Autor..........: Lawrence A. Rowe, Ketan Patel, and Brian Smith,
                 Amiga Port: Michael Balzer
AmigaOS........: ab OS 2.0
Ben.Libraries..: ixemul.library, reqtools.library (sind dabei)
Beschreibung...: MPEG Animationsabspieler


This directory contains a public domain MPEG video software decoder.
Several dithering algorithms are supplied based on the Floyd-Steinberg,
ordered dither, and half-toning algorithms that tradeoff quality and
performance.  Neither the library nor the main routine handle real-time
synchronization or audio streams.

The decoder implements the standard described in the Committee
Draft ISO/IEC CD 11172 dated December 6, 1991 which is
sometimes refered to as "Paris Format." The code has been

Amiga:

This is the second release of the first public domain MPEG viewer
for the Commodore Amiga.  Please also read the file "README" for
some general information about this software.

Changes against V1.21 (first release):

 - Now runs on OS2.0 and up
 - Now needs reqtools.library
 - Screen mode & depth choosable
 - Version string (1.22)

I had to implement sort of a color allocation scheme for 2.x like
OS3.x has.  It isn't perfect yet, but it seems to work ok.

I have now included a version which will run on any processor.
Don't expect miracles on a 68000.


Amiga Specials
==============

The Amiga version of this player has (up to now) one additional
option called "-amiga window", that tells the player to open it's
output window on your workbench (better: default public screen).
Otherwise it will prompt you to specify the screen mode, depth
and size of the custom screen, the animation should be displayed
on.

If opening on workbench, you'll get the better results the deeper
your workbench screen is (pen sharing:  the player tries to
allocate 128 colors).

There's still no HAM support, but I'll think about it.


Speed
=====

Don't expect this player to be the Speedy Gonzales of anim
players.  On an Amiga 4000, you get a maximum of about 5.4 frames
per second (dithering gray on 128 colors NTSC lores screen).

Nevertheless, this release of the player is on my A4000 nearly as
fast as on a SUN Sparcstation IPC.  I think, many time is spent
converting the data to plane format.  I would love to see future
Amigas using byte-per-pixel-modes...