Q U A D R A N T I N T E R N A T I O N A L , I N C .
C I N E M A S T E R R E A D M E F I L E
G E N E R I C R E L E A S E
June 11, 1998
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This software is a matched set. Please read the "Known Issues
and Notes" section after the change list.
CineMaster-S 2.x Drivers Version: 1.1.06.0182 (cinemast.dll)
DVD Player Software Version: 1.6.00.0007 (dvdplayer.exe)
DVD GUI DLL Version: 1.6.00.1002 (dvba00us.dll)
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C H A N G E S F R O M P R E V I O U S R E L E A S E
1. DirectX 5.0 VPE has been implemented, and works with version
4.05.00.0155 and higher of DirectX 5.0.
2. Added code to make Authentication more robust.
3. Corrected a problem with GoSystemSpaceTitleSet losing the
resume information. This could commonly be seen with the
title "Species," by calling up the title menu and selecting
the first entry to play the movie.
4. Added additional work-around code to prevent green bars from
being displayed at the bottom of the VGA playback window
display.
5. Added PAL support for MPEG-II decoding.
6. Added support for encrypted PAL titles.
7. Added a check to detect a stream change request, and deny
it if there is no audio in the stream. This workaround
prevents some occurrences of a loss of audio.
8. PAL video placement on the VGA display (within a window)
has been adjusted slightly to be more accurate.
9. Increased the PTS queue size, to allow for PTS-rich
MPEG 1 clips.
10. Added full support for VideoCD 2.0, and modified some of
the standard DVD functions to detect and handle VideoCD
titles as well (e.g. time search, next/previous chapter,
scan forward/backward, etc.)
11. Improved scanning performance to minimize overhead.
12. Changed calculations for AC-3 bitrates when using single-
channel streams to avoid loss of A/V sync, seen in titles
such as "Blazing Saddles" and "Strangers on a Train."
13. Increased the minimum number of DMA pages allowed (to 80),
to account for increases in data usage elsewhere in the
driver.
14. The DVD Player User Interface has been completely redesigned
to provide a more pleasing look-and-feel.
15. Added 256 color support to the DVD Player Application;
DirectX 5.0 is required for this to function.
16. Added basic VPE Support (which requires DirectX 5.0).
17. Added code to prevent a PTTSearch if the content is
currently not in title domain.
18. Added clip change stability by adding delay states for
seek and reset calls.
19. In the DVD Player, the approximate Panel position is preserved
on exit. (The Panel location is saved in the registry, and when
the application is reopened, the Panel is positioned as near to
this location as possible while retaining full Panel appearance).
20. The appearance of the Forward Scan and Backward Scan buttons
has been altered to be more intuitive.
21. Added support for On-The-Fly Resolution, Color Depth, and
Refresh Rate changing with VPE. If a particular resolution
does not have enough memory available to open an Overlay
Surface, a blue screen is displayed to indicate that an
"Overlay Unavailable" situation occurred, such as when there
is insufficient VGA memory available for the video surface.
22. Fixed various problems with Direct 3D and VPE interaction.
23. Added code to handle low-memory situations when using
the StretchBlit function on Number Nine VGA cards.
24. Fixed a scaling bug that prevented the overlay from being
displayed in various sizes in resolutions starting at
1024 x 768.
25. Fixed a problem with Video CD 2.0 navigation that prevented
some menus from being shown due to a mixing of position-based
and non-position-based menus on a single CD.
26. Fixed a GPF that was caused if no CineMaster board is present
in the system when the drivers initialize.
27. Improved window sizing performance.
28. Improved driver multi-instance stability.
29. Improved driver multi-threading responsiveness.
30. Driver version number now appears in the Custom properties tab.
31. Fixed hang problem when restarting playback at end of clip
in MediaPlayer.
32. Fixed close tray bug, introduced in dvdpld32.dll 1.4.01.305.
33. Fixed interrupt shut down problem with interrupt sharing;
noticed specifically with a 3Com ethernet card.
34. Fixed problems with on-the-fly resolution changing, caused
by not correctly closing DirectDraw.
35. Fixed a crash that occurred when seeking backwards to the
start of a title.
36. Made handling of invalid commands more robust in the MCI driver.
37. Fixed a problem with rebooting after on-the-fly resolution
changes, while DVD playback was running.
38. Fixed a problem with loss of slow motion when performing
navigation commands.
39. Fixed a crash when using the MCI load command during playback,
and specifying a file that does not exist.
40. Disabled low memory video modes from being able to open a
video port overlay.
41. Added different texts for different overlay-not-available
problems to make them more understandable to end-users.
42. Fixed problems with overlay-not-available due to misalignment
errors when the overlay was partially off-screen.
43. Fixed a problem with loss of display, when switching from a
Direct3D app to DVD playback, with no display mode change.
44. Improved locks that prevent low bandwidth modes from being
used to display DVD video.
45. Made the overlay size settings more accurate, to get the correct
512 pixels per line for Number Nine Revolution3D blit stretching.
46. Limited available resolutions to up to 1280x1024x16 and 800x600x32
on RIVA.
47. Fixed a problem when the CineMaster board was mapped into the
first megabyte area when emm386.exe is used.
48. Recompiled with support for encoders without Macrovision support,
as requested by Macrovision, to prevent tampering by end-users in
the field.
49. Re-included 1600x1200x8 for RIVA as available modes for DVD video.
50. Fixed a crash problem, when chapter FW/BW was used in SlowMotion
mode.
51. The panel and angle controls will snap back onto the working
area of the screen if the taskbar covers them.
52. Upon application startup, the screensaver mode is read, and the
screensaver is disabled. Upon application exit, the screensaver
mode is restored.
53. Added code to restore window sizes when in full-screen and
resize proportional was selected/deselected in the settings
dialog without changing DVD Video display mode settings.
54. Parental Control level is now persistent in the player, (stored
in the registry), which allows playback (if the parental level
is set to a sufficient level) without the Yes/No screen in "Scream,"
"The Rock," and other titles with parental level support.
55. These drivers will no longer allow the user to open Sigma Designs
proprietary encrypted MPEG 1 files in Media Player which had been
causing corrupt playback. Media Player will now generate an error
when attempting to open these files.
56. Improved accuracy of video and audio playback in the game
"Silent Steel".
57. Corrected problem with VideoInlay test with Riva cards, which
only appeared when DirectX was not installed.
58. Added a ListBox selection to the Custom Tab, along with
corresponding .INI file entries, to select between displaying
color bars or a black screen on the external analog video
outputs when DVD Playback is idle.
[VideoOut]
IdleScreenMode=1 ;0: PAL, 1: NTSC
IdleScreen=0 ;0: Color Bars, 1: Black Screen
59. Added Parental Level Exceeded warning on DVD Player startup.
60. Aspect Ratio initialized on start-up, reduces window resizing action
when a disc is not playing.
61. Chapter/Title bug fixed. Fixing a GPF when attempting to access
specific chapters of certain titles from the menu screen.
(i.e., Warner Music Group does DVD volume 1).
62. Implemented a work-around to allow the "InterActual
Network user interface" to run properly using MCI.
63. Fixed driver-related problems with parental control.
64. Made VideoInlay test dialogs move to the front
if they are invoked while a DVD-ROM game is playing
(so they can be answered).
65. Fixed a problem that caused a GPF when opening media player
due to an error in winaspi.
66. Fixed the problem of skipping a portion of chapter one in the movie
"Scream". The title split the first chapter into two cells which
caused a navigation problem in the player.
67. Implemented code to allow chapter search functions to be more effective.
68. Implemented a fix that prevents Video Inlay from crashing with
"Eyewitness World Atlas".
69. Fixed problems with on the fly resolution changes including those
from the stop state.
70. Changed the method used for highlighting to prevent some new titles
such as "The Fifth Element" from going to a green screen if left
idle in the root menu for a long time.
71. Fixed startup problems with the title, "My Best Friend's Wedding."
72. If passwords are enabled, a password is required for all parental level
changes. This prevents changing the level from Kids to None without
asking for a password.
73. Corrected a DVD Player problem which added an erroneous entry to
the list of subtitle languages when the root menu was invoked while
the list was visible.
74. DVD Player installer now installs Service Pack 3 MFC Libraries -
MFC42.dll and MSVCRT.dll to potentially increase compatibility with
other applications.
75. Change DVD Player to default subtitles OFF and resize proportional
after a new install.
76. Preferences are never saved to the registry if the DVD Player exits
with an error, such as if the player is executed with no Cinemaster
board installed.
77. Updated the driver INF file so as to not ask for a driver disk when
the Cinemaster card is moved to another slot, or removed and
reinserted, by adding a tag file to the install disk.
78. The dragging rectangle function has been disabled; controls will
drag as full windows.
79. Fixed accumulating version number strings when the Custom tab is
invoked without exiting Device Manager. Fixed crash when opening
custom tab dialog more than once.
80. Fixed crash when attempting to playback encrypted .VOB files.
81. Fixed slow motion and single step problem with several PAL titles.
82. Implemented feature to highlight active areas in DVD content menus
when the mouse moves over them.
83. Made timer routines more robust for fast CPUs.
84. DVD drive Eject button should now always be enabled when player
is in the stop state, such as in titles that stop at the end
instead of going to a root menu.
85. When Resize Proportional is selected, the content will be presented
in the correct aspect ratio at all times; DVD Player will resize
the playback window anytime a change is necessary, such as when
displaying a 4:3 root menu invoked while playing 16:9 content.
86. Fixed problems directly accessing some portions of Video CDs that
resulted from incorrect reporting of title information. This may
require deletion of the DVD disc database (.DAT) file, located in
the player install directory, since this file saves title
information for discs that had been previously played.
87. The DVD Player's fast and slow motion indicators ("4", "4/5", "2/5",
"1/5") are now correctly displayed at all times. Formerly, some
transitions (such as from slow motion to fast scan) could cause
the wrong indicator, or no indicator, to be displayed.
88. Added support in the DVD Player for certain registry values to be
included in new installers, so the software can clear out-of-date
preference structures and reset all the player defaults, or
delete incompatible DVD disc database files. The values
"DefaultPrefs=1" and "DeleteDatabase=1" in the "NewInstall" key
initiate these operations. This can also clear incompatible
structures that can't be removed in an uninstall, which could
happen if the user installed a new version on top of an old
version without first uninstalling.
89. Disallowed partial transitions into the root menu that could occur
as a result of false parental levels, such as in the title "Jumanji".
90. Disabled the Resume button when there was no Resume information.
91. Distinguished insufficient parental level error from other start
presentation errors.
92. Added the ability to enable or disable subtitles directly from the
right-click DVD Player menu; this setting and the checkbox in
Settings.Subtitles will always reflect the actual setting used in
the driver, rather than the last setting in the player.
93. Improved stability of fast scan of Video CDs.
94. Added support in the DVD Player for the registry value "SliderMode".
If SliderMode=2 (default), a volume slider will appear on the panel
control. This slider will link to the master volume device, and
can be used to adjust playback volume. The master volume device
is shown in the Preferred Playback Device, located in Control Panel,
Multimedia, Audio.
If SliderMode=0, the volume slider will not appear.
All other values of SliderMode are reserved.
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K N O W N I S S U E S A N D L I M I T A T I O N S
INTEL 430TX CHIPSET / DVD PLAYER HANG
Because the Intel 82430TX chipset is newer than Windows 95,
the Windows default drivers cannot generally be used for
motherboards built with the 82430TX. The multifunction
devices in the chipset (most notably, the USB and IDE drive
controllers) are not properly initialized, and quite often
appear in Device Manager under "Other devices" (which is
where devices without drivers are shown) or with the
yellow "!". Without proper drivers for the PCI Bridge and
IDE controllers, users can experience problems such as the
inability to access drives (CDROM, DVD, IDE) on the secondary
controller or erroneous behavior when attempting to play
DVD content due to the system returning bad data from the
drive. The secondary controller (or attached drives) may not
appear at all in Device Manager. Systems with the original
version of Windows 95, or early versions of OSR2 tend to have
this problem more than very recent versions of OSR2.
To further complicate this, many motherboards built with the
82430TX come with floppy disks or CD-ROMs containing drivers
(as executable "setup" or "patch" programs, or both) that
might appear to fix the problems, but which in fact are unable
to deal with DVD drives at all. Users with these new TX
motherboards, or those that replace older motherboards with
TX boards, need to install drivers that properly support DVD
drives (identifying those can be difficult). With incorrect
drivers, anomalies will occur, including black playback
window (no DVD video), fast/erratic elapsed time counter on
the DVD Player controls, and system hang soon after DVD
playback is attempted. If you have these problems, the
drivers loaded in your system cannot be used, even if they
came with your system or motherboard. Most often, if
Device Manager describes your hard drive controllers
(primary or secondary) as "Ultra DMA Supported", DVD
playback will NOT work because these drivers corrupt the
DVD data.
The lack of suitable drivers can make this problem extremely
difficult and complicated to correct reliably. If you
experience this problem, do the following EXACTLY AS
DESCRIBED:
1. Before starting, back up your system if possible.
2. Download the "Intel PIIX Bus Master IDE Driver for
Windows 95, version 3.2.2" from the Intel web site at
http://developer.intel.com/design/pcisets/inf_download.htm
and place this file in a subdirectory on your hard drive.
You will use this file to update your system AFTER
removing the problematic versions.
3. Using Windows Explorer or a DOS prompt, rename the file
C:\WINDOWS\INF\IDEATAPI.INF to a different name such as
IDEATAPI.INX. This will prevent the broken drivers from
being reloaded after the system restarts.
4. Shut down Windows and restart your system in SAFE MODE.
You enter Safe Mode by pressing F8 during start up and
choosing Safe Mode from the menu.
5. In Safe Mode, run Device Manager. Explode the list of
devices under "Hard disk controllers". There should be
three entries in the list resembling the following:
Intel PIIX4 Bus Master IDE controllers
Primary IDE controller (Ultra DMA supported)
Secondary IDE controller (Ultra DMA supported)
6. Single-click on the first entry, "Intel PIIX4 Bus Master
IDE controllers" to highlight it, then press the Remove
button. Confirm the remove. You must be in Safe Mode
to remove the drive controller or the system will hang.
Note that this will remove the other two (primary and
secondary controllers), except in OSR2.
7. Quit Device Manager and restart your system normally.
8. When the system restarts, Windows will find hardware
and prompt you for drivers. Each time you are prompted,
choose "Windows Default Driver" and answer Yes to restart.
You will need to do this only once for OSR2, but two or
possibly three times for Windows 95 standard.
9. When the desktop appears and Windows no longer detects
any new hardware, run the SETUPEX.EXE program that was
downloaded in Step 2. This will update the Windows
drivers for the TX chipset and its integrated drive
controllers.
10. Restart your system as requested by the SETUPEX.EXE utility.
Typically, this will happen twice, once for each hard
disk controller (primary and secondary).
11. Use Device Manager again, and confirm by exploding the
list of "Hard disk controllers" that the descriptions
have changed to read as follows:
Intel 82371 AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE controller
Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)
12. DVD Player should now work properly; however, Device Manager
may show your USB controller as not working or listed under
"Other devices." To correct this, locate and run a patch
utility (PATCH.EXE) that is designed to update USB drivers
for your chipset. Patches do not typically affect DVD
functionality (they will neither cause nor fix the Ultra DMA
problem) because they update the USB controller but leave
the hard disk controllers alone.
Additional information about this problem and how to correct
it will appear on the QI web site as it becomes available.
INTEL 440BX CHIPSET
Some motherboards with the Intel 82440BX chipset for Pentium II
share the hardware interrupt between the AGP slot and one PCI
slot (usually the one closest to the AGP slot). If you
experience problems playing DVD content (usually system
hang) or invoking the Custom tab (also usually system hang),
move the Cinemaster card to a different slot to correct the
anomaly. Note that Cinemaster does support shared
interrupts in software; this issue is caused by the physical
wiring of the motherboard.
DIRECTX 5.0
These drivers now require DirectX 5.0 to be present to take
advantage of any DirectX functions, such as scaling, VPE
support, and 256 color mode support. If DirectX 3.0, or
no DirectX version, is detected, CineMaster will not be
able to use any of those DirectX functions, and will simply
use VideoInlay to deliver video to the VGA display, when
possible.
LINKED TO MISSING EXPORT MFC42.DLL:6453 ERROR MESSAGE
If an error message is displayed indicating that "The
DVDPLAYER.EXE file is linked to a missing export
MFC42.DLL:6453," it means that some application
(probably one that was recently installed) replaced the
current MFC42.DLL file with an older version.
This file is a standard Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC)
DLL, and many versions have been distributed to OEMs
by Microsoft, and older versions may still be included
in installations from other companies. DVD Player
calls into these support DLLs; using an older version
can produce this error. It is possible for similar
errors to result when another application installs older
versions of the Microsoft C++ runtime files MSVCRT.DLL
and MSVCIRT.DLL, which are also used by DVD Player.
The solution is to re-install DVD Player, to force the
newer MFC42.DLL (and possibly MSVCRT.DLL and MSVCIRT.DLL)
files (stored in the Windows\System directory) to replace
the previous ones. These are backward compatible with
the previous versions, so the program that installed the
older ones will still work.
If reinstallation does not work, check that the DLLs in
the system directory are not marked Read Only and try
to reinstall again, or, delete the three DLL files and
try to reinstall again. This has been reported when some
"system protection" programs have been installed.
A similar error, typically resembling
"The DVDPLAYER.EXE file is linked to missing export
DVDPLD32.DLL:_DDP_IsCurrentSubPictureEnabled@4.",
can occur by running new DVD Player software (that has
new features requiring support in the driver) with an
older driver. Always be sure to install DVD Player
software with a matched (or compatible) driver. Matched
sets can be found on the QI web site, and are listed
at the beginning of the readme files.
DRIVER RE-INSTALLATION CAN MODIFY SOME CUSTOM INI SETTINGS
Some switch settings (such as ForceVPEOff) for user
preferences stored in the CINEMAST.INI file can be
overwritten when updating the Cinemaster drivers from floppy
disk or when the drivers are reinstalled by the system such
as when the card is moved to another slot. This is a
limitation of how Windows processes driver INF files
(specifically, adding an INI file entry only when it does
NOT exist is not supported).
Before updating generic drivers on a system that is not
using the default settings for INI switches, it is a good
idea to first save a copy of the older INI file, or to
make a note of the switch settings and check them after
the update.
ENABLING THE VPE PORT
To enable the video port (VPE interface to compatible video
cards), be certain your Cinemaster 2.3 board's jumpers are
properly configured as described in the user's manual.
Then, change the switch setting "ForceVPEOff=1" to
"ForceVPEOff=0" in the [VPESettings] section of
C:\WINDOWS\CINEMAST.INI. Enabling VPE without properly
connecting the ribbon cable between the Cinemaster card and
the VGA card can cause your system to hang when Windows
starts or when playing DVD. Working VGA hardware and video
card driver software is essential to successful use of the
VPE port. Additional information can be found in the user manual.
VPE support for Cinemaster-S 2.3 boards has been tested only
in a limited fashion. If you experience problems with VPE,
you should disable it (ForceVPEOff=1) and use the default
Cinemaster configuration with its Direct X 5 interface.
When VPE-capable VGA drivers with image adjustment
capabilities are detected, a "Picture" tab will appear in
the DVD Player's Settings option. If the values are all
zero, a VPE capable driver was detected but is probably
forced off (ForceVPEOff=1). Forced off (disabled) is the
default state of the video port on new driver installation.
If your playback is very dark, you can use the Default button
to restore your picture settings.
FORBIDDEN AUDIO STREAM CHANGES
Content can forbid applications for changing audio
streams, requiring the user to use the contents internal
root menu to change the audio stream (e.g. language).
If this is the case, the language selections in the DVD
Player will be ghosted out or non-functional.
Example: "Goldfinger", "Species".
CHAPTER FORWARD DOESN'T ALWAYS SKIP OPENING SEQUENCES
Using the Chapter Forward button in the DVD Player controls
does not always skip opening sequences (logos, lead-in clips,
and other non-movie content). This is determined by the
content itself.
Content (the DVD disc) indicates to the Cinemaster drivers
what action must be taken when the Chapter Forward button is
pressed. Often, the action is to ignore the button. If the
button is ignored, a good alternative is the Scan Forward
button, which will quickly zip through this extraneous
material, then often return to normal speed when the movie
actually begins.
DIRTY/DAMAGED DVD DISCS
If you place a dirty or damaged DVD disc into a DVD-ROM
drive, and run DVD Player (or any application) to access
it, the DVD-ROM drive may cause the system to hang while
it tries to read the damaged disc. If you system hangs
completely when first trying to play a new disc, reboot
your machine, remove the DVD disc, clean it with a soft
cotton cloth (wiping only in a straight line from the
center toward the outer edge, never around), and re-insert
it into the drive. One noticeable sign of this problem
is that the DVD-ROM drive BUSY light will be on solidly,
and the EJECT button on the front of the drive will not
eject the disc.
Some drives also take longer than others to start playback
when a disc is first inserted and the drive is recognizing
the disc, even if it is new and perfectly clean. The DVD
Player software will appear unresponsive (unable to move
windows, etc.) during this period. This is normal; control
will return when the drive is initialized for playback.
CHANGING COLOR DEPTH ON THE FLY
When using a Riva card with VPE, if you change the display mode from
800x600 hi-color to 800x600 256-color without restarting, the DVD
Player only plays audio (black video window) and the Panel control
and time counter digits have odd colors. If this problem occurs,
change to another mode or restart the system.
Other changes of color depth or resolution should work properly
without a restart, except if there is not enough video memory to
store the offscreen surface. This will result in an informative
message appearing in the playback window.
DVD TITLE "KALIFORNIA"
This DVD title will not play on any DVD-ROM system. The title has
an encrypted block which prevents the Authentication process. This
causes the disc to be recognized differently in various operating
systems. The title will probably need to be replaced by the
content provider.
DVD TITLE "CANDY FACTORY"
This adult DVD title will not play on any DVD-ROM system. This
title's disc key contains data errors; this returns an invalid
disc key, rendering it impossible to decrypt. Playback appears
to begin only because the first few seconds of video are not
encrypted. The title will probably need to be replaced by
the content provider.
PARENTAL CONTROL
To play adult DVD titles with Parental Control, you should have the
parental level of the player set to Adult. If a title does not play
when you press Play, or the title presents you with a message
informing you the parental level is not set properly, confirm that
the Parental Level in the Settings is set to Adult, then attempt to
play the title again.
PARENTAL LEVEL "NONE"
The Parental Level setting "None" means "the content may set the DVD
Player parental level to any value that is required for playback." The
setting None is roughly equivalent to Adult because in general, it does
not prevent playback; however, not all titles will play if the setting
is None.
Titles that support parental control will typically check the player
level when they start up, and if the parental level setting is high
enough, the title will play. If it is not high enough, the content can
(but does not need to) present a message indicating the problem. It may
also ask if you want to play the title anyway (Yes or No). In this
case, selecting Yes will cause the title to attempt to set (but not
recheck) the playback level. This attempt will succeed if the parental
level is None, but it will fail otherwise, even if the player is set to
Adult.
EJECT BUTTON ON DVD DRIVE
If the eject button on your DVD drive will not eject a disc
(such as when playing, when the content is prohibiting
playback due to parental level, etc.), use the software Eject
button on the DVD Player panel or navigator control.
Do not press the Eject button on your DVD ROM drive during
playback of a Video CD.
If you accidentally eject a Video CD during playback, close
the drive door, wait for the disc to be recognized, and then
press return to retry. Playback should then continue where it
left off.
VIDEO CD DOES NOT SUPPORT HIGHLIGHTING
The active areas in Video CDs will not highlight when the mouse
is moved over them. Unlike DVD, Video CD does not support the
highlighting feature.
RIVA WORKAROUND
Some versions of Riva video card drivers can have problems if
windows are resized too fast or when switching between the bob or
weave algorithms for deinterlacing video. To reduce the probability
of this problem, the Cinemaster drivers include a workaround which
adds a one second delay prior to these operations. This workaround
is visible when resizing a window or starting to scan (window goes
black for a second, then resumes playing), and sometimes on newer
titles when the root menu is invoked (root menu appears, then goes
black, then reappears). This workaround will be removed when it is
no longer necessary to compensate for this video driver limitation.
Until then, if you are using drivers that do not have this problem
and therefore do not need the delay, you can remove it (disable the
workaround) by adding (or editing) the following switch in CINEMAST.INI:
[VPESettings]
NvidiaDelayTime=0 ; 0 for small delay (workaround disabled)
; 1 for previous delay (workaround enabled)
RIVA VIDEO CORRUPTION
Some video drivers for Riva-based VGA cards contain
anomalies that corrupt the video in the playback window for
very specific widths of the video window when VPE is used.
If you see video corruption in the playback window after
resizing it, resize the window to a different width to avoid
the problem, or install updated drivers for your video card
to see if the anomaly has been corrected.
WIDESCREEN CONTENT PLAYING ON OLDER 4:3 EXTERNAL VIDEO MONITORS
DVD titles can be authored in Widescreen (16:9), or in Normal
(4:3, also called Standard or Full Screen) aspect ratios. Content
formatted as 16:9 can contain information (called Pan&Scan vectors)
that allows it to be displayed in 4:3 by showing only certain
portions of the 16:9 frame and truncating the rest.
The authorship of the disc determines what is sent out the external
video outputs.
16:9 (widescreen) external monitors can display either 16:9 or 4:3.
However, 4:3 monitors, especially older ones, do not generally support
the correct display of 16:9 signals. Playing the widescreen aspect
ratio and sending it to a 4:3 standard monitor can therefore result in
an unacceptable image, such as one that crops a portion of the picture
or has the subtitles cut off. Most new 4:3 monitors do support
widescreen; when you send it a 16:9 signal, the image is seen as
Letterbox (a 16:9 image with black at the top and bottom which fills
out the rest of the screen). However, most older 4:3 monitors do not
support this. Limitations in these older monitors could only be
compensated for in the content or by choosing the other (fullscreen)
aspect ratio, if it is available on the disc. Such limitations cannot
be corrected or worked around in the Cinemaster drivers.
To further complicate this, as of the date of this release, no
commercial DVD titles include Pan & Scan vectors, which are provided
for, but not required, in the DVD specification. Support for these
vectors is present in the Cinemaster drivers (by changing the video
format to Pan&Scan), but it only works if the vectors are in the
content. In the absence of these vectors, the Cinemaster driver has
no choice but to display in Letterbox, even if Pan&Scan is requested.
Users are cautioned to purchase external video monitors which support
both 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios properly.
DMA ENABLE CHECKBOX MUST BE CHECKED
If you experience problems with DVD playback, use Device
Manager to look at your CDROM devices (highlight the drive,
then select Properties). Bring up the Settings tab. If the
option "DMA" is present, verify that the checkbox for DMA is
checked (enabled). The DMA option is usually present in OSR2.
HITACHI GD-2000 DRIVE-SPECIFIC ISSUES
Some Hitachi GD-2000 DVD drives exhibit two minor anomalies:
The drive appears to enter a "power down" mode when left idle
for about 10 minutes. With certain DVD titles that enter the
root menu at the end of the movie, choosing the "Play" option
from the root menu after leaving the disc unattended for about
10 minutes will send the DVD Player into the stop state
instead of playing the movie. If this occurs, press Play
again to start the movie.
When certain video CDs are scanned in 4x speed (fast forward
or fast rewind), the playback window may not always get
updated. If the playback window appears frozen during scan,
try the scan operation again, or do not attempt to fast scan
this video CD. Fast Scan is conveniently toggled on and off
by pressing the fast forward or rewind button again.
INI FILE TO BE REMOVED
This is the last version of QI Cinemaster drivers that will
use an INI file to change the driver and DVD Player behavior.
Future versions will move this configuration information to
the registry. This is required to comply with new rules for
certification by Microsoft Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL).
DVD AUDIO DOES NOT APPEAR ON THE DVD DRIVE'S AUDIO JACK
The data on a DVD is always transferred digitally from the
DVD drive to the Cinemaster card for decoding. Therefore,
when playing a DVD disc, audio will NOT appear on the
drive's audio output jack like it does when playing an audio
CD. You should connect headphones or speakers only to the
output jack on your sound card, not the jack on the drive.
ATI RAGE PRO WITH VPE
When using the AMC video port on the ATI Rage Pro chip (PCI
or AGP) with this DVD Player, it is possible for the DVD
playback window to appear with an incorrect aspect ratio or
with thick black borders on the left and right sides of the
live video. If you experience this or similar problems, you
should update your video driver to the latest available
version, and check on the QI web site for updated Cinemaster
drivers or DVD Player software that may provide a workaround.
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I N S T A L L A T I O N G U I D E L I N E S
NOTE: If you are upgrading from a previous installation of
CineMaster, follow the procedure listed below:
1. Select CONTROL PANEL from the SETTINGS list in the START
menu.
2. Double-click on the SYSTEM icon, then select the DEVICE
MANAGER tab.
3. Locate the SOUND, VIDEO, and GAME CONTROLLERS listing, and
single-click on the Cinemaster entry.
4. Click on the PROPERTIES button, and then the DRIVER tab.
5. For Windows 95 Standard:
Click on the CHANGE DRIVER button, and then the
HAVE DISK button to initiate the new installation.
For Windows 95 OSR2.0 and 2.1:
Click on the UPDATE DRIVERS button, and then allow
Windows to scan the driver floppy disk in drive A:\ to
find and initiate the new installation.
6. Follow the prompts (filling in the path to your floppy disk
or file locations as needed).
At the end of this process, your system will restart and
the new Cinemaster drivers will be installed.
7. Now proceed to install the new DVD Player by inserting the
DVD Player Disk 1 of 2 floppy disk into the floppy drive,
select RUN from the START menu, type "A:\setup" in the
command line box and click on OK. Follow the prompts to
complete the installation.
Additional driver updates will be posted on the QI Web Page at:
http://www.qi.com/
Also, do not forget to install DirectX 5.0, available from:
http://www.microsoft.com/directx/default.asp
- Select the "idx5rdst.exe" file (5.6MB)
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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.