advise the use of the "yuv" format
which is quicker.)
3) Choose the level of detail.
4) The rest of it is pretty stupid.
5) Click on Apply. There you are with a great big pile of pictures.
6) Now all that remains to be done is to use the Encoder to remake the
animation in a format compatible with the Falcon players.
VII MPEGUTILS
-------------
MPEGUTILS allows you to do three things:
- View the contents of an MPEG animation (number of pictures, picture
types, running order etc)
- Concatenate two MPEG animations.
- Extract a portion of the animation (a clip!)
Everything is explained in the pop-up menus and in the panel shown by
pressing the Help key.
IIX Further information on MPEG animations
------------------------------------------
An MPEG animation consists of a Group of Pictures (GOP) which generally
contain fifteen or so pictures with a maximum of 32. It always begins with
any Type I picture ("Intra frame") and must finish with a Type I or P
picture. The pictures in the middle are Type P or Type B; there are
never more than 8 consecutive Type B pictures.
A Type P picture ("Predicted frame") depends upon the type of picture (I
or P) which precedes it; only the difference between these two pictures
is saved.
A Type B picture ("Bidirectionally predicted frame" or "Interpolated
frame") depends both on the preceding and following pictures.
MPEG animations of this type are difficult to decode quickly and it is for
this reason that the so-called XING format appeared. MPEG animations of
this type have the following characteristics:
- Only Type I pictures are used.
- There is only one GOP.
This is why the N and M parameters must be set at 1 in the Encoder. At
the moment the Encoder makes as many GOPs as there are pictures, which
results in a larger animation size. This little detail should be sorted out
in a future version unless a new player which accepts Type P and B
pictures arrives.
MPEG FEVER does not allow control over all the options of the Encoder as
there are too many; for further information see the DOCS.
IX Picture formats
------------------
- yuv is a special format created for MPEG animations, and has three
indexes: *.Y for brightness; *.U and *.V for colour. Coding a decoding
with these pictures is quicker and takes less space than TGA pictures. I
suggest you use this format to make an animation XING compatible which
is not currently.
- YUV format is the same as above except for the fact that the three
indexes have been concatenated into a single index.
- The PPM format ("Portable PixMap") comes from the UNIX world, and
version P6 closely resembles TGA.
- The SIF format (Abekas CCIR rec 656) is a b*stardisation of the yuv
format.
In my opinion the formats you will use the most in order to make an
animation XING compatible are TGA, GIF and eventually yuv.
X Bugs
------
If the path information is too long, ie the likes of:
e:\toto\raoul\marcel\68000\decoder\cindy0.mpg
(particularly with the Decoder) you risk bombing out (of the Decoder
only). If you find any bugs, let me know.
Have fun with MPEG FEVER.
=======================================================================
English translation by Ralph Nelson-Tucker, February 1996