Short: The fastest Xing mpeg player w/cgfx support! Author: Nils.Corneliusen@spk2.dep.telemax.no (Nils Corneliusen) Uploader: carla@ifi.uio.no (Carl Henrik Aaby) Type: gfx/show XingPlay Final by Triumph Software ---------------------------------- What is XingPlay? ----------------- XingPlay is a pretty fast XING-style Mpeg player. In order to be fast, it cuts a lot of corners. For instance, there is no error checking on the file, it has better be correct! Also, the files must be in so called Xing-Mpeg format, ie. only I-frames and a resolution of 160x120. XingPlay was hacked together to be used to play the re-release of the SpaceBattle animation, which won the animation competition at The Gathering 1994. Today's normal mpeg players on the Amiga are just too slow and don't support double buffering :-(. What's hot... ------------- * the fastest Xing-Mpeg player available for the Amiga! * supports Cybergraphics with custom made render routines for all 16 and 32 bit modes * very fast 2x2 AGA HAM8 mode * extremely fast GREY modes! * even works on ECS based machines in 16 color grey mode! * double buffering in all modes! * loads entire Mpeg at once ...and what's not ----------------- * crashes badly for no reason at all :-) * somewhat system friendly, but not too much * probably trashes the sprite pointer on non-cgfx systems * Cybergfx modes are more reliable than the AGA/ECS modes * unsupported, I won't provide any upgrades Requirements ------------ - An amiga :-) - A 68020 processor or better - OS 3.0+ is nice, but it has been reported to work on 2.0 systems Usage ----- Sorry, the options do not follow the normal Amiga guidelines, but you should be able to understand them anyway! Generic options: -timing [x]: Timing control. (Erm, this option is known to crash badly, so don't use it :-).) If you, for instance, have a 060, it's a good idea to set this option. It specifies the minimum number of (VB) frames to wait between frames. Ie. if you set it to 5, you will get exactly 10 frames per second if your processor is fast enough. Otherwise it will just play as fast as it can. To select graphics mode: -g1: CyberGraphics 32 bit mode (provided your card has one!) -g2: CyberGraphics 16 bit mode -g3: CyberGraphics 8 bit mode in grey -g4: AGA HAM8 mode (AGA default) -g5: AGA Grey8 mode -g6: ECS Grey4 mode (ECS default) To select pixel mode: -p1: 1x1 pixel mode This gives you 160x120 with 1x1 pixels centered on the screen. -p2: 1x1 pixel mode, black dither 160x120 scaled to full screen, but only every other pixel on every other row is set. -p3: 2x2 pixel mode (default) 160x120 scaled to full screen with 2x2 pixels. How to create Xing style mpegs ------------------------------ Well, that's pretty simple. Just use the BuildMPEG.ifx script in ImageFX, ignore all fuzzy options and turn "Xing override" on. The rest should be pretty straightforward. Bugs? ----- Yep, there are lots of bugs in this program. However, I won't fix them, since I'm currently working on new, cool projects (like designing a completely new, lossy compression scheme :-). Consider this thing a quick hack. More Information ---------------- For more information about Triumph Software, try our web site: http://www.ifi.uio.no/~carla/triumph/ Legal stuff ----------- XingPlay is released as freeware. Use it as you wish. This readme file must always accompany the executable. How to contact the author (but why?) ------------------------------------ email: Nils.Corneliusen@spk2.dep.telemax.no (try spelling my name right! The mail won't bounce anyway!) snail: Nils Corneliusen Frydens gate 5A 0564 Oslo Norway ============================= Archive contents ============================= Original Packed Ratio Date Time Name -------- ------- ----- --------- -------- ------------- 47420 21032 55.6% 29-Oct-96 19:43:52 XingPlay 3885 1879 51.6% 03-Apr-97 23:52:12 xingplay.readme -------- ------- ----- --------- -------- 51305 22911 55.3% 04-Apr-97 15:56:20 2 files