README.TXT For NetStream 2/2tv (TM) 
Version Rel 4.70 (Build 121) FOR WINDOWS 95 and 98 -- March 2000
================================================================


This file contains important information.  Please take time to read 
it thoroughly to ensure the proper installation and use of the drivers.



CONTENTS
========

I   - SOFTWARE INSTALLATION 
II  - BORDER ADJUSTMENT AND COLOR CALIBRATION
III - GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
IV  - TROUBLESHOOTING TIPS
V   - VIDEO MODES
VI  - TESTED ENVIRONMENTS
VII - PERFORMANCE MONITOR
VIII- RELEASE ISSUES AND KNOWN BUGS

I   - SOFTWARE INSTALLATION 
      =====================

For best results, if you have previously installed NetStream 2 drivers, first remove them
by running "Uninstall" from the REALmagic NetStream Program Group.
    
After installing the NetStream 2 hardware and connecting the analog 
overlay cable, do the following:

    WINDOWS 95, OSR2 and 98
    -----------------------
1 - Boot your system. 
2 - After the Windows 9x logo appears, Windows will recognize that a
    new board was installed by displaying the "New Hardware Found" 
    window with the signature "PCI Multimedia Video Device".  
3 - Choose the option "Driver from disk provided by hardware 
    manufacturer".
4 - Click OK.
5 - A new window "Install from Disk" will display. Insert the REALmagic
    NetStream 2 diskette 1 in your floppy drive. Make sure the text box
    points to the correct drive ( e.g. A:\).  Click OK and wait for 
    the setup to complete.
6 - Insert diskette 2 and run SETUP.EXE. This will copy all the 
    applications to the C:\REALmagic directory and create the REALmagic 
    NetStream 2 group containing "REALmagic Configuration", "README",
    and "Uninstall".  The installation program will start the 
    "REALmagic Configuration" program to perform Border Adjustment.

     NOTE : If you are installing the NetStream 2tv, the "TV Application"
            program will also be included in the group.

     NOTE : If you have a dual-boot system (Win 9x & NT), use 
            different directory names for the REALmagic software.


     

II  - BORDER ADJUSTMENT AND COLOR CALIBRATION
      =======================================

NOTE :  You need to set the Border Adjustment only once for each 
        display setting (resolution, number of colors, and 
        refresh rate).

1 - Start REALmagic Configuration from the REALmagic NetStream 2 group.
2 - Click on Adjust Border and use the proper buttons to adjust the 
    black rectangle in the magenta box. When done click OK.
3 - Click on "Auto Calibration."

	In rare cases, the video window does not show the MPEG playback
	and shows only a green window. If so, run "REALmagic 
        Configuration" and click "Auto Calibration". If the MPEG still
        does not show do the following :

	 1: Click on Advanced..., then Manual Calibration. 
	You will be prompted to adjust the R, G, B sliders displayed 
	in the window four times.

	 2: You can also use the Advanced option to make more
	adjustments for the borders including jittering, stability,
	and horizontal frequency and to specify a different 
	chroma-key color.

3 - Adjust the volume of the MPEG audio to your preference
    as well as the B, S, C video levels for Brightness, Saturation, and
    Contrast of the video.  Click OK.


III - GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
      =======================

You can use either the new, DirectShow-based Media Player (MPLAYER2.EXE), 
or the older, MCI-based Media Player (MPLAYER.EXE) to play files on your computer
using the NetStream 2. 

1 - MCI Support : 

    	A standard MCI driver is supplied.  Interactive multimedia 
    	titles can use the MCI interface to display high quality 
	MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video. To play an MPEG file using MCI, open
	the standard Windows Media Player (MPLAYER.EXE), select
	"NetStream 2" from the "Device" menu, and open an MPEG file.
	Standard MCI compliant programs will automatically select the
	NetStream 2 for playback of MPEG files.
2 - DirectShow Support:
	A standard DirectShow driver is installed with NetStream 2.
	To use DirectShow with the NetStream 2, install the latest
	version of the Windows Media Player (MPLAYER2.EXE), which can
	be found on the Microsoft web site at www.microsoft.com/Windows/
	Downloads/Contents/Products/MediaPlayer. The Windows Media Player
	and other DirectShow compatible applications will automatically
	select the NetStream 2 hardware to play MPEG video. In addition,
	a wide variety of 3rd party streaming video products provide
	DirectShow filters and players which use the DirectShow interface
	to stream MPEG video using the NetStream 2. 

3 - File Format Support :

        MPEG-1 Video Streams
        MPEG-1 Audio Streams
        MPEG-1 System Streams

        MPEG-2 Video Streams 
        MPEG-2 Audio Streams 
        AC-3 Audio Streams    
        MPEG-2 Program Streams
        MPEG-2 Transport Streams (DirectShow only)
        MPEG-2 System Streams



IV  - TROUBLESHOOTING TIPS
      =====================

1- The NetStream 2 board and the drivers are correctly installed,  
   but the system crashes after boot-up:

   Start Win '95 in the Safe mode, select the NetStream 2 board in
   the Device Manager, manually change the Memory Range to a lower
   different setting for the NetStream 2 and reboot.


2- The MPEG files play and the audio can be heard but the video
   is a solid color.

   Run "REALmagic Configuration" and select "Advanced / Color Adjustment"
  

4- The picture is waving.

   Run "REALmagic Configuration," select "Border Adjust" and 
   adjust the jittering setting until both vertical borders exhibit
   no jittering or waviness. You may want to try setting your 
   display adapter to a lower refresh rate and repeating this to
   reduce jittering or waviness.


5-  MPEG 1 files run normally, but MPEG 2 files are shaky.

   Make certain that the CD-ROM drive is connected as a Master
   on the IDE controller.  And, if you are using the OSR2 version of
   Win 95, turn ON the DMA flag in the "Device Manager-CD ROM
   drive-Settings-DMA."


6-I get a video-audio out of sync when playing MPEG.

   Turn OFF the Power Management feature of your system, using the
   Windows "Power" control panel and/or your computer's BIOS setup
   utility.


7-When I pause the MPEG 2 playback the picture shakes a little.

   This is not a malfunction. The shaking depends on the
   frame position of the Pause.


V   - VIDEO MODES
      =============

1 -	The NetStream 2 board does not support interlaced VGA display
   	modes nor 16 color modes.

2 -	The maximum refresh rates allowed with the NetStream 2 MPEG
	card depend partially on the display board.  However the
	following can be used as a guideline :

		 640 x  480	120 Hz
		 800 x  600	120 Hz
		1024 x  768	 85 Hz
		1152 x  864	 75 Hz
		1280 x 1024	 60 Hz (75 with some VGA boards)
		1600 x 1200	 60 Hz

        Note : For NetStream 2tv, the refresh rates must be set lower if
	you are using the TV Scan Converter (eg at 1024x768 the refresh
        rate should be at a max of 70 Hz).

3 -	The TV output will display in NTSC format if the MPEG-2 is 
        encoded	for NTSC. It will use PAL format if the MPEG-2 is 
        encoded in PAL.	The NetStream 2 will not convert NTSC video
        to PAL or vice-versa.

4 - 	If you have the NetStream 2tv and you want to display VGA
	graphics on a television set, the optimal resolution for NTSC
	TV sets is 640x480 at 60 Hz, and 800x600 at 50 Hz for PAL
	TV sets. For PAL, many VGA cards to not support 50 Hz refresh,
	so we recommend the lowest available rate, which is usually 60 Hz.
	Using these modes produces the best results, because they most
	closely match the resolution and refresh rate of your TV set.
	Higher resolutions and refresh rates can be used, but degraded
	picture quality may result.
	

VI - TESTED ENVIRONMENTS
     ===================

        - Microsoft NetShow Theater
	- Minerva VNP Encoder
	- OptiVision LiveWare
	- MediaNow! StreamRider
	- InfoValue QuickVideo Suite (VOD and multicast)
	- First Virtual VCache and VCaster
	- Oracle Video Server 
	- Silicon Graphics MediaBase
	- Starlight Networks
	- Cisco IP/TV  (in progress)
		

VII- PERFORMANCE MONITOR
      ===================

   There are a variety of statistics that are displayed in the 
   Windows Performance Monitor utility.  These are described below:
1) # interrupts/sec - well... what else can be said?
2) Hardware audio fifo level - # of bytes currently in the hardware 
   audio fifo.
3) Hardware video fifo level - # of bytes currently in the hardware 
   video fifo.
   ** note that the above 2 values are valid only when the 
      video/audio are playing **
4) Pending WIN32 audio/video events - The user mode component of the
   drivers issues asynchronous calls to the vxd to "write" data to 
   the hardware.  These are the number of events (DeviceIoControl 
   calls) that are pending.
5) VxD video/audio fifo - number of bytes queued up in the VxD.  The
   VxD maintains a linked list of the data that it receives.  This is
   the number of bytes that is currently in the list.
6) DirectShow audio/video packets queued - the number of queued media
   samples received by the Direct Show filter (rmmpeg2.ax) that are 
   not yet sent to the VxD.


IX  - RELEASE INFO AND KNOWN BUGS 
      ===========================

If this is the first time installing, you must restart Windows to 
enable DirectShow support.

Transport Streams containing multiple Programs (PID's) are supported 
under DirectShow. You can select the PID you desire by using the Property
Page of the REALmagic Splitter Filter. This can also be programmatically 
controlled through C++ programming in DirectShow.

The MCI driver will open the MPEG file window by default with the same
size of the MPEG file frame size.  ActiveMovie will open by aspect
ratio.

The Freeze command is not supported.

ActiveMovie and DirectShow support is implemented for MPEG-1 and -2,
including System, Program and Transport Streams. 
	The standard I_Async_Reader interface (Pull) is supported.
	The new I_Mem_Input interface (Push) is supported.
	You can play back video using the standard ActiveMovie 
            player which is installed with Internet Explorer 3.x
            and 4.x.
	
Playing a high bit rate file from a slow device as
a CD-ROM drive, multiple quick SEEKs might cause the player to stop
responding.  

Playback from some 24x CD-ROM drives does not work well because some of
these high-speed drives repeatedly speed up and slow down, which causes
the MPEG data to stream very poorly. This causes frequent "drops." Use
the System control panel to set the buffer value for your CD-ROM drive
as high as possible. 

We have experienced AV out-of-synch of up to 5 sec. at the play start.
With a combined slow CPU and a high bit rate of the MPEG streams, it 
may take longer to synchronize. 

AC-3 only files might play if they are very accurately encoded to 
the specs.

The splitter will report wrong file length for transport streams longer
than 10 mins.

Frame accuracy is not optimum with the following MCI commands :
Seek/Cue, Step, Capture, Play To or Play From, and Time Format
Frames/MS.  The Set Speed command is not supported. The 
MCI SETAUDIO RIGHT/LEFT behaves as a SETAUDIO command.

Other miscellaneous fixes:

1 - Support for non-English Operating Systems is implemented. 
2 - This driver release supports MPEG-2 Program Streams up to 11 Mbps
    depending on configuration especially the motherboard.

NOTE :
====
- If you check, in DirectShow playback, the properties window of 
  the "Sigma Designs hardware decoder" -  you can use all functions
  such as Brightness, Saturation, .. and Border Adjust but ignore
  the TV-OUT tab.
- In the REALmagic Configuration, the Expert Settings option of 
  the TV out is disabled. 



======================================================================

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