                        VCD PowerPlayer

           Video CD (VCD) and MPEG-1 Audio/Video Player

 
Introduction:

    VCD PowerPlayer is a pure software VCD and MPEG-1 audio/video 
  playing system. By using this software, Users can play VCD
  titles and MPEG-1 audio/video files without any additional
  hardware.
    VCD PowerPlayer can support CD-I, VCD 1.0, VCD 2.0, and normal
  MPEG-1 files. The frame size can be 320x240 (SIF), 384x240, 352x240,
  352x252, 288x252, 160x120, etc. LinkMPEG supports MPEG-1 Audio Layer
  I&II audio formats. The sampling rate can be 48.0kHz, 44.1kHz, 32kHz,
  or 22kHz. The MPEG-1 sequence can be audio/video, audio only, video
  only, or intra-frame only (still picture). VCD PowerPlayer supports
  DCI v1.6, DirectDraw I, II, and III, WinG and GDI display interfaces.
  It follows Digital Video MCI and OpenMPEG 1.10 specifications. Now,
  it can run under Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 operating systems. 


System Requirements:

  1. Pentium-90 PC compatible is required. Pentium-100 (or above) PC
     compatible is recommended.
  2. 8- or 16-bit sound card is required.
  3. 2 time speed CD player is required. 4 time speed CD player is
     recommended.
  4. 256 (or above) color VGA card is required. VGA with DCI or
     DirectDraw support is recommended.
  5. 8MB system memory is required.


Installation:

  After starting up Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 operating system, insert
  VCD PowerPlayer diskette into the floppy drive. Then, execute 
  a:\setup.exe (or b:\setup.exe) by double-clicking setup.exe file in
  drive 'a' (or 'b') under File-Manager program).


Execution:

    After completely installing VCD PowerPlayer under Windows 3.1,
  the user can see PowerPlayer group icon under Program Manager. By
  double clicking PowerPlayer icon, the PowerPlayer group window is
  shown. By double clicking VCD PowerPlayer icon, this program is
  executed and the front panel is presented on the screen.
 
    Under Windows 95 operating system, press START button in the lower-
  left corner first. Then, choose Program, PowerPlayer, and VCD PowerPlayer
  to start the program.


Configure VCD PowerPlayer:
 
Video Display¡G
  DCI     DCI (Display Control Interface) is a display control standard
          under Windows 3.1. If your VGA card supports DCI, please
          select this option.
  DDraw   DirectDraw is a video control standard under Windows 95. If
          your VGA card supports DirectDraw, please select this option.
  WinG    WinG is a fast displaying standard under Windows 3.1. By using
          WinG, the picture quality is worse and the performance is
          lower comparing to those of DCI or DirectDraw.
  GDI     GDI is a display standard under Windows 3.1 and Windows 95
          which achieves the worst performance among the four methods.

Video Screen¡G
  x1      1x1 display size
  x2      2x2 display size
  Full    Full-screen display size

Audio Setting¡G
  Channel 1  Open/Close Audio channel 1
  Channel 2  Open/Close Audio channel 2
  Mute     Play/Mute sound

Audio Quality¡G
  44K     The highest quality (CD quality)
  22K     high quality (broadcast quality)
  11K     normal quality (telephone quality)


Q&A:

  Q:      While playing VCD under Windows 95, the speed is very slow and
          the audio is break into segments. Why?
  A:      Most of these situations are caused by the conflict of IDE
          devices which connected to the same IDE bus. Your computer may
          be equipped with one IDE hard-disk and one IDE CD-ROM drive
          and these two devices are connected to the same IDE cable.
          There is a bug in Window 95 to handle such a situation. The
          CD-ROM driver provided by Windows 95 dumbly tries to issue
          seek command on every CD-ROM read request. It slows down the
          performance. There are two ways to solve this problem: one is
          to ask the technician to move one IDE device to another IDE
          cable; the other is to download 'iosupd.exe' from Microsoft
          ftp site and execute it. This is a patch program for the
          CD-ROM device driver. For Windows 95 OSR2, there is no need
          to run this patch.
          Besides, there is another possibility that causes this problem.
          You may set the wrong PIO mode for the IDE interface. Some
          CD-ROM drives report the wrong PIO mode or the PIO mode of your
          IDE interface is set too high. Please try to use manual setting
          and change it to lower level instead of PIO AUTO mode. PIO mode
          0 is the lowest level. Caution! If you are not familiar with
          the BIOS settings, please ask the maintenance engineer of your
          computer or someone who knows BIOS settings to change settings
          for you.
          Another possibility that causes this problem is that you have
          installed an old version of bus master IDE driver: Trionex(TM)
          Bus Master IDE driver. Please select Start->Config->Control
          Pannel->System->Device Manager->Hard Disk Controller and check
          if there is Trionex(TM) Bus Master IDE driver. The old version
          of Trionex(TM) Bus Master IDE driver has a bug inside. All the
          data access can be done well except VCD access. Please replace
          it with newer version (version 3.22 or later) or remove this
          driver. Caution! If you are not familiar with adding/removing
          windows device drivers, please ask the maintenance engineer of
          your computer or someone who knows how to add/remove windows
          device drivers to update the driver for you.

  Q:      VCD PowerPlayer cannot play CD-I under Windows 95, why?
  A:      Windows 95 Compact Disc File System (CDFS) does not support
          CD-I format such that VCD POwerPlayer can not read the data
          on the CD-I disc.

  Q:      The picture quality is not good, the color is not rich, why?
          The video quality and picture color is not good if DCI or
          DirectDraw is not activated. Please make sure DCI or DirectDraw
          driver is installed properly and check if it is used in VCD
          PowerPlayer by invoking the config dialog of VCD PowerPlayer.

  Q:      Why can't I execute VCD PowerPlayer under 16 color display mode?
  A:      Most of VGA cards do not support DCI (DirectDraw) under 16
          color mode, and VCD PowerPlayer does not support GDI and WinG
	  display under 16 color mode either. Please change display mode
	  to 256 color or higher.

  Q:      VCD PowerPlayer can not use DirectDraw or DCI under hi-color
          display mode or hi-resolution display mode, why?
  A:      Under hi-color display mode or hi-resolution display mode, the
          display occupies most of the display memory on the VGA card.
          Such that there is not enough display memory to be used while
          using DirectDraw or DCI functions. Then, DirectDraw or DCI is
          turned off. Please set it to low color display mode (e.g. 256
          color) or low resolution mode (e.g. 800x600). Another way to
          solve this problem is to expand the display memory on your VGA
          card.

  Q:      After switching the video window to full screen, the controller
          disappears, why?




