PMMPEG.EXE Release 3.0 - An OS/2 Presentation Manager MPEG movie player. This program will play MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group) digital movies in a window on your OS/2 desktop. It can handle I-Frame style movies that are used by the DOS Xing MPEG player, plus IBP-Frame style movies that the Xing can't currently handle. It cannot play movies that have embedded sounds, such as those generated by the ReelMagic card. I received a great deal of quality feedback from dozens of people that tried previous releases of PMMPEG. Here are of some of the new features that have been implemented based on your suggestions. Please continue to send suggestions and bug reports, it will help to make PMMPEG better for everyone. New Features in PMMPEG 3.0: * Added DIVE support. This is the high-speed graphics and color conversion interface built into every video driver that ships with OS/2 Warp running with at least 256 colors. * Designed smaller icons in the toolbar to save screen space. * Redesigned the menus and added new options, as outlined below. * Added a Registration feature. Don't worry! It gently reminds you to register each time the application starts up. There is no reduced functionality and none of your files is changed in any way. * Added Save current movie feature. * Added Half/Normal/Double playback size options. * Added Unlimited/Fast/Medium/Slow playback speed options. * Added an option to turn the menu/toolbar on and off. When off, you can still access the menu and toolbar with a click of Mouse Button 2. * Added an option to maintain the aspect ratio during a resize of the playback frame. * Updated the status bar to show the movie size, frame rate and an indication of the movie type: I frame or IBP frame. * Redesigned the sizing scheme. Removed the Small/Large button in the toolbar as you can resize the movie by resizing the frame to any size you like. You can even Maximize it! The Half/Normal/Double menu options help to get exact sizes with a click. You can use the maintain the aspect ratio menu item to keep the movie properly proporationed as you resize it. * Moved all saved information out of the OS/2 INI file and into PMMPEG.INI, which lives in the same directory as the PMMPEG.EXE file. * Removed the Beep at the end of the movie. * Updated possible command line options. * Updated configuration data values saved between runs. * Updated popup panel when non-understood file is loaded. * Updated the popup message when no help file found more understandable. * Mentioned how to make Ultimotion movies with the VideoIn application from the OS/2 Warp Bonus Pak. * Bug fix: Client was sized just a little too small, this has been fixed by virtue of the new sizing method. * Bug fix: No one discovered a latent bug where the Open File dialog would fail if a movie name was passed on the command line with a relative path. New Features in PMMPEG 2.1: * Optimized playback speed with I/B/P movies. They play at much higherframe rates and as a side effect the bug with stepping frame by frame in I/B/P movies has been corrected. * Added Slideshow feature. This allows you to select multiple files with the File Dialog, drag/drop multiple files from somewhere on the desktop or specify multiple files on the command line. PMMPEG will then play each movie, one after the other, and optionally loop back to the front of the list and play again if the Loop mode is set. * Added Toolbar buttons that allow you to save the current frame to the Clipboard or to an OS/2 Bitmap file * The Statistics dialog has been replaced by a Status bar that can be optionally displayed at the bottom of the frame. This shows the relevant statistics for the movie: resolution, frame count (for I/B/P and displayed frames) and frame rate in frames/second. * If a decoding problem occurs on a particular frame, the status bar will optionally be displayed with a red background for that frame. * A pop up message will be displayed if the current display configuration is not set up for at least 256 colors. This is required for proper display of the images. * Added WS_ANIMATE bit to respect system window animation option. * Updated MPEG movie site information. * Added MPEG-2 decoder discussion to help file. * Added DIVE discussion/problems to help file. * Tested increasing color dithering space up from 128 colors but there was not much visual difference and performance suffered. * Optimization: Check and don't change a button if it's already in the required state. * Optimization: Quickly skip initial frames until a non-all-black frame is found. This will always display the first valid frame of any movie. * Optimization: Better frame/second calculation, still mildly optimistic. * Bug fix: Leaves movie positioned at last frame when it ends. * Bug fix: Only one error message on improper end sequence, stops gracefully. * Bug fix: Gets focus on startup as it should. * Bug fix: Fixed memory leaks and optimized internal table use. * Internal: Cleaned up compiler warnings in source, removed dead code. * Internal: Removed frame size calculation hack. New Features in PMMPEG 2.0: * Toolbar with tape controls (Play/Stop/Rewind/Step/Size/Color/Loop) * Accept MPEG filename on command line and automatically play it - Useful for Mosaic, Desktop Object, Associating all MPEG movies * Command line options for playback size, color and looping * Configuration data saved between runs * Drag/Drop MPEG movie onto PMMPEG * Double size playback is possible both in Color and Grayscale * Now plays more movies than Release 1 could handle PMMPEG is a Shareware program. The cost is $15 and has been bargain priced to recoup some of the development, postage and network costs associated with distributing it. PMMPEG can be ftp'd from ftp.cdrom.edu. It's currently in the /pub/os2/incoming directory as pmmpeg30.zip, but will be moved shortly to /pub/os2/mmedia. Mike Brown SES Computing, Inc.