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                                PowerDVD 1.5                
                                                            
                     (c) Copyright CyberLink Corp. 1999     
                                                           
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Welcome to CyberLink PowerDVD!


This file contains the most up-to-date information and technical notes about
PowerDVD. PLEASE READ THIS FILE IN DETAIL BEFORE RUNNING PowerDVD!!

For getting the best DVD viewing experiences with PowerDVD, please refer to 
the "GENERAL PLAYBACK PERFORMANCE AND QUALITY ISSUES" section first.

The following information is newly added in this README file:

- NEW FEATURES IN VERSION 1.5!
- 3DNOW! AND IA STREAMING SIMD EXTENSIONS
- S/PDIF 5.1-CHANNEL DOLBY DIGITAL OUTPUT
- VIDEO BRIGHTNESS CONTROL LIMITATION
- ASPI ISSUE
- A3D COMPATIBILITY
- SCREEN SAVER AND POWER SAVING MODE

The following information is also available in this README file:

- NEW FEATURES SINCE VERSION 1.3
- SUPPORT FOR SAVAGE3D DVD/VIDEO ACCELERATION HARDWARE
- SUPER 7 MOTHERBOARD SUPPORT
- SCSI DEVICES SUPPORT
- VIDEO FRAME CAPTURING
- SUPPORT FOR NEW SIS6326 CHIP REVISIONS 
- GENERAL PLAYBACK PERFORMANCE AND QUALITY ISSUES
- DISPLAY CARD ISSUES (updated!) 
- DVD-ROM ISSUES (updated!)

                                                                             
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NEW FEATURES IN VERSION 1.5
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* Performance improvement of 6%-10%(2-3fps!) over version 1.3 for pure
  software playback

* AMD 3DNow! Technology optimized

* Intel Architecture Streaming SIMD Extensions(KNI) optimized

* Performance improvement for Savage3D MC-accelerated version

* User option of using hardware video acceleration (motion compensation 
  and IDCT for SiS6326, motion compensation for S3 Savage3D) or not

* Video brightness control

* S/PDIF 5.1-channel Dolby Digital(AC-3) output for Creative ES1373/
  EV1938-based sound cards

* A3D/DS3D positional sound support 

* Dolby Surround support

* Direct DVD Chapter selection/browsing

* User resizable video window under full-screen mode for better 16:9 and
  4:3 viewing experience

* DVD Karaoke support

* DVD Title, Video/Audio and hardware information page

* User option of video window fixed aspect-ratio or not


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3DNow! and IA Streaming SIMD Extensions
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* PowerDVD 1.5 now is both 3DNow! and IA Streaming SIMD Extensions optimized. 
  However, you must have a processor which utilizes either 3DNow! or 
  Streaming SIMD Extensions in order the proper routines to be activated.
  AMD K6-2 and K6-3 family processors is equipped with 3DNow! technology.
  For Streaming SIMD Extensions technology, you have to have a Pentium III
  or Pentium III Xeon processor. PowerDVD will automatically detect the 
  existence of such processors and enable proper acceleration.


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S/PDIF 5.1-channel Dolby Digital output
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* With S/PDIF, undecoded 5.1-channel or 2-channel Dolby Digital stream can 
  be sent thru to external standalone AC-3 decoder for high fidelity
  decoding and playback. PowerDVD now supports S/PDIF-enabled sound cards.
  With an external Dolby Digital decoder/speaker system like Creative
  Desktop Theater 5.1, you'll be able to enjoy the enriched home theater
  experiences.

  The following sound chips are supported by PowerDVD :

  - Creative ES1373  
  - Creative EV1938

  The option "Use S/PDIF for AC3 Output" will be greyed if none of the above
  sound chips is detected and thus not user-selectable. The option can be
  accessed by click the PowerDVD Configuration button and select "DVD
  Playback..."

  The wiring between your S/PDIF-enabled sound card and external Dolby Digital 
  decoder box is device-specific. Please refer to the user's manuals of your 
  sound card and decoder/speaker system for detailed guide.

  There might be an option, such as "Enable Digital Output" or "Enable S/PDIF
  Output", must be enabled in the sound card driver control panel or device
  manager/sound card setting side. Simply enable the "Use S/PDIF for AC3
  Output" option in PowerDVD does not always ensure the AC-3 stream can be 
  sent out thru the S/PDIF. Refer to your sound card manual for details.


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Video brightness control limitation
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* If you are using an SiS6326 or S3 Savage3D display card and the "Use Video
  Accelerator" option is being enabled, The video brightness control function
  will not be available due to architecture limitation. There are some other
  features, such as video frame capturing, also resemble the same behavior.

* If DirectDraw Overlay surface is not available (either due to display chip 
  hardware incapability or improper driver installation), the brightness
  control function will not be available.
                                          

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ASPI issue
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* ASPI (Advanced SCSI Programmer's Interface) is a layer of software which 
  is defined and maintained by Adaptec. Although originally designed for
  SCSI devices, it now supports both SCSI and IDE device. That is why Win95
  and Win98 includes it as part of its system components. This API is composed
  of three files : WINASPI.DLL, WNASPI32.DLL, and APIX.VXD. ASPI layer is the 
  only path that PowerDVD can talk to IDE/SCSI DVD-ROM drives for performing 
  mutual authentication with region-protected DVD titles for proper key 
  decryption and data descrambling. 

  But ASPI layer can sometimes get overwritten or corrupted by the
  installation of other software or various IDE/SCSI device drivers. When
  the original ASPI layer is overwritten by an incompatible one, the path
  to IDE/SCSI DVD-ROM will no longer exist, thus the authentication process
  with region-protected DVD titles will always fail. PowerDVD might report
  various error messages in this situation, depending on the nature of the
  incompatible driver. However, all error codes have a common prefix
  "8090xxxx" or "80axxxxx".

  This is not a problem with PowerDVD itself. Should you encounter this kind
  of incompatibility, there are two solutions for this :

  solution 1 :

  - download ASPI32.EXE from Adaptec to upgrade your ASPI files to the latest
    version. However, that upgrade requires either an Adaptec host adapter
    or an Adactec version of the ASPI layer, which may have been installed
    by an application or a SCSI device driver, exists on your system. Or You
    can check if there is an ASPI layer upgrade from your SCSI host adapter
    or device vendor.

    URL for Apaptec :

    http://www.adaptec.com

  solution 2 :

  - Restore the original Win95/98 ASPI layer files. Extract the following files
    from the Win95/98 CAB files and copy them to the following directories :

    WNASPI32.DLL -> <WINDIR>\SYSTEM
    WINASPI.DLl  -> <WINDIR>\SYSTEM
    APIX.VXD     -> <WINDIR>\SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS
    ASPI2HLP.SYS -> <WINDIR>
  
    <WINDIR> stands for the directory where your Win95/98 resides.

    Click on Start\Run and type in "Regedit", then click on "OK" to launch the Registry 
    Editor. Hold down the [Ctrl+F] key, type in "ASPIENUM", click on "Find Next" and 
    wait for the search to stop. Then hit the [Delete] key and answer "YES" to delete 
    the whole high-lighted "ASPIENUM" key.


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A3D COMPATIBILITY
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* PowerDVD has found some compatibility problem with ESS Maestro-1 based sound cards
  when A3D is activated. It is recommended not to enable the A3D function on those 
  sound cards.


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SCREEN SAVER AND POWER SAVING MODE
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* It it highly recommended that the screen saver function and power saving mode be 
  temporarily disabled when PowerDVD is running. 


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NEW FEATURES SINCE VERSION 1.3
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* Bob/Weave support for optimal display of regular NTSC interlaced and 3:2 
  pull-down titles

* Improved compatibility with Super 7 motherboards, including those use 
  VIA MVP3 and ALI Aladdin 5 chipsets.

* Improved compatibility with SCSI devices, such as SCSI card and SCSI 
  DVD-ROM.

* Support for new SiS6326 revisions, such as 6326AGP Rev.h0, 6326DVD Rev.d2 
  and Plain 6326 Rev.c5.

* Support for Savage3D DVD/Video acceleration hardware 

* Can capture video frames while playing a DVD/VCD title. The options of 
  capture to a file, capture as desktop wallpaper and capture to Windows 
  Clipboard are provided.

* Improved region control mechanism to work with phase II DVD-ROM/RAM drives
  that have implemented the region control system in hardware. 

* Modified region control mechanism for DVD-ROM drives that don not implement 
  the region control system in hardware. 


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SUPPORT for SAVAGE3D DVD/VIDEO ACCELERATION HARDWARE
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* PowerDVD will automatically use the following acceleration hardware provided
  by S3 Savage3D for improving the video playback performance and quality :

  - Subpicture alpha blending in the Video Engine Unit (VEU)
  - Motion compensation in the MPEG-2 Acceleration Unit (MAU)

  Savage3D also contains hardware deinterlacing unit to perform hardware Bob/
  Weave.


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SUPER 7 MOTHERBOARD SUPPORT
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* PowerDVD version 1.3 has been tested to work with motherboards based on VIA
  MVP3 or ALI AladdinV chipset. However, you have to installed a bus master 
  driver in order to enable the DMA option of your DVD-ROM and get the best 
  performance. The bus master driver is chipset-dependent and can be found in 
  your motherboard support CD-ROM or disk. Although Win95 OSR2 and Win98 
  contain built-in support for DMA-enabled DVD-ROM drives, it has been found 
  that simply turn on that option on VIA or ALI platform may cause mutual 
  authentication failure between DVD players and DVD-ROM for region-protected 
  DVD titles.
  
* To play back DVD titles on Super 7 platforms, a K6-2 processor running at 
  300MHz or higher is required if no special hardware assistance, such as a 
  SiS6326 display card, is available. 

  You can find the newest bus master driver and other win9x patches for MVP3 
  or AladdinV chipset in the following URL : 

  http://www.via.com.tw
  http://www.ali.com.tw


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SCSI DEVICES SUPPORT
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* The following SCSI host adapters have been tested :

    Adaptec AHA-2940AU/2940U/2940UW PCI host adapter 
    Advansys ABP-930UA PCI host adapter 
    Symbios Logic 53C8xx based PCI host adapter

  The following SCSI DVD-ROM/RAM drives have been tested :

    Pioneer    DVD-U02 (2.6x)
    Pioneer    DVD-303 (6x)
    Matsushita LF-D100(DVD-RAM)


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VIDEO FRAME CAPTURING
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* Under Win95 and Win98, if Internet Explorer 4.x is installed and Active Desktop 
  is activated, you may find the 'capture as desktop wallpaper' option will not 
  immediately show the captured frame on the desktop. However, the captured frame
  can be found under your windows directory and the capture video frames to BMP 
  files or to Windows Clipboard options will work with no problem.


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SUPPORT FOR NEW SIS6326 CHIP REVISIONS
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* For SiS6326AGP Rev.h0, SiS6326DVD Rev.d2 and plain SiS6326 Rev.c3 users, it 
  is recommended that you make sure your driver is the most up-to-date version
  to work with PowerDVD. Please contact your display card vendor or manufacturer 
  for the driver updating. Or you can link to the following URL for finding the 
  newest version of driver and BIOS image :

  http://www.sis.com.tw


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GENERAL PLAYBACK PERFORMANCE AND QUALITY ISSUES
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* It is HIGHLY recommended that you enable the DMA option of your DVD-ROM 
  to reduce the CPU utilization overhead. Win98 and Win95 OSR2 have built-in
  support for DMA-enabled IDE DVD-ROMs and HDDs. A system diagnostic program
  will be automatically launched after installing PowerDVD to help you turn
  on this option. Since Win95 OSR2 and Win98 contain native support for this
  feature, any other third-party bus master driver is NOT recommended.
  However, for Win95 retail version users, you must have a third-party bus
  master driver installed to enable that option. Since old versions of bus
  master driver may not properly support new IDE devices, such as DVD-ROMs
  and IDE removable storage medium, always check the date of the driver and
  make sure you got the newest version of driver that supports your DVD-ROM!!

  To identify which version of Win95 you have, enter "Control Panel" and 
  click on the "System" icon, you'll see a version string with the form 
  "4.00.950 x". Win95 retail version has a version string "4.00.950" or 
  "4.00.950 A".

  Sometimes you can find the DMA option is not available even if you have
  OSR2 installed in your computer. This is because OSR2 do not recognize
  some of those new chipsets, such as Intel 440LX, 440BX and 440EX, thus
  the default driver with DMA support is not installed. A patch program from
  Intel named "Intel 82371xB INF Update Installer" can be launched inside
  the CyberLink system diagnostic program to do necessary patches for Intel
  chipsets. After that, you have to reboot your system, wait for OSR2 to
  find all the new hardwares, reboot one or several times again, and run
  the system diagnostic program which can be located in the CyberLink PowerDVD
  folder to enable the DMA option.

  For Win98, the problem does not exist since Win98 was released after those
  chipsets were announced thus Win98 can recognizes all of them. However, for 
  future new chipsets, you may still have to apply a patch before the DMA mode 
  is available to be activated. 

  For chipsets from other vendors, you should find the proper patch programs
  for OSR2 or Win98 in your mainboard support disk/CD-ROM or vendor's web 
  site.

* Please make sure the DirectDraw driver of your display card is properly 
  installed. Refer to your display card manual for detailed instructions.
  Or you can have the most up-to-date Microsoft DirectX Runtime installed
  to enable this support.

  PowerDVD will use DirectDraw overlay surface for best playback quality 
  and performance provided your display card supports it. Most display
  cards to date support this feature. To determine what kind of surface
  PowerDVD is using, click on the "Configuration" button, which has an icon
  like a hammer, on the PowerDVD user interface, then select "DVD
  Playback..." and you will see the fields "Display Mode" and "Surface Type".
  If you have a "DDRAW/Overlay" combination, the overlay surface is detected
  by PowerDVD and is utilized. For other combinations, video playback
  quality and performance will be sacrificed since some video decoding 
  operations have to be performed by software. That may be due to your
  display card's limitations or improperly installed driver.

* To get the best viewing experience of DVD video, it is recommended not
  to playback DVD video under 640x480 desktop resolution because the original
  video resolution provided by most DVD movie titles is 720x480 or 704x480.
  
* If you playback 16:9 titles under 800x600 desktop resolution, PowerDVD
  has to adjust the vertical size of video window to maintain the correct
  video aspect-ratio even under full-screen mode. The result may be scanline- 
  drops since some display cards simply omit some scanlines if video window
  is sized to be smaller than the original video size in the vertical
  direction. You can switch the desktop resolution to 1024x768 manually before 
  launching PowerDVD to avoid the problem. Under that mode, PowerDVD will 
  adjust the horizontal size of video window rather than the vertical size 
  to provide better viewing experience.

  PowerDVD can also switch resolution automatically by prompting user once  
  16:9 titles are detected. Even further, you can specify which resolution 
  you want to switch to for 4:3 and 16:9 titles separately. To configure 
  that setting, click on the "Configuration" button on the PowerDVD user 
  interface, select "DVD Playback..." and set accordingly. This automatic 
  switching feature do not apply to SiS6326-based display cards. Refer to 
  the "DISPLAY CARD ISSUES" section for explanation. 

  On some display cards, dynamical resolution switching can cause system 
  misbehavior or crash. You can disable this feature also in the "DVD 
  Playback.../advanced setting" dialogue.


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DISPLAY CARD ISSUES
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* For NVidia RivaTNT users, it has been known that TNT driver with version
  number 4.10.01.0048 will interfere with the mouse operations while playing
  DVD under full screen mode. Please upgrade your driver to version
  4.10.01.0107 or newer to avoid this problem.

  Should you encounter this kind of mouse-related problem and you are not
  sure which version of driver are in use, contact your display card or
  system vendor for more information.

* For Matrox Mystique G200 users, please install the driver by running the
  "MGASETUP.EXE" program in the "Matrox Installation CD". If you install
  the driver by using the INF file rather than running "MGASETUP.EXE",
  PowerDVD will refuse to play due to lack of Macrovision API.

* For plain SiS6326 and SiS6326DVD users, PowerDVD will detect and utilize 
  the MPEG acceleration engine automatically to speedup MPEG-2 video decoding 
  process. Since this acceleration consumes local frame buffer and hardware 
  resources, you may find desktop resolution and screen refresh rate 
  automatically swtiched down to accomodate with this engine under some 
  circumstances. Desktop resolution and screen refresh rate will be switched 
  back once you quit PowerDVD is terminated.

  For the case of SiS6326AGP display chip, it doesn't has the MPEG acceleration 
  support in the chip thus pure software playback will be utilized.

* For 3DLabs PermediaII or PermediaIIv users, please update the display 
  driver to version 4.10.01.2105-0346 or later and run PowerDVD only under 
  high color modes for best performance.

* For Intel 740 users, it is recommended not to enlarge the video window 
  if you can perceive obvious video frame rate degradation after doing that.
  Or just switch the desktop resolution to 720x480 or 800x600 if you would
  like to play the video in full-screen mode. 

* For Matrox Millennium II users, since the display card does not have hardware 
  overlay surface support, a slower mode named DirectDraw RGB mode will be used
  instead of DirectDraw overlay mode. 


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DVD-ROM ISSUES
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* Those DVD-ROM/RAM drives that have been tested with PowerDVD are listed below 
  in an alphabetical order according to their manufacturer's name :

  ATAPI interface : 
    DVS        DSR-520H (5.2x)
    Hitachi    GD-2000  (2x)
    Hitachi    GD-2500  (4x)
    Matsushita SR8582 or Creative PC-DVD Dxr2 (2x)
    Matsushita SR8583 or Creative PC-DVD 5x (5x)
    Philips    DRD5200  (2x)
    Pioneer    DVD-A02  (2.6x)
    Pioneer    DVD-103s (6x)
    Pioneer    DVD-113  (6x)
    Raite      RDR-102H (2x)
    Sony       DDU220E  (5x)
    Toshiba    SD-M1102 (2x)
    Toshiba    SD-M1202 (4.8x)
    Toshiba    SD-C2002 (2x)

  SCSI interface : 
    Matsushita LF-D100 (DVD-RAM)
    Pioneer    DVD-U02 (2.6x)
    Pioneer    DVD-303 (6x)
 
  You may find other products not in the list. PowerDVD should work fine with 
  them if they follow the most updated SFF8090 specification.
  
  However, the list of DVD-ROMs above is only for reference since there may
  be many revisions for each model. If you encounter any reading compatibility
  problems between your DVD-ROM and DVD titles, please contact the original
  DVD-ROM vendor or title supplier to see if they already have a solution for
  that problem.

* There are other first generation DVD-ROM drives, which provide poor CD-R 
  backward compatibility, also available in the market. Using PowerDVD on those
  drives is no longer recommended.
