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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ###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.