General

PlayMPCD can display up to 24 menu elements in maximum 6 columns of 4. The one in the upper left-hand corners is number 1, the one to the right of that is number 2 etc.
A ‘menu element’ relates four objects:

• a bitmap picture, 96 x 96 in .BMP format e.g. the cover of a CD or LP
• a label below the picture containing some descriptive text
• a playlist file in .M3U format which is activated when the picture is clicked
• an optional information file in .RTF or .TXT format that is shown when the picture is right-clicked

The program itself does not contain hard-coded information about the menu elements: these can be set in the PlayMPCD.INI file, which makes the program very flexible to make all kind of MPCD’s (which is short for MP3 CDROMs). Additionally, PlayMPCD requires no installation or setup program and can be run directly from CD-ROM or any directory.

The MPCD format

The structure of an MPCD CD-ROM (see also the next section) must be as follows:

• The root directory of the CD-ROM should contain the files PlayMPCD.EXE, PlayMPCD.ICO, Autorun.INF, Msvbvm50.DLL and Richtx32.OCX
• A directory \Winamp should contain Winamp.EXE and related files. I would also advise to include the complete original Winamp installation file in a subdirectory.
• A directory \Data should contain PlayMPCD.INI, Help.RTF, BG_MPCD.BMP (optional background bitmap), the .BMP, .M3U and other optional .RTF and/or .TXT files. The example files in the data directory should be removed.
• For each menu element the .BMP, .M3U and .RTF (or .TXT) files should have the same file name, except obviously for the file extension.
• The .MP3 files that the .M3U files are referring to should be in the \Data directory or in subdirectories of the \Data directory.
• The .M3U playlists should only have relative references and must not include drive letters. For instance, "xxx.mp3" is OK but "D:\Data\xxx.mp3" is not. This will be done automatically when Winamp (at least version 2.09) saves a playlist in the same directory.

PlayMPCD.INI

PlayMPCD uses the PlayMPCD.INI file to determine its settings.

• The first line of PlayMPCD is the title as it appears in the top bar.
• The second line specifies the number of columns. Normally this line is empty and the program chooses, depending on the number of images specified, what the optimum number of columns is.
• All following lines specify each of the menu elements using the format:
  File_Name;Label_Text;Display_Options
  where:
  File_Name: the name of the .BMP, .M3U and .RTF files
  Label_Text: the text in the label below the cover (see below)
  Display_Options: B for bold, I for italics, 3 for 3D look (may be combined)

• When Label_Text is empty, it is assumed to be the same as the File_Name.
• The string "&NL" in Label_Text is replaced with a hard return
• When Label_Text is preceded with a |, the text following the | is added to File_Name.
• The optional information file must be in ASCII or preferably RTF format.
• An empty line leaves that specific element empty and shows nothing on the screen.
• A line starting with a semicolon is seen as a comment line and has no effect

Example 1: DS_BiA;Brothers in Arms;I

displays picture "DS_BiA.BMP" and label "Brothers in Arms", shows the DS_BiA.TXT or DS_BiA.RTF information file and uses the "DS_BiA.M3U" playlist file. Making the filenames the same as the text to be displayed (in this case "Brothers in Arms" with the right extension) the line would simply read
Brothers in Arms

Example 2: Brothers in Arms;|&NL(1985);B3

uses "Brothers in Arms" as filename and shows the label ‘Brothers in Arms’ plus ‘(1985)’ on a new line in bold typeface in a 3D frame.

PlayMPCD.ZIP

This file contains all files and information to make your own MPCD's including some example files namely covers, playlists and information files of Dire Straits CD's. These files are BG_MPCD.BMP plus the filenames that start with under an underscore in the file name and after studying them, especially the INI file, they should be deleted.
Included are also a number of WINAMP.INI files that can be placed in the WINAMP directory on the CD-ROM. The difference is in the placement of Winamp: this is centered in the PlayPMCD window when the right width is chosen. This file should be kept as read-only.

Testing the MPCD

PlayMPCD runs from any (sub) directory and the major advantage is that the whole MPCD can be tested before burning a CD-ROM. The program stops returns an error when a bitmap file is not found and it will display a red colored label when a .M3U playlist file can’t be found which is very useful for making the PlayMPCD.INI file.

• Covers of CDs can be easily found on the Internet. Good sources are www.allmusic.com, rock.yahoo.com and www.cdnow.com.
• Save covers as .BMP file and reduce the size to a 96 x 96 bitmap with MSPaint (for bitmaps from www.allmusic.com use 48% multiplication factor). Note that saving as 24-bit colors gives a much better visual appearance than 256 bit and yields a file size of 28kB.
• Resizing bitmaps can be done nicely using SuperJPG, a nice and handy tool, but you may also use one of the many other tools available.
• www.allmusic.com also includes great reviews and artist/group biographies that can be used as information files.
• You may include all sorts of information such as lyrics to the information file.
• It is very useful to include a menu element "All songs on CD" or similar title with an M3U file containing all songs on the MPCD.
• You may make your own playlists using MP3 files obtained from different CD's. One example could be a MPCD of the Rolling stones: the original UK albums never appeared on CD as such, but using the MP3's of other CD's you may re-construct them and include them on the MPCD (see Stones).
• The visual appearance is strongly effected by the background. For best results you would normally choose a suitable BG_MPCD.BMP that is rather light and is not directly recognized.
• The most recent version of Winamp can be downloaded from www.winamp.com. I have used version 2.09 since this generates playlists without other disturbing text so it works fine when clicking the titles of the covers.

Disclaimer

PlayMPCD is delivered as-is and without any guarantee. It is for personal use only and must not be used for commercial purposes or to distribute copyrighted material. Example files within PlayMPCD.ZIP are based on information obtained from the Internet and are solely for the purpose of clarifying the process and are thought to be free of copyrights.
All consequences for the use of this program are for the user and the author shall not be liable for anything (undoubtedly formulated legally incorrect, but the clear enough I’d say).

Have fun!

Tinus

July 2000

If you got all the way through here:

PlayMPCD is now superseded by PLAYCACD which can also handle and show lyrics files, use Windows Media player and can automatically generate a lot of the files the program needs, rather than producing the INI file yourself.  If you are interested mail me.

Tinus, December 2003

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