	#
	| README file for ELSAmotion Windows, ver 1.21
	|
	|       ELSAmotion
	|
	| Copyright (c) 1994-96 ELSA GmbH, Aachen (Germany)
	|
        |                                     Subsidiary:
        | ELSA GmbH                           ELSA Inc.
        | Sonnenweg 11                        2150 Trade Zone Blvd.
        | D-52070 Aachen                      Suite 101
        | Germany                             San Jose, CA 95131
        |                                     USA
        |
        | Phone      : +49-241-9177-0         Phone: +1-408-935-0350
        | Support Fax: +49-241-9177-213       Phone:  1-800-272-ELSA
        | BBS (modem): +49-241-9177-981       Fax  : +1-408-935-0370
        | BBS (ISDN) : +49-241-9177-7800      BBS  : +1-408-935-0380
        | CompuServe : GO ELSA                CIS  : GO ELSA
        | WWW        : http://www.elsa.de     WWW  : http://www.elsa.com
        |
        | 08/12/96, fb


	Table of Contents:

	1.      Overview
	2.      Release Notes
	3.      Caveats


------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.      Overview

	This disk (or CD-ROM subdirectory) contains the ELSAmotion
	Windows driver.

	The Windows driver enables the ELSAmotion to be used as an
	MCI-device by Windows Media-Player and alikes. It can be
	used to view MPEG films under all graphics modes your graphics
	card supports. MPEG films may be taken from CD-ROM, VideoCD or
	CD-i (CD-interactive) devices. Playback may be done with up to
	30 frames per second from iconic size to full screen (depending
	on your graphics board). For this, a DCI-/DirectDraw- supporting
        graphics board is required (e.g. ELSA WINNER 1000AVI, WINNER 2000AVI,
	WINNER 2000PRO/X..).


------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.      Release Notes

	This section describes changes to the last releases of this
	disc.

	VERSION 1.00:
	- first production release
	- disabling screen saver during run
	- integrated volume control
	- numerous minor bug fixes
	- vdma allocation bug after screen resolution change fixed

	VERSION 1.01:
	- restore of palette in 8 bpp screen mode after dos-box fixed
	- made dialog boxes system modal
	- close driver destroys window
	- new physical memory access

	VERSION 1.02:
	- volume now saved in configuration file
	- OLE integration and operation in user-supported windows
	- changed name to ELSAMPEG.DRV
	- some new error messages
	- custom command table for realmagic and OM api support

	VERSION 1.10:
	- supporting realmagic and OM1 windows api (restrictions see
	  helpfile)
	- new information window in config dialog to show MPEG
	  parameters
	- now supporting multi-track VideoCD's and CD-i's
	- complete configuration save/restore

	VERSION 1.11:
	- slider positioning reworked
	- closing window at load to avoid showing incorrect frame
	- ending fullscreen mode switches to application provided window

	VERSION 1.12:
	- file length corrected, repeat bug and last frame display
	- slider position taken from mpeg stream
	- some fixes on window handling
	- Protection fault error at close of externally provided window
	  fixed
	- more general scheme to identify ELSAmotion card on PCI
	- fixed disk change detection on swapping CD's
	- included interface to ELSAvision

	VERSION 1.13:
	- fixing Triton Bug
	- separating right and left channel for mono audio

	VERSION 1.14:
	- reading CD-i with Toshiba drives now should work fine
	- version info in configuration dialog
	- prime driver for Win95
	- fixed trouble getting in / out DOS-Boxes
	- recognition of CD-ROM change enhanced
	- calling configuration dialog with right mouse key if in
	  fullscreen
	- being called by Visual Basic now should be stable

	VERSION 1.15:
	- redraw of background optimized if using DCI-primary-mode
	- correct MPEG-display with source resolution up to 384*288 dots
	- all MCI-commands described in OM-1 standard for windows are
	  supported. For exceptions see "known bugs".
	- framerate and picturesize are read before start of replay
	- fixed some bug in multiple opening and closing windows
	- new installation procedure for Windows 95

	VERSION 1.16
	- added support for videodc, seek offset/frameref and step key
	- 1 frame displayed after seek and step, stabilized play after
	  cue
	- displaying number of audio and video streams
	- improved support for users of MicroSoft Multimedia-Kit
	- still frame on mci-command: update
	- stabilizing restart after DOS-Boxes (Win95)
	- repeat selection with MediaPlayers <ALT>-<P>
	- FileManager allows playback of single tracks on VideoCD
	- improved positioning before playback
	- crashing after replay from Win95 explorer fixed

	VERSION 1.17
        - no more crashing after halting replay by mouse in Win95
        - first 32bit driver with DirectDraw for Win95
        - communication with ELSAvision software stabilized
        - problems with scarce DOS memory may be fixed by disabling
          VideoCD file support
        - no more crashing if properties dialog enabled at closing
          driver

        VERSION 1.18
        - optimized behaviour and performance while reading from hard-
          disk
        - audio-mpeg opened faster and played to the end, no blank
          window
        - correct display format at mpeg widths apart from 352
        - much better positioning in file
        - screensaver deactivated under Win95 also
        - no error messages from using control panel/drivers any more
        - synchronous operation of ELSAvision / ELSAmotion boards
          possible
        - now working 8-bit mode primary

        VERSION 1.19
        - no more error by modified parameters in MCI-commands
        - MCI messages ON/OFF added
        - all preset parameters taken from registry
        - Win95 overlay, arbitrary size in offscreen mode
        - corrected behaviour at multiple runnings
        - fault tolerance to MPEG-streams enhanced
        - improved end-of-film recognition, no more flickering after
          stop/pause

        VERSION 1.20
        - corrected 32-bit overlay background color mismatch
        - PLAY WAIT no longer crashes system
        - adopted to OM-1.10
        - no more volume fallback on play command
        - improved repeat mode and positioning at end-of-file
        - less distortions at too large windows in primary mode
        - color distortions in YUY2 mode corrected on VPIC D boards

        VERSION 1.21
        - optimized playback of short audio-only MPEG's
        - display of still frames optimized after seek / step / cue
        - corrected 1:1 display, also for 352 / 368 / 384 pixel width
        - no more errorenous notifications, position display corrected after load / seek
        - enhanced display in overlay- and primary-mode, limited primary to 640*480
        - restart after pause with less distortions
        - copy and capture faster and more stable, delivers True-color always
        - time format set to FRAMES after OPEN

------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.      Caveats

	This section documents known anomalies or problems and gives
	hints on work arounds.


3.1     Installation

	Installation problems may be checked out in detail by
	"MPEGTest". See documentation.

	If the Media Player encounters any problems with an MCI-device
	(e.g. board removed..) after changes in SYSTEM.INI it marks the
	device as bad and removes it from his device-table. To reenable
	it, you have to remove the lines "MPEGVideo=0," and "VideoCD=0,"
	from the MPLAYER.INI file or modify SYTEM.INI again and restart
	the Media Player without a mpeg-film file name. In Windows 95,
	the driver is checked at every start of MediaPlayer.

	If there were other MPEG-devices installed, their dynalinks are
	removed, but they remain accessible as MCI-devices.


3.2     Using VideoCD / CD-i

	Depending on an alternate data format, CD-i's are unreadable by
	some CD-ROM drives. See section 5.11 for details on certain
        drives.	If you get a message "MCI device not installed" using
        the VideoCD driver and having inserted a VideoCD in your drive,
	your CD-ROM driver isn't capable of reading "raw-mode" (2532
	bytes per sector, no error correction). An updated version
	should solve the problem.
	If you try to replay pure CD-i's, tracks may not appear. Linear
	replay and positioning by time/frame are possible.


3.3     Distortion of sound / Framesize

	Depending on Framesize there might be short flaws in sound
	(mainly in "primary" mode on slower graphics boards). For this
	reason frame size in the above mode is limited to 640*480 dots.
	If film stops sometimes for a short while, you should disable
	your disk-cache (e.g. smartdrive) for the drive you play your
	mpeg files from.
	Replay speed is settable to 1 (speed 1000) or 2 (speed 2000),
	but, in double speed mode, frames are dropped.


3.4     Supported graphic boards / color modes

	Recently there are color failures in 24 bpp mode and in
	YUV. Using "offscreen" they aren't used. Using 8 bpp modes may
	lead to false colors on the desktop, which will be restored
	after closing media player. Try setting up Windows Desktop to
	use "Windows standard color scheme" if color is mismatched.
	Current hardware / software doesn't support 64k-banked VGA as
	well as scattered "offscreen"-surfaces. In this case your
	graphics cards isn't able to deliver graphics memory "in one
	piece".	These errors will be solved by future hardware releases.


3.5     Other caveats

	- Depending on MPEG coding, some films can show distorted,
	  interrupted video. This won't happen with professional CD-i's
	  or VideoCD's.
        - at audio silence, some clicking sounds will be heared
        - running overlay or primary, the frame sometimes after longer display
          will vanish
        - if your computer enters power-saver-mode while running MPEG's, on ELSA
          WINNER 1000TRIO/V or VICTORY your computer will crash. This is a graphics-
          driver-bug
        - if you try to reactivate media player while it is seeking within a film,
          it will cause Win95 to hang


3.6     Triton Board failure / 486 PC's

	On some of the newer Pentium boards with the Triton Chipset
	(mainly Intel Alladin and Zappa) the system crashes after a
        few seconds running offscreen. The reason is a bug in the chipset
	which may be circumvented by reprogramming it. This is enabled
        automatically, but can be disabled by inserting "TritonFix=0" into
        the [DCISurface] section of "win.ini" (Win31) or in Registry's
        section "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/
        Class/MEDIA/DDrawSurface" (Win95).
        If you encounter other crashes, especially corrupting harddisk,
        you will need to disable IDE prefetch buffer in the BIOS. This
        is due to a bug in your IDE controller chip in conjunction with
        the Triton Chipset.


3.7     not supported MCI-commands / parameters

	- seek parameter exactly
	- only audio and video stream 1 is supported
	- no frame-exact positioning
	- step parameter key not supported
        - put source won't work in primary mode
        - update hdc / update paint won't work


3.8     OLE-embedding

	there is no still frame displayed


3.9     Windows 95

	Some of the Win95 CD-ROM-drivers aren't capable of reading CD-i
	inspite of their Win 3.1x counterparts causing no problems. Also,
        on some drives swapping VideoCD's will not be recognised. Close
        Mediaplayer and start it again.

	ELSAmotion is only capable of running offscreen if used in
        conjunction with DirectDraw. On ELSA WINNER graphics boards,
        Windows 95 driver Version 1.04 and newer is required. If you use
        it with other graphics boards or older driver versions, you will
        only have DD-primary support. The same will appear, if you
	upgrade from Windows 3.1x to Windows 95 without reinstalling
	ELSAmotion driver.

	If you installed a recent grafics card (e.g. ELSA VICTORY 3D) and its
	drivers, you may loose your surfaces in MPEGTest. In this case, please
	install the newer Version of DirectX (Version 2), supplied on this CD
        (or Disk2 in diskversions).

3.10    Low DOS memory

        If you encounter the message: "No memory for CD-ROM data buffer"
        (or "...control buffer") while starting MPEG or VideoCD driver,
	you are out of DOS-low-memory. This memory is required for
	reading of VideoCD and CD-i. If you don't plan to play "*.DAT"-
	files directly (single tracks of VideoCD), you may suppress this
	message by inserting the line: "VideoCDFiles=0" into
        [ELSAmotion] section of "elsamot.ini". On Win95 systems, these
        effects are unlikely to happen.

3.11    Compatibility of CD-ROM's
        The following combinations of CDRom-drive / Controller / driver
        are known to work:
        - Win 3.11
          Sony CD33
          Sony CD55 / ATAPI / IDE
          Toshiba 3601 & 3701/ Adaptec 2940 & NCR / EZSCSI 4.0c
          NEC 6xi / NCR / adaptec drivers
          Toshiba 5302B / IDE
          Plextor 4PlexPlus / Adaptec AVA-1505 / Aspi2Dos 3.59, Aspicd 3.2
        - Win 95
          Toshiba 3501 / NCR / with DOSCAM, ASPI, ASPICD (from adaptec)
          Toshiba 3501 / Adaptec / ASPI8DOS V1.12, ASPICD
          Toshiba 3401 / NCR
          Toshiba 3701 / Adaptec 2940 / EZSCSI 4.0c no CD-i replay

3.12    Coding of Audio Files
        Because ELSAmotion does a lot of buffering, the correct end-of-
        file is hard to recognize on short Audio-only MPEG's. If you are
        a producer of this type of file, include about half a second of
        silence after your audio.

