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Diamond TV
Version 1.01
Release Notes (readme.txt)
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CONTENTS
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I. Installation
II. Setting up your options (What to do first)
III. TV performance in various display driver modes
IV. Some notes on capture and color
V. Trouble shooting
VI. Known restrictions
VII. Contacting Diamond Multimedia
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I. Installation
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The installation process consists of three steps:
1. Install the TrioV display driver (if not already installed).
2. Install Video for Windows 1.1E or greater (if not already installed).
3. Install the Diamond TV application.
1. Install the TrioV display driver.
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a. From within Windows or from DOS, run
install.exe from diskette 1.
b. Follow the remaining instructions on screen. You will
need diskette 2.
2. Install Video for Windows 1.1E or greater.
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a. From within Windows, run setup.exe from
the Video for Windows diskette.
3. Install the Diamond TV application.
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a. From within Windows, run setup.exe from the
Diamond TV application diskette.
b. You will have to close and restart Windows after this
installation.
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II. Setting up your options (What to do first)
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After installing Diamond TV, you may want to...
1. Program the tuner
2. Specify your audio connections
1. Program the tuner
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a. Bring up the Tuner dialog box by pressing Ctrl+T.
(You may also choose Tuner from the Settings menu.)
b. If you are outside of the United States, you may need
to change the Standard from the default of NTSC.
c. If you've connected an antenna to your TV card, then click on TV.
If you've connected cable TV to your TV card, then choose CATV.
In the United States, there are three common Cable TV formats.
Choose the appropriate selection for the TV Mode:
CATV -- Standard Cable
CATV (HRC) -- Harmonically Related Carrier
CATV (IRC) -- Incremental Related Carrier
d. Click on Auto Program. This will scan all the channels and
create a list of those that the tuner receives. This will take
about a minute. Some of these channels will be too weak for
viewing; you may want to delete these from the list by selecting
the entry in the Programmed Channels list and clicking the
Delete button.
2. Specify your audio connections
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a. Bring up the Audio dialog box by pressing Ctrl+A.
(You may also choose Audio Connections from the Settings menu.)
b. If you've connected the TV audio output to your sound card's
CD input, select 'Sound Card CD Input' in the External Audio
Connections combo box.
If you've connected the TV audio output to your sound card's
Line input, select 'Sound Card Line Input' in the External Audio
Connections combo box.
If you've connected the TV audio output directly to your powered
speakers, select 'Speakers' in the External Audio Connections
combo box.
Note: in this case, the TV remote's volume control will not work.
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III. TV performance in various display driver modes
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---------------------------- 1-MByte Card -----------------------------
-------- Display Driver Color Depth ------------
Desktop 256 64k 16M
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
640 x 480 A B
800 x 600 B No TV
1024 x 768 C
1152 x 864 No TV
---------------------------- 2-MByte Card -----------------------------
-------- Display Driver Color Depth ------------
Desktop 256 64k 16M
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
640 x 480 A A A
800 x 600 A A No TV
1024 x 768 B C
1152 x 864 No TV No TV
1280 x 1024 No TV
Legend
------
A Full TV Features
B Capture and Closed Captioning supported at refresh rates at or below 60 Hz
C Capture and Closed Captioning not supported
No TV TV does not run in these modes
(blank) Display mode does not exist
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IV. Some notes on capture and color
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1. Diamond TV allows you to capture to three color formats:
RGB 8 (256 colors with a palette)
RGB 16 (64k colors, no palette)
RGB 24 (16M colors, no palette)
When capturing to RGB 8, a palette is created before the actual
capture takes place. This may take as much as a few seconds to
complete. No palette is created (nor is it necessary) when
capturing to the RGB 16 or RGB 24 format.
2. You may size the TV viewing window by clicking and dragging the
corners of the TV window. There are no restrictions on the
window size.
In contrast, the size of the image that is captured is determined
in advance via the Capture Setup dialog box. You may specify
different sizes for motion capture and single frame capture,
independently.
For motion capture (AVI) and before the actual capture takes place,
the TV window is automatically resized to the capture size. When the
capture is completed, the original TV window size is restored.
For single frame capture (DIB) and before the actual capture takes
place, the TV window is resized to the capture size. To facilitate
rapid successive frame captures, the TV window remains at the capture
size.
3. After capturing to an AVI or DIB file, you may use a program of
your choice to view or edit the file. As a shortcut, DTV will
launch your viewers (one for AVI files and one for DIB files)
when you press the PLAY button on the remote (or use the F or
V shortcut keys). You inform DTV of your choice of viewers via
the Viewers dialog from the Capture Setup dialog box. The default
viewers are Paintbrush and Media Player.
Restrictions
Each of the various paint programs on the market handle color
formats differently. The following tables illustrate some
of the differences with three such programs.
------------------- Running in 256 Color Display Mode -----------------
---------------- Paint Programs ----------------
Capture PCTools Adobe
Format: Paintbrush File Viewer Photoshop2.0
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8-bit DIB file looks good looks good looks good
(256 Palette)
16-bit DIB file maps to SYS can't read can't read
(No Palette) colors, bad 16-bit file 16-bit file
24-bit DIB file uses only 16 looks good looks good
(No Palette) colors, bad
----------------- Running in 64k or 16M Color Display Mode ------------
---------------- Paint Programs ----------------
Capture PCTools Adobe
Format: Paintbrush File Viewer Photoshop2.0
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
8-bit DIB file looks good looks good looks good
(256 Palette)
16-bit DIB file looks good can't read can't read
(No Palette) 16-bit file 16-bit file
24-bit DIB file looks good looks good looks good
(No Palette)
4. Before capturing, DTV makes sure that you have the required disk
space to capture PLUS an extra 5 Megabytes. To change this amount,
you may add a line in the file DTV.INI located in your windows
directory (usually c:\windows\dtv.ini).
To change the margin from 5 Megabytes to 1 Megabyte:
In the [Capture] section, add...
DiskSpaceMargin=1
5. Motion (AVI) capture performance depends greatly on the speed of your
system and the capture parameters. As you increase the capture size,
format or frames-per-second, more frames may be dropped during capture.
This happens because your harddisk cannot keep up with the video.
The following hints will significantly improve capture performance:
a) Use 32-bit Access
From Control Panel, open Enhanced.
Click on the 'Virtual Memory...' button.
Make sure that both Disk Access and File Access indicate 32-bit.
If not, click on the 'Change>>' button and check the two
check boxes for 32-bit access at the bottom of the dialog box.
b) Use a RamDrive
If you have lots of system RAM, you can allocate some or most of
it as a RAM drive. This behaves like a normal disk drive (except
that its contents are lost when you reboot or turn off your
computer), but unlike a harddisk, it's very fast. In the
Capture Setup dialog box, you can specify to capture to drive
d: instead of c: (the RAM drive will be d: assuming you only
have one harddisk, c:). When the capture is finished, you
must copy the AVI file from the RAM drive to your harddrive.
For help on configuring your RAM drive, type the following
command at the DOS prompt:
help ramdrive.sys
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V. Troubleshooting
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This section contains troubleshooting hints not contained in the
on-line help.
No additional hints (see the on-line help).
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VI. Known restrictions
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1. Supported Formats in version 1.01
NTSC USA is supported for TV and CATV (standard, HRC and IRC).
NTSC Japan is supported for TV and CATV. Pal B,G is supported
for TV and CATV. SECAM is not supported.
2. Viewports and panning are not supported while DTV is running.
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VII. Contacting Diamond Multimedia
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In order to get on the Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc. mailing list,
please be sure to fill out the product registration card and mail it in
today. If you need help, you can contact us via one of the many ways
listed below.
Phone (408) 325-7000
Technical Support (408) 325-7100
FAX (408) 325-7171
BBS (408) 325-7080 (14.4 kbps, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop)
(408) 325-7175 (28.8 kbps, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop)
Mail Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc.
Attn: Technical Support
2880 Junction Avenue
San Jose, CA 95134-1922
CompuServe GO DMNDONLINE or GO GRAPHBVEN
Leave mail for us at ID#: 75300,3673
To open an account, call CompuServe at (800) 848-8990
America Online Leave mail for us by typing GO DIAMOND --
keyword DIAMOND. To open an account, call
America Online at (703) 893-6288
Microsoft Network GOTO DIAMONDONLINE
Internet FTP Server: ftp.diamondmm.com
Worldwide Web WWWServer: www.diamondmm.com
BEFORE YOU CONTACT US: please have the following information handy:
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* Proper name and version of the product (see the DTV 'About' dialog box).
* Contents of your boot files: autoexec.bat config.sys system.ini
* System information
- Make and model of your computer/motherboard.
- System BIOS manufacturer and date (this is usually printed
at the top of your screen on power-up.
* Detailed Problem Description
Be as detailed as possible. The more information you can
provide, the better. Please include any error messages that
you've encountered. Also include a description of what DOES work.
;
; $Id: readme.tx@ 1.7 1996/03/25 13:34:06 erikg Stable $
;
; Copyright (C) 1995, Diamond Multimedia Systems.
;
Download Driver Pack
After your driver has been downloaded, follow these simple steps to install it.
Expand the archive file (if the download file is in zip or rar format).
If the expanded file has an .exe extension, double click it and follow the installation instructions.
Otherwise, open Device Manager by right-clicking the Start menu and selecting Device Manager.
Find the device and model you want to update in the device list.
Double-click on it to open the Properties dialog box.
From the Properties dialog box, select the Driver tab.
Click the Update Driver button, then follow the instructions.
Very important: You must reboot your system to ensure that any driver updates have taken effect.
For more help, visit our Driver Support section for step-by-step videos on how to install drivers for every file type.