MEDIAMATICS MPEG ARCADE(tm) 95 Player

Document ID: 94000453
Posted Date: 1996-08-19
Last Updated: 1996-08-19
Distribution: View Public Website

Information: MEDIAMATICS MPEG ARCADE(tm) 95 Player
Version 2.00.XX

This is a OM-1 compatible MCI driver enabling software only Decode of MPEG-1 streams. This player reads MPEG-1 System, Video and Audio Streams of up to 1.5Mbits/sec from Hard Disk or ISO/High Sierra CDROMS and plays back on Windows 95.

Hardware Requirements:
· Pentium 75/90Mhz Processor based System.
· Direct Draw Enabled graphics Card (Recommended)
· SVGA graphics, (256 Color minimum)
· 8/16 bit Audio Card with Windows 95 Drivers.
For 8 bit Cards - please configure the MPEG driver using Multimedia
section in the Windows 95 Control Panel.

Playing MPEG (.MPG, .MPA, .MPV ) files from Windows95:
To play a MPEG file run Media Player in one of two ways:
· Start/Programs/Mediamatics Software MPEG/Arcade Media Player.
· Start/Programs/Accessories/Multimedia/Media Player.

1. On the Device menu, click the Mediamatics Arcade (TM) Player.
2. Double-click the file you want to play. (Files with .mpg , .mpa, .mpv extension)
3. Click play the play the MPEG file.

Playing VideoCD (.DAT) files from Windows95:
To play a MPEG file run Media Player in one of two ways:
· Start/Programs/Mediamatics Software MPEG/Arcade Media Player.
· Start/Programs/Accessories/Multimedia/Media Player.

1. On the Device menu, click the Mediamatics Arcade (TM) Player.
2. Double-click the file you want to play in the AVSEQ directory on the CDROM drive.
(Files with .dat extension)
3. Click play the play the Video CD file.

The Arcade Player for Windows95 is capable of playing only the newer CD-i discs which also carry the Video CD label. Older discs with only the CD-i label cannot be read by the drive. The DISC's that can be played back have the label "VIDEO CD" on the jacket or on the disc. See following sections on Issues with CD-ROM drives for more information.

Configuration Tips:
Before changing either the Audio or Video quality settings from within the Device/Properties dialog box, be sure to stop playing all clips and exit all running instances of Media Player. The new settings will take effect when the Media Player is restarted. Also, use the same settings for all instances of Media Player - you cannot choose to have different settings for different clips.

Trouble Shooting

1.Video updates very slowly when playing Video CD files from CDROM.
· Make sure CD-ROM drive capable of VideoCD playback.
· Make sure that your Enhanced IDE CD-ROM drive is a master on the secondary IDE controller. These drives do not operate well on the primary controller as SLAVE.

2.MPEG files playback fine on my system when Windows 3.1 was installed. Now they don't look as good or don't play back as fast.
· Contact your graphics card manufacturer, to make sure that the graphics driver installed on your system is Direct draw enabled.

3. I just purchased a MPEG title and it doesn't seem to work properly.
· Older MPEG titles from Sigma Design, aren't compliant with the Open MPEG standard.

Issues with CD-ROM Drives under Windows95

Problem:
- Windows 95 does not support reading CDi movies. CDi discs, which can be identified by the words CD-I on the top left corner of the CD jacket and the words Digital Video on the bottom right corner are not supported by Windows95 CDFS. This previously was supported under Windows 3.1. In order to playback the movies under Windows 95 we need to use the Real Mode CDROM driver used in Windows 3.1. This is because the CD-ROM Driver provided by Windows 95 supports only the WhiteBook-Compliant Video CDs (VideoCD label in the bottom right corner of the CD jacket).

Solution:

The following solution is only suggested as a means to achieve some CD-I playback capability. We do not recommend this procedure for anyone who is not familiar with installing Windows 3.1 device drivers or devices.

Use the Real Mode CDROM Driver which was set and loaded in your system before you installed Windows 95. During Setup, Windows 95 will remove the MSCDEX.EXE by remming the entry in the autoexec.bat file.

Do the following steps:
1. Install the Real Mode CDROM driver. Read the installation information that comes with the CD-ROM drive in case of questions
- In the AUTOEXEC.BAT, remove the REM from the line
REM C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX.EXE /D:SONY_000 /M:10 /V
(or add the line without REM if it is not there)
(the above line assumes a Sony drive)
- Make sure the proper CDROM Real Mode device driver is loaded
in CONFIG.SYS. Double check this with the old copy of the
CONFIG.SYS you backed up before installing Windows 95.
2. In Control Panel, double-click the System option.
3. Click the Device Manager tab.
4. Select the device type CDROM controller.
5. Click the remove button.
If the CD-ROM drive is an IDE drive and connected to the same IDE controller of the hard disk (or SCSI drive connected to the same SCSI controller of the hard disk), you will need to remove also the hard disk controller (typically the second one) from within the Device Manager. The IDE controller may sometimes be labeled the "Standard IDE/ESDI Hard Disk Controller". These entries will be in the Hard Disk Controller section.
6. Restart WINDOWS 95. Now, the Real Mode driver is active.

NOTE on IDE CD-ROMS
If you play VideoCD's in the Protected Mode of the CD-ROM driver (32 bits) and the CD-ROM drive is installed as a slave drive on its own controller (if it is an IDE drive), the playback performance will suffer terribly.

Solution : Install the CD-ROM drive as a MASTER drive on a secondary IDE controller, OR use the Real Mode driver as described in the previous section. If you are running Windows 95 OSR2 (release Aug 1996) you will not have any problems. If you are running an earlier version of Windows and your are a system OEM, Microsoft provides a patch for this bug that works with Windows 95 OSR2.
Export Control and EULA: Use of any software made available for download from this system constitutes your acceptance of the Export Control Terms and the terms in the Dynabook end-user license agreement both of which you can view before downloading any such software.