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Subject: MPEG-FAQ: multimedia compression [5/6] Newsgroups: comp.graphics,comp.graphics.animation,comp.compression,comp.multimedia,alt.binaries.multimedia,alt.binaries.pictures.utilities,alt.binaries.pictures,alt.binaries.pictures.d,alt.answers,comp.answers,news.answers From: phade@cs.tu-berlin.de (Frank Gadegast) Date: 22 Aug 1994 12:30:45 GMT Archive-name: mpeg-faq/part5 Last-modified: 1994/08/22 Version: v 3.2 94/08/22 Posting-Frequency: bimonthly BEGIN -------------------- CUT HERE --------------------- 5/6 organizations interested in supporting this research or discussing other aspects of this project should contact Larry Rowe at Rowe@CS.Berkeley.EDU (+1 510-642-5117). ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: We gratefully thank Hewlett-Packard and Fujitsu who provided financial support for this work. We also want to thank the following people for their help: Jef Poskanzer who developed the pbmplus package. [ He added the very nice patch that allows mpeg_play to decode ] [ a MPEG-stream to produce a series of pbm-files. The DOS-port ] [ of this utility is called MPEG2P11.ZIP ] --------- Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 by Jef Poskanzer. Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. This software is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty. --------- Eiichi Kowashi of Intel and Avideh Zakhor of U.C. Berkeley who provided valuable suggestions on motion vector searching. Chad Fogg of the University of Washington who has helped us understand many issues in MPEG coding and decoding. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ You can find this in the /pub/multimedia/mpeg-directory of Berkeley's ] [ ftp-server. Belongs to there codec. ] This directory includes 150 raw YUV frames suitable for use with the MPEG encoder. The YUV frames are the files flower.*.tar.z. To uncompress, use the GNU 'gunzip' program. You should uncompress all of these files inside a directory named 'flowg'. To run the test, simply do 'mpeg_encode flower.param' To make sure the test worked, do 'diff flowgard.mpg result.mpg' (there shouldn't be any difference; if there is, let us know) Please see the file 'times,' which includes time results for various machines and compilers. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ A Public-Domain-Encoder-Kit for Unix ! Now in Version 1.2 ] From: msimmons@ecel.uwa.edu.au (Michael Simmons - mgmt_staff) Subject: Standford MPEG codec Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1993 16:07:18 +0800 (WST) MPEG Image and Image sequence compression/decompression C software engines =========================================================================== The Portable Video Research Group at Stanford have developed image/image sequence compression and decompression engines (codecs) for MPEG, CCITT H.261, and JPEG. The primary goal of these codecs is to provide the functionality - these codecs are not optimized for speed, rather completeness, and some of the code is kludgey. Development of MPEG, P64, and JPEG engines is not the primary goal of the Portable Video Research Group. Our research is focused on software and hardware for portable wireless digital video communication. For more information about current research, please send e-mail to Professor Teresa Meng at meng@tilden.stanford.edu. COMMENTS/DISCLAIMERS: This code has been compiled on the Sun Sparc and DECstation UNIX machines; some code has been further checked on the HP workstations. For comments, bugs, and other mail relating to the source code, we appreciate any comments. The code author can be reached at Andy C. Hung at achung@cs.stanford.edu. The standard public domain disclaimer applies: Caveat Emptor - no guarantee on accuracy or software support. References related to these codecs should NOT use any author's name, or refer to Stanford University. Rather the Portable Video Research Group or the acronym (PVRG) should be used, such as PVRG-MPEG, PVRG-P64, PVRG-JPEG. PVRG-MPEG CODEC: (MPEGv1.1.tar.Z) [ is now MPEGv1.2.tar.gz ] This public domain video encoder and decoder was generated according to the Santa Clara August 1991 format. It has been tested successfully with decoders using the Paris December 1991 format. The codec is capable of encoding all MPEG types of frames. The algorithms for rate control, buffer-constrained encoding, and quantization decisions are similar, but not identical, to that of the (simulation model 1-3) MPEG document. The rate control used is a simple proportional Q-stepsize/Buffer loop that works though not very well - better rate-control is the essence for good quality buffer-constrained MPEG encoding. Verification of the buffering is possible so as to provide streams for real-time decoders. The MPEG codec performs compression and decompression on raw raster scanned YUV files. The companion display program for the X window system is described in section IV) below. A manual of approximately 50 pages describes the program's use. There are also MPEG compressed files from the table tennis sequence in tennis.mpg and the flower garden sequence in flowg.mpg. This codec was recently tested with the MPEG decoder of the Berkeley Plateau Research group. If what you want is decoding and X display, then you might want to look into their faster public domain MPEG decoder/viewer. The Berkeley player is available via anonymous ftp from mm-ftp.cs.berkeley.edu [128.32.149.157] in /pub/multimedia/mpeg/mpeg-2.0.tar.Z. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. I am especially grateful to Hewlett Packard and Storm Technology for their financial support during the earlier stages of codec development. Any errors in the code and documentation are my own. The following people are acknowledged for their advice and assistance. Thanks, one and all. The Portable Video Research Group at Stanford: Teresa Meng, Peter Black, Ben Gordon, Sheila Hemami, Wee-Chiew Tan, Eli Tsern. Adriaan Ligtenberg of Storm Technology. Jeanne Wiseman, Andrew Fitzhugh, Gregory Yovanof and Chuck Rosenberg of Hewlett Packard. Eric Hamilton and Jean-Georges Fritsch of C-Cube Microsystems. Lawrence Rowe of the Berkeley Plateau Research Group. Tom Lane of the Independent JPEG Group. Katsumi Tahara from Sony. Ciaran Mc Goldrick. Karl Lillevold --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Jim Frost was putting the Berkeley-Code into a Motif and/or Xt-Widget. ] [ Its called WDGT, Version 2.0b is up-todate, but no description ] [ was included. This is from the man-page:] Mpeg is a version of the MPEG player from the Berkeley Plateau Research Group group as a widget. It can be used either as a Motif widget subclassed from XmPrimitive or as a toolkit-independant widget subclassed from Core. Mpeg inherits from Core. The Motif version also inherits from XmPrimitive. The class pointer is xmpegWidgetClass. The class name is Xmpeg. This widget was implemented by making minimal changes to the mpeg2.0 source code. Because of this, there are a num- ber of global variables, functions and constants that do not follow normal widget conventions. Many of the mpeg2.0 options are not supported yet. Shared memory may not work - it has not been tested. On stepping through a movie, the number of frames shown per step is indeterminate. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- III.6 | VMS ------------ The VMS MPEG viewer is built by acquiring the regular Unix-specific mpeg source, then getting the VMS specific code. Using this mesh of code, you build your own VMS-compatible MPEG player. First, get the regular UNIX Mpeg viewer per the instructions in part "c" above. Then get the following: Site: mm-ftp.cs.berkeley.edu [128.32.149.157] Dir : /pub/multimedia/mpeg/vms File: Browse entire subdir, snag what you need Thanks to Terry Maton for this information. Here is some text from him which may be of help to VMS users: First go to mm-ftp.cs.berkeley.edu in /pub/multimedia/mpeg and get the main mpeg file mpeg_play.2.00.tar.Z, then cd to vms and get the file MPEG_PLAY-20-DECW.TAR_Z. Now you have to decompress and tar the main file first and then the vms file. This means that the latest version of some of the .c files are the correct ones for vms. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- III.7 | MAC ------------ [ If it really does what it says, it looks like the best MPEG-software ] [ that you can get. Current is version 2.0.1 ] From: Maynard James Handley <maynard@elwing.otago.ac.nz> Date: Wed, 16 Feb 1994 00:01:24 -0700 Subject: Mac MPEG player You can download Sparkle from sumex-aim.stanford.edu or any of its mirrors in info-mac/grf/util, or from any other fine mac ftp site like mac.archive.umich.edu. I right now have a VERY rough version of Sparkle that handles converting QT to MPEG. The MPEG encoding is essentially satisfactory but the user interface is largely non-existent. I hope to release it in usable form in about two months, WHAT's NEW FROM VERSION 2.0? WHAT's NEW FROM VERSION 1.7? % Works around a bug in the QT VM extension. This should help those people for whom Sparkle 1.7 crashed when a file was opened. % The progress bar now updates itself better. Looks better in B/W. % More of the default QT movie player keystrokes now work. % Notification of extensive errors in an MPEG file. % Fixed bug that displayed certain files as "slanted". % Better memory management for ultra-low memory conditions. WHAT's NEW FROM VERSION 1.6? % Misc bug fixes and cleanups. % Way cool progress bar for showing progress on slow machines. % Opening files is much faster. % Random access and stepping backwards are both available. % Saving to QuickTime will now work much better in the background (much less jerky). See the New in 1.71 file for details. Now requires QuickTime 1.6. If you don't have it, ftp it from ftp.apple.com. WHAT IS IT? Sparkle plays MPEGs and converts them to QuickTime movies. It uses the standard QuickTime movie controller as its interface. It is multifinder friendly and, with enough memory, will open multiple documents at once. It is free. I ask only that you read the enclosed README file and if you can help with any of the issues I raise there, you mail me. REQUIRES: System 7 or greater. QuickTime 1.6 or greater. An 020 based mac or greater. Maynard Handley maynard@elwing.otago.ac.nz January 18 1994 [ And now some things he currently does ... ] I don't do any interleaving yet, but I have code for audio and interleaving so my next major task will be adding those. But before I start that, I'll be taking a few weeks to clean up the code I have. Parts of the MPEG encoding use up much more memory and are much slower than they need to be, so I'll be working my way through the Berkeley code changing things. I don't know how well it'll run under Mac emulation, because it requires some pretty low level parts of the Mac system. Will the emulator offer System 7, 32 bit color QuickDraw, QuickTime and the Thread Manager? The old mac emulators for UNIX offered none of these, but the new emulators using the Apple supplied services for emulation might do a better job. BTW I have fixed all bugs I know of in 2.0 and afetr two or three days of testing 2.01 will release it, so you should refer to 2.01 in the FAQ. At present I am using the Berkeley 1.2 encoder source. I have already made some changes to the way it handles MPEG sizing (the Berkeley source chopped off the edges and bottoms of movies.) Also changes to the way B frames are handled (the Berkeley source would sometimes skip frames at the end of a movie.) Also changes to support threading and object encapsulation. Byt the basic core is the Berkeley code. What I'll do as time goes by is successlively alter it to get it smaller (in many ways it uses four times as much memory as really necessary) and faster. And I'd like to add some of the ideas from the Stanford code, in particular the bit-rate limiting. The P/B search algorithms are the pure Berkeley ones, but I'll probably iddle with those as well as soon as I have time. I keep wanting to post source, but at any given stage large parts of it are so chaotic I'd be ashamed to do so. Now I mostly have the version 1.x core source cleaned up, but all the new 2.0 features are a mess. However you might want to say in the FAQ that I have, in the past, given the source out to people who want it, on the condition that they accept that it is work in progress and has very messy parts. Also note that the source assumes you know 1) the mac OS 2) The Think Class Library 3) QuickTime 4) MPEG all very well. If you don't understand any of this, the source won't be much use to you. (And now that I have based it on threads, it's even more complex!) (BTW not many people know Macs have threads--- it's not just OS/2) Good to keep up friendly competition! Maynard --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rainer Menes <menes@statistik.tu-muenchen.de> Subject: Re: LAST REPOST: THE MPEG-FAQ Version 2.0 - Part 2 Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1993 13:20:08 +0100 Dear qt2mpeg users, I like to announce a new version of my qt2mpeg util. This version is a beta version but should be very stable I hope. The best news about the new version is that it supports Quicktime to MPEG conversation of any length. The last version, as some of you have reported, had a very seriuos bug which crash your mac very badly. Now this shouldn't happend any more. I putted the stuff on my ftp site suniams1.statistik.tu-muenchen.de in the dir incoming/qt2mpeg. What will you need? It depends if you are a firsttime user or you are using the older version right now. 1. Firsttime user should get qt2mpeg1.1b.sit.bin. This includes all you need to do the qt to MPEG conversation. 2. To update your older version get only qt2mpeg_update.sit.bin. This will save bandwidth on internet (Thank you),and replace the old files with the new once. Some fun stuff is also in this dir. To test my new qt2mpeg I made a mpeg movie with a realtime length of 1 min. The size is 192x144 with 25 fps. The movie was produced from some videos I made 1992 in Italy while skiing there. The cut was done with Adobe Premiere 3.0 and than converted with qt2mpeg 1.1b to a mpeg movie. The first scenes show myself and the last two show me and Claudia a good friend of mine (Thanks Claudia). Hope you find this movie fun to watch. (I will try a second one next year in 382x288 with 25fps) The file is called SkiRainer.mpg and is about 1.2 MByte in size. The compression rate is 1:102 and the quality is still very good I think. This is beta version qt2mpeg 1.1! If you find my utils usefull please send me nice postcard!!!!! You will find address below at the end of this readme file. This is my second beta version of Quicktime to MPEG, so you will find bugs. Changes from the version 0.1 - The qt2yuv converter now runs even when used on non truecolor screens. Sorry for this former bug. I allway run my Quadra in truecolor and never tested it in an other mode. - The MPEG encoder now is version 1.2 and not 1.0 alpha. (mpeg) - The MacMiNT version is updaten to the lastest status. The background feature now work great. - The old version only runs on a 68040 with FPU so all users without a full blow Quadra where not able to run the software. Now you can run this software on an 68030 with 68882. Hopefully with softfpu the Centris machines with a 68LC040 will be able to run this converter too. Please let me know if not. - added a new MPEG converter to the software. After alot of pproblems I got the mpeg encoder from Berkeley running (mpeg_encode). - added a new program called qt2yuvBerkeley. This will generate the different yuv files and an other shell script to make conversation as easy as possible. Changes from the version 0.5b - removed the stanford encoder from the distribution. Only takes space and isn't as fast the berkeley encoder. (Also it produces three times as mutch files as the berkeley once. For big movies this might get a problem). - change berekeley encoder to the new version 1.2. It works now with alot better quality. (Now all feature of the UNIX version). Thanks to Larry Rowe and his team. - dropped the qt2yuv program, because it only produces stanford encoder files. - qt2yuvBerkeley got some bug fixes. Main changes: 1. For some reasons the display window does show the movie centered. This bug is fixed now. All movies should work without problems. I also tested it with Adobe Premiere 3.0 which produce multiple segment files with differned compressor and it worked. 2. The bug which cause a unrecoverble crash when reaching the heaplimit is fixed. The converter stops when the heapspace get below 100 KByte. 3. Added support for YUV conversation of qt movies of any length. First the converter will count all frames in the qt movie and inform you in its statuswindow about it. Now you have to enter the startframe on which the converter starts with it conversation. Next you will be asked if you want continuemode or not. Yes = if you convert multiple segment keep the overall startframe in the parameter file allways 0. No = The overall startframe is set to the actual startframe!!! Might be usefull when converting only a special part of the movie. y or n is ok to select on of this options!!! After you have reached the end of the conversation you will be informated how many frames the converter could convert in this session. If you didn't reach the end write down the number of the continue startframe and quit the converter. Now restart it and use the same parameters and set the new startframe to the number the last run told you. - removed sources of the encoder because it took alot of space. All of you with ftp access are able to get the source from toe.cs.berkeley.edu. Software you will need too: You could use either mpeg player 0.3 (no suppport for it anymore. Stop because Sarkle is far better and Apple will bring MPEG playing support next year for Quicktime) or Sparkle 1.6. If you love a good Mac interface Sparkle is the way to go. Because this is a beta version I like to get your feedback. So if you find something you don't like, problems or what ever, sende me a mail and tell me about. Thank you. Here first some short intro to my approche to convert Quicktime movies to MPEG's. First the Quicktime to YUV converter is a FutureBasic program which reads in any Quicktime movie and converts it to a three seperate Y,U,V files. YUV is color model used in video technics as for example MPEG. This program should be really mac like to use. Sadly I couldn't make this program ran in background. I contacted the developers of FutureBasic, but they still don't know why my code wont run in background. I hope I could fix this in a future version. The YUV to MPEG conversation is handled under MacMiNT, a multitasking UNIX like development enviroment. I prefer to use MacMiNT because the MPEG converter which might run for hours, could run easy in background with out modifing the source code. This version of MacMiNT now has a stable background feature. I hope you will love MacMiNT as much as I do. I have also a version of the MPEG encoder which runs under MPW shell, but without the background feature. (If you are interested in this code send mail to me). The MPEG converter is based on the Berkeley mpeg 1.2 encoder you will find on toe.cs.berkeley.edu. The YUV converter was done by me as said befor in FutureBasic to speedup development time alot. As you see this software is first approche to help you using MPEG. I hope a friend of mine who has writen Sparkle will continue to work on a MPEG encoder integrated into Sparkle. You will find this software on: suniams1.statistik.tu-muenchen.de:/pub/mac/MPEG/encoder/... (131.159.64.1) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- III.8 | ATARI -------------- [ Bainstorm is not continuing to develop their MPEG-Player for ] [ the Atari, really sad :o( Maybe somebody can help them ? ] From: laurent@brasil.frmug.fr.net (Laurent Chemla) Subject: MPEG-FAQ - next version Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 14:39:39 +0000 (GMT) Frank, Of course you're right. Raphael Lemoine replied quickly, directly online on Compuserve, and as the author of our MPEG software he's quite disapointed by the little interest there is about. As a commercial entity, Brainstorm is trying to sell his work. But this kind of work is not an easy thing to sell. A few developpers asked us about our software, but could'nt pay for it. An easy solution would be to sell it to Atari Corp directly, and then developpers could get it from Atari at low price. But Atari licensed Cinepak for this usage, and they aren't interested in buying our MPEG. So we decided to forget it for a while. Our MPEG runs at the same (or so) rate, not depending on the resolution. It uses some of our 'real time' dithering algorithms on Atari. Added to the work on the DSP coding, you can see it's a good piece of software Raphael did. But it's not enough for selling it as a Shareware library, because it does'nt handle P and B frames nor the sound, and we wont work on it if we cant expect to be paid for this work. I have personnally written a few news about this software in the Atari's Usenet conferences, but only got 3 mails in return, and nothing really exciting. Anyway, be sure we will tell you if anything new occurs about that. Laurent Chemla @ Brainstorm -- Laurent Chemla : chemla@cnam.cnam.fr or laurent@brasil.frmug.fr.net Brasil BBS - +33 1 44 67 08 44 - Atari France developpers support --------------------------------------------------------------------------- III.9 | AMIGA -------------- [ There are lots of other MPEG-ports for the AMIGA ] mpeg2_0amiga.lha gfx/show 50K 40 Berkeley MPEG player 2.0 mpegplay201_bin.lha gfx/show 147K 43+MPEG player V2.01 executable mpegplay201_src.lha gfx/show 170K 43+MPEG player V2.01 sources mpeg_player122.lha gfx/show 206K 104+MPEG Player 1.22 (for all Amigas) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- III.10 | NEXT -------------- [ This piece of software is now available in Version 2.5. Its usally ] [ called MPPLAY. ] This is a new release of MPEG_Play.app, a threaded program for displaying multiple MPEG videos with capability for visual cueing ("scrubbing"). Release 3.0 is required to run the application, so it should probably be archived with other 3.0 binaries. MPEG Play is in the process of evolving from a bare-bones MPEG animation viewer into a full-fledged NeXT application. The current version is multi- threaded and supports the simultaneous loading and playback of multiple "mini-videos" at different rates as high as 28 frames per second. There is a group of "live controls" in the Window Settings panel which can be manipulated even while the video is playing. There is also a Transport panel with tape deck buttons. Both can be found in the Tools submenu. MPEG Play will keep track of different settings for each window, reflecting the current values in the various information panels whenever you select a new main window. When playback is complete, a few interesting performance statistics are shown in the Playback Statistics panel. This panel, as well as a File Info Panel, can be found in the Info submenu. Notes: You may have to wait some time after opening a new file before it will be shown. The MPEG file must be decoded into memory to allow rewind and random access. The frames will be counted as they are loaded. Playback is slightly slower when the Transport panel is visible, simply because it takes some CPU time to update the frame indicators. For maximum speed, close the Transport panel and use the menu options for Stop, Pause, and Play. This version is not recommended for NeXT systems without substantial system RAM and swap space. I have not personally used this software on anything other than a NeXTdimension with 88 MB of RAM, but future versions of MPEG Play will be adjusted for any problems with other systems. I have updated to version 2.0 of the mpeg_play code from Berkeley. B&W support is temporarily disabled. You can reach me as brianw@sounds.wa.com Brian Willoughby Software Design Engineer, BSEE NCSU NeXTmail welcome here Sound Consulting: Software Design and Development BrianW@SoundS.WA.com Bellevue, WA --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ This archive is usally called MPEGNEXT. ] This is a hack of Version 2.0 of the MPEG decoder from the Berkeley Plateau Research Group. (Please read their README.) Basically, I replaced all the X-Windows stuff with NeXTstep windows and discarded all of the dithering stuff. Don't need it since the NeXT is true color. This version is specifically optimized for a 16bit color NeXTstation. I did have to sacrifice some image quality to get the speed up. I don't know what its performance is because I use a NeXTdimension. In fact I would very much appreciated if some one would mail me the performance of this decoder. I am hoping for 6 frames/second. The NeXTdimension gets 5.5 frames/second. To get other MPEG movies please read the notes from the Berkeley Plateau Research Group. gary@isr.recruit.co.jp Media Design Center Recruit Co. Tokyo, JAPAN =========================================================================== IV | MPEG-RELATED HARDWARE =========================== [ We even have MPEG-AUDIO-solutions now, but still not a lot of ] [ information about them :o( who knows more ? ] From: popp@iis.fhg.de (Harald Popp) Subject: MPEG audio Layer-3 at AES Amsterdam Date: Wed, 16 Feb 1994 11:12:33 MPEG- Audio Layer-3: Best Music Quality at Lowest Bitrates! Audio Export: PC board with realtime Layer-3 audio codec Philips PKI: MAGIC codec for telecommunication networks Telos Systems: ZEPHYR codec for ISDN, Switch 56 and other networks Dialog 4: MUSICTAXI TYPE 3 for telecommunication networks and various PC solutions Fraunhofer-IIS: Objective Quality Assessment with the NMR meter (Noise-to-Mask Ratio) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ The first real MPEG-cards arrived ! ] From: jmm73@frmug.fr.mugnet.org (Jean-Michel Mercier) Subject: Info for the MPEG FAQ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 93 22:07:34 MET DST VITEC VIDEO-MAKER ================= Since December 92, there is a french MPEG PC-plugin. It's called VIDEO MAKER and it's manufactured by : VITEC 3 bis rue P. Baudry 92140 CLAMART FRANCE tel (33) 1.46.29.03.00 fax (33) 1.46.29.03.04 Features : Claims to be the world 1st MPEG board. 2 selectable video inputs NTSC/PAL/SECAM/S-VHS Picture up to 768x576 (by step of 16) Colors : 256/32K/16M Frame : 1 to 25 Fr/s No need for VESA Features connector 16 bit short card, no dip nor jumper, no DMA nor IRQ Windows software : IMAGER : record & compress moving or still picts. MPEG PLAYER : full software MPEG decoder/player, doesn't need the board (it seems that you can freely give this soft with your MPEG seqs.) MULTIMEDIA MANAGER VM : well known software from Multimedia Telecom to build your scripts with icons, sync. with sounds, etc... DLL for MCI & AVI availables What it's not said in the commercial : The card doesn't sample sound today but a daughter board should become available (you can still sample sound separ and the resync with M. MANAGER) You can't use the full specs at the same time (ie 768x576, 16M colors, 25 fr/s) even with a 486 as the compression is made by software In fact, the sequence is 1st stored in memory using a proprietary compression scheme and saved to disk as .VSF files. Then the offline compression could be achived. It seems that a PC with 8Mbytes of RAM should be able to record about 10 to 30 secondes of video. What's on the board : The board use Philips Digital Desktop video chipset (TDA8708+TDA8709+ SAA7191+SAA7197) witch provides 4:2:2 YUV video @ 14.75 Msmp/s It doesn't use the SAA7192 color space converter to get RVB so this should be done by software. There is also an XC3042-100 FPLA from Xilinx and 1Mx8bits of dynamic ram (70ns). Probably used for pre-compression. The public price is 3500FF ($625) but Surcouf (Paris' computer store) sells it about 2300FF ($410). There was an ad in march issue of BYTE (p127) @ $695. For US & canada the ad said to phone to 404-921-6167 or fax to 404-921-9243. There is an test of this card (9 other ones) in june issue of the french magazine "Multimedia Solutions". NOTE : I have nothing to do with VITEC. This is not an ad. It is my personnal understanding of VITEC's ads, magazines reports and phone calls to VITEC. Please contact VITEC for any contractual informations. MPEG CHIPS ========== Some new chips are about to be available from SGS-Thomson : STI3223 : motion estimator controller, intended to be used with previously released STI3220 STI3230 : MPEG coder STI3400 : MPEG coder (STI3240 coder + DCT processor) STI3500 : MPEG 2 coder Do you want me to get some more details fast ? TI introduce the TMS320AV110 MPEG audio decoder based on TI's 16 bits DSPs (about $14). Some other boards ================= OPTIBASE's MPEG2000 (Herzliya - Israel, Canoga Park - Calif.) It use an CCUBE (witch?), DSP56001 ant DCT chips from LSI. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ And there it is, just real magic ;o) ] ReelMagic MPEG-Video-decoder-card from Sigma Design Video-Decoder-Specification - MPEG-Video-Standard ISO 11172-Paris - 32.768 colors - Resolution 1024x768 - 30 frames/s - Video Overlay Audio-Specification - MPEG-Audio Level I/II - 8/16-bit PCM, 44 kHz sampling-rate - Synthesizer Yamaha OPL2 compliant - Audio Mixer PCM with FM or MPEG - Frequence 20 Hz - 20 kHz - Audio-Out Stereo-Headphone 2x75mW with 32 Ohm 2 V rms with 100 Ohm System-Specification - Standard ISA PBM PC 16 bit card - VESA compliant Feature Connector 15 Pin - DMA and IRQ-selection via Software (no Jumpers) - SCSI-I, CD-ROM-driver (MSCDEX 2.2) - Driver for Windows 3.1 and DOS 5.0 and higher - Support of Windows OLE 2.0 - MPEG-compatible with VideoCD (CD-I coded movies !!!) - Audio-compatible with DOS games and MPC sound standard Price at Cebit'94: - Reel Magic Lite (just the card) DM 679.- - Real Magic with SCSI-interface DM 899.- - Real Magic Kit with Sony CD-ROM DM 1299.- Contact: SIGMA Designs, Inc. Leopoldstrasse 28a/II 80802 Muenchen/GERMANY Fon: ++49 89 336443 Fax: ++49 89 335967 or SIGMA DESIGNS, Inc. 47900 Bayside Parkway Fremont, CA 94538 USA Fon: (510) 770-0100 Fax: (510) 770-2640 COMPUSERVE: GO DTPVEN Sigma BBS: (510) 770-0111 (9600-8-1-N) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Do you want to watch Cinama-Movies on your PC's ? I do ... ] From: Yasser.El.Chemaytilly@aedi.insa-lyon.fr (Yasser.El.Chemaytilly) Subject: Re: CD-i, and the MPEG format Date: 4 Mar 1994 16:00:03 GMT Organization: INSA Lyon - Computer Science Dept / France At this time, there are 3 ways of playing a Video-CD-I: - the Phillips CD-i with the Full Motion Video Card (approx $950 in Europe) - the Amiga CD^32 with its Full Motion Video Card (approx $670 in Europe) - a PC, 486 DX or DX2 with the Reel Magic MPEG card and a Sony CD-ROM player (for the moment, it only works with the Sony player) (the card costs approx $650 in Europe without CD-ROM player) The quality of the playback is identical and very good with either the CD-i or the CD^32 (same manufacturer) but is a little bit lossy with the PC card. Anyway, the Reel Magic card is practically as expensive as a full CD^32 system, CD-i (+FMV cartidge) being only a little more expensive. There may be software for playing Video-CDs on PCs, but I haven't heard of them yet. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Well and there's the XingIt!-card now, I try and translate the ] [ German description. ] Features: - realtime MPEG-Video-card for 386/486 and Pentium - Framegrabber for Xing-Format I-frame only movies from Video-In in 24-bit/pixel QSIF resolution - PAL/SECAM and NTSC - Xing-MPEG-to-real-MPEG compression software - different playing modes up to 320x240/30frames - selectable Refreshrate - Windows-Applications, incl. Window for Windows MCI and Media Player Price: DM 1499.- (so about $900) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Ha, a game-console with MPEG-support, a bit crazy, but the best things ] [ get pushed by nig-nag <grin> ] From: George Sanderson <G.Sanderson@ais.gu.edu.au> Date: Thu, 3 Feb 94 12:28:31 +1000 Subject: Re: THE MPEG-FAQ [Version 3.0] You may want to add to your MPEG FAQ that the Amiga CD32 game console is able to play both standard MPEG VideoCDs and the CD-I specific VideoCDs, with the addition of the MPEG card which is available now. As far as I know, the recommended retail price just for the CD32 in the USA is US$399 but it is selling below that now (US$376). In Australia, it is selling for AUS$594. It has been released in Europe in late 1993 and is selling very well (120,000+ units sold as of Jan'94). The major release date for the US market is sometime in March. There are at least 20 CD32 specific titles available (and it can play CDTV titles as well) and over 100 CD32 titles will be released in 1994. The price of the MPEG module is (guessing) US$299. Commodore is selling the units directly to wholesalers. here is some info about the Amiga CD32 (made by Commodore) with info about its MPEG module mixed in (i'll mail you more info about the MPEG module when I get it): AmigaCD32 CPU/Speed: 68EC020 @ 14MHz Architecture: 32 bit Throughput: 3.5 MIPS Chip RAM: 2 Megs of DRAM Fast RAM: None Non-Volatile RAM: 1 KB Custom Chips: I/O ports, Audio and Interrupt controller, DMA Controller, Video data controller (AGA chipset) CD-ROM controller Animation CELS: 8 Sprites per scanline (64-bit) & Unlimited Bobs (blitter objects) Video Modes: can display upto 1280 x 512 in 15 kHz Colours: 256,000/16.7 Million Sound: Stereo 8 bit Stereo 18 bit CD-DA DSP planned CD-ROM: Double Speed Top Loading Software Video Player: Partial Screen using 4096 Colours (CDXL) MPEG: Available now (see below) PhotoCD: Available as third party software Game Controller: 11 Buttons Supported CD Standards ---------------------- AMIGA CD32 Audio CD CD+G (Graphics) Most CDTV including CDXL VideoCD (MPEG1) - see below Connectors + Switches --------------------- 2 x Games Controller/Joystick/Mouse ports High Speed auxiliary connector for keyboard and virtual reality gloves, etc. Local slot expansion connector Power Switch and Indicator LED Reset Switch (momentary) Headphone jack and Volume slider MPEG Module (optional) ---------------------- Full screen, Full Motion Video and Stereo Audio replay direct from disc; total running time 74 minutes 352 x 288 at 25 Frames per Second (PAL mode - different for NTSC) Able to play most CD-I MPEG specific titles (they demonstrated that at the World of Commodore shows playing Star Trek 6, Top Gun, etc.) The Amiga CD32 hardware is able to genlock its graphics and sound on top of the MPEG output. Additionally, while the MPEG module is playing, the CD32 has about 80% of CPU left to use - this could mean some interesting games with video backdrops. The MPEG module comes with a MPEG disk that has a few rock video clips. Audio Output ------------ 2 channel, 4 voice stereo using 8 bit digital/analogue converters 18 bit audio CD stereo at 44kHz Video Outputs ------------- S-Video, Composite and RF (UHF) for TV Included -------- 11 Button Game Controller "Welcome" Disc Consumer Information Manual CD32 Users Guide RF video and Stereo audio cables + usually packed with 2 games Physical -------- 212 mm x 311 mm x 81 mm CPU 1.44 kg Power Supply 1.53 kg Warranty -------- 1 Year, return to regional service centre Power Supply ------------ External, 22 Watts --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please refer here to the section in the MPEG-FAQ Version 1.1, because I did not get a lot of new infos. There is a big list of MPEG-related chips, including vendor adresses. =========================================================================== V | MAILBOX-ACCESS =================== --------------------------------------------------------------------------- V.1 | ------ GENOA has right now a new BBS in Germany (Stefan Hartmann will put new MPEG-software there too), phone: ++ 49 211 686756 (16.8Kb/sec with US Robotics Dual Standard) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- V.2 | ------ This is the phone number of Xing Technologies' BBS: 805-473-2680 (2400b) (USA) Bryan Woodworth <bryanw@rahul.net> wrote: Would you also please add, that the Xing BBS now supports v.32bis and HST ! I am not sure on HST, but I am sure it supports v.32bis. However, I have a v.32bis modem, and could only connect at 9600. I think they do not have the modem configured properly. =========================================================================== VI.1 | FTP-ACCESS (PD) ======================== Please contact these ftp-sites for files before e-mailing to me !!! Site: busop.cit.wayne.edu Dir : /sys/pub/simpsons/incoming/mpeg /sys/pub/simpsons/incoming/mpeg1 Site: amiga.physik.unizh.ch [130.60.80.80] Dir : pub/aminet/ Site: ftp.cica.indiana.edu [129.79.20.17] Site: ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de [130.149.17.7] or quepasa.cs.tu-berlin.de Dir : /pub/msdos/incoming, /pub/msdos/dos/graphics, /pub/msdos/windows3/graphics /pub/aminet/ Site: ftp.germany.eu.net [192.76.144.75] Site: ftp.luth.se Dir : /pub/graphics/animation/mpeg Site: ftp.rahul.net [192.160.13.1] Dir : /pub/bryanw/pc/mpeg Site: ftp.uni-erlangen.de [131.188.1.43] Dir : pub/aminet/ Site: ftp.uni-kl.de [131.246.9.95] Dir : pub/aminet/ Site: ftp.wustl.edu [128.252.135.4] Site: isfs.kuis.kyoto-u.ac.jp Site: litamiga.epfl.ch [128.178.151.32] Dir : pub/aminet/ END ---------------------- CUT HERE --------------------- 5/6 
