README.TXT For REALmagic Hollywood Plus(TM) 
Release 2.2 beta (Build 139_5) for Win 9x -- June 15th, 2001
============================================================

Congratulations on your purchase of REALmagic Hollywood Plus
DVD/MPEG2 multimedia Playback .  This file contains important
information for installation of the drivers and application 
software for this card.

	      _____________________________________
			
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              Latest Drivers & FTP Access - Hollywood_Plus
	      _____________________________________
			
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        http://www.sigmadesigns.com/support/faq_hwplus.htm
              FOR THE FAQ SECTION  - Hollywood_Plus
		     ____________________


IMPORTANT NOTES CONCERNING THESE DRIVERS :
========================================
1 - If you are using Microsoft Office XP and you have its utility
    CTFMON.EXE running, it'll stop DVD Station - the Hollywood Plus-
    DVD player from playing encrypted movies.  This utility injects 
    MSCTF.DLL in the memory space given by Windows to hardware and
    software manufacturers.  A workaround is under investigation to
    avoid this conflict.  A temporary solution is to disable this
    utility before the playback of movies : press CTRL+ALT+DEL, 
    click on CTFMON.EXE, and click "End Task".  After the movie 
    playback, restart CTFMON.exe from Start-Run : ctfmon.exe & OK.

2 - The movie Stuart Little for Region 2 has some bad data at the
    start of the movie disabling the playback.  To enable it, click
    IMMEDIATELY the Pause button after inserting the movie or after
    starting DVD Station if the movie is already inserted (or 
    pressing STOP/Play and then Pause) and press next chapter.


WHAT'S NEW IN RELEASE 2.2
=========================
-  The drivers are at the same level for Win 9x/Me, NT 4.0, and
   Win 2K. They have the same functionalities but not 
   interchangeable.
-  Fix for a bug in release 2.1 affecting the non English versions
   of Windows related to the TV output switching to NTSC/PAL. 
-  Fix to re-enable the SCSI support after being disabled in
   release 2.1.
-  Fix for the playback of different movies, especially from 
   region 2, such as X-Men, Gladiator, ....   We could not test all
   movies but the support for ISO and UDF in reading the DVD discs
   provide a larger compatibility with movies and DVD-ROM drives.
 

WHAT'S NEW IN THIS RELEASE 2.1
==============================
-  The drivers are at the same level for Win 9x/Me, NT 4.0,
   and Win 2K.
-  Implementing the UDF file format in its full features, 
   increasing the compatibility with most of the DVD movie
   discs.  No need anymore to turn off the UDF file format
   for some movies(in msconfig utility).
   Examples of movies fixed :
   Region 1 : The 10th Kingdom, The Abyss, Alice in Wonder-
     land, Chinese Connection, The Doors, Entrapment, Last
     of the Mohicans, Legends of Fall, Men in Black, Mulan,
     Natural Born Killers, Out of Africa, Ravenous, Sneakers,
     The Thin Red Line, The World is not Enough, ...
   Region 2 : A Bug's Life, Blade, Heat, Tarzan, The Wedding
     Singer,...
-  A fix for movies changing the encryption keys in the middle of
   the movie such as : "Man with the Golden Gun".
-  A fix for a flicker on the lower third of some PAL TVs.
-  Support for the Philips SVCD format where the folder name is 
   MPEG2 instead of MPEGAV and file names have extension MPG 
   instead of DAT.
-  The audio output behaves as Rel 1.7.  Example of supported
   boards :
    - Canyon 3D (ESS Chip) Diamond MX400 (driver 4.07.00.2004)
    - Forte Media FM 801 - (driver 4.05.00.3203)
    - Sound Blaster EMU10K1- EDF (driver 4.05.1037)

 

WHAT'S NEW IN THIS RELEASE 1.8.2
================================
-  If you need to start DVD Station in full-screen mode, you can 
   do it now by adding the line "fullscreen=1" in the [Settings]
   section of WVP.INI in the directory where you installed the 
   applications (usually REALmagic).  
   For audio CDs and drives with MPEG contents (defined as data by
   DVD Station panel, you can start DVD Station in Repeat mode by
   adding the line "repeatmode=1" in this same section [Settings].
-  A fix for the movie "The Sixth Sense" for R2/R4.
-  Some movies encoding requires to disable the UDF format for
   proper playback. Please see note 15 in section VI below for
   details.
-  This release of the drivers will behave like rel 1.7 as far as
   the support to special sound cards.


CLARIFICATION NOTE ABOUT REGION CODES :
-------------------------------------
The program "DVD Drive Region" in the REALmagic Group is for 
setting the region code of the RPC2 drives.  The region code on
the hardware of Hollywood Plus is irrelevant in this case.

If you don't have an RPC2 drive, then the control will be by the
region code on the Hollywood Plus.  This can be set by running
SETUP from the second diskette (application) and select the 
second option in the menu : "1 - Install Application, 
2 - Set the region code".  



WHAT'S NEW IN THIS RELEASE 1.8.1
================================
-  A fix for a bug while accessing the MPEG data on some movies
   that leads to the error message MMSYSTEM275. This bug was 
   introduced in release 1.8.
-  Some region 4 movies published by a certain company are 
   exhibiting audio noise during playback. This is due to some CRC
   errors in the AC-3 stream and can be fixed by ignoring these
   errors using the registry entry 
      IgnoreAc3Crc=1   in the folder 
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Sigma Designs\REALmagic\13
   It is recommended to have it equal to the default value zero to
   allow the driver to handle these errors by not decoding these 
   blocks (or passing them to the external AC-3 decoder, if 
   available).


WHAT'S NEW IN THIS RELEASE 1.8
==============================
-  DTS is now supported : whenever you choose the DTS option in a
   movie menu the OUTPUT WILL BE DIRECTED THRU THE SP/DIF OUPUT IN
   DIGITAL FORMAT REGARDLESS OF THE DVD STATION AUDIO OUPUT
   SETTING, so the DTS stream is NOT decoded thru the analog mini
   audio jack
-  NTSC to PAL conversion does not suffer of the 1 sec stuttering
-  The audio volume sliding bar shows in full screen
-  PC Friendly will show the playback of movie with the black
   key color (video was not shown with rel 1.7 - audio only heard)
-  A timimg fix for the Jaton's OEM board on Pentium III systems
-  The audio special output (6 channel Wave) support to sound
   cards is removed for copyright issues

WHAT'S NEW IN THIS RELEASE 1.7
==============================
-  Implemented basic support for RPC2 drives (DVD-ROM drives that 
   carry the region code)
-  Added auto-calibration "on the fly" when no calibration has
   been done before at the current resolution/color depth.
-  The audio special output (6 Channel Wave) supports the 
   ForteMedia sound card.

WHAT'S NEW IN THIS RELEASE 1.6.2
=================================
-  A fix for the playback with AC-3 audio output for some movies
   (in the previous release it needed to start in Stereo output
   mode)
-  An improvement in the auto-calibration
-  The Help file shows a description for the buttons which did not
   have one in the previous release.
-  Support for Chinese help under Chinese Windows
-  There is a special audio output now for the Formosa (nFIC) 
   sound card based on the ESS Canyon3D sound chip.  This audio
   output setting will route internally the audio output to the 
   sound card, downmixing to 6 channels WAVE API. NO output comes
   from the stereo audio jack of Hollywood Plus.  This setting is
   ONLY good for this sound card. If you don't have this sound 
   card, please do not use this setting. 

WHAT'S NEW IN RELEASE 1.6
==========================
-  The TV output option has two new settings :
     -  MultiSystem :   the output will follow the source of the 
                        movie, i.e. if an NTSC movie the output 
                        will be NTSC and the same for PAL
     -  PAL 60 : the output will be at a frequency of 60 Hz, the
                 same as NTSC but with PAL colors (needs TV set
                 with this capability)
-  A fix for the playback on some systems that were crashing when
   outputting to TV
-  A fix for the permanent display of some movies' subtitles
-  A better handling of the AC-3 output to suppress noise 
   appearing on some Dolby Digital decoders (when AC-3 output is
   enabled)
-  A fix for the disappearance of the second subtitle line or the 
   highlighting of a wrong area for the menus buttons on TV (when
   loopback cable is not present)
-  A fix for movies encoded the same way like "Die Hard III" 
   region 4 which was not played back properly
-  A larger tolerance range for the PAL TV sets
-  Addition of a button in DVD Station to set your preferred
   default DVD-ROM drive
-  Addition of the option "/f=filename" on the command line of
   DVD Station to allow the direct play back of the file
-  Compatibility with the IBM MPEG 2 title  "Worldbook 1999"



CONTENTS
========					
I   - DRIVER AND APPLICATIONS INSTALLATION	
II  - BORDER ADJUSTMENT AND COLOR CALIBRATION	       
III - DVD REGION CODE CHANGE				
IV  - TV OUT
V   - FULL SCREEN PLAYBACK
VI  - HINTS TO RESOLVE PROBLEMS AND BETTER PLAYBACK

I   - DRIVER AND APPLICATIONS INSTALLATION
      ====================================
    
After the hardware installation of the card do the following:

1.  For an existing installation (if not go to step 2): uninstall
    the previous software by going to the REALmagic Group - 
    Uninstall, reboot, and follow steps 2 and 3 below.
2.  On booting your system, Windows 9X will detect the card. 
    Insert the REALmagic Hollywood Plus Drivers Disk in your 
    floppy drive A and click Finish. This will install Hollywood
    Plus drivers on your hard disk.
3.  To install the DVD navigation software insert Application Disk
    into drive A and run SETUP.  You'll get a menu whether to 
    "Install Application" or "Set Region".  Select the "Install"
    and Setup will copy the files. If the board is new (no region
    code is set), Setup will ask to set the region.  If not, or
    after setting the region, Setup will calibrate the colors and
    adjust the borders. 
    Note : there is no need to set the region code if the board
           was used before installing this version (or if you 
           remove the board to a different system.)
   
II - BORDER ADJUSTMENT AND COLOR CALIBRATION
      =======================================

    NOTE: If the border is not adjusted properly after Auto 
          Calibration you may need to set the Border Adjustment to
          get more accurate adjustment. You need to set the Border
          Adjustment only once for each setting of display 
          resolution.

1.  At the Start button, click Programs and select REALmagic 
    Hollywood Plus program group. Click REALmagic Configuration.
2.  Click on Adjust Border and use the proper buttons to adjust
    the black rectangle in the magenta box.
3.  Change different values to adjust stability if you are viewing 
    jumping pixels on MPEG video. Click OK when you are done. 
4.  The Reset Default button will reset the color calibration and 
    border adjustment values to the factory default settings.

    Note 1: Color calibration is required if the colors are not 
            normal or the screen is pink or not clear. If color 
            calibration is required, Click on "Auto Calibration".
            The screen will flash for 5 to 10 seconds then display
            a message that the calibration is complete. Click OK.
    Note 2: In the cases where this calibration is unsuccessful, 
            you can click on Advanced..., then the Manual 
            Calibration. This will involve fixing the R, G, B 
            sliders as shown in the window four times. You can use
            the up/down arrow keys for fine tuning and you don't
            need necessarily to see the cross but just the 
            disappearance of the vertical bar.

III - DVD REGION CODE CHANGE
      ======================

1.  Run SETUP from Application disk. Select DVD Region Code 
    change option. Set the region code according to the country
    you are in. This setting goes onto the hardware of Hollywood
    Plus and there is NO need to set it again if you move the 
    board to a different system.
      _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
    Note: The setup program will allow you to change the region 
          code for five times. If you want to reset the region 
          code settings after five times contact the card 
          manufacturer or an authorized distributor or service
          center. A nominal handling fee will be charged.
      __________________________________________________________
    Note: If the system includes an RPC2 DVD-ROM drive that 
          carries its own region code, DVD Station will check the
          code against the movie and will issue an appropriate
          message if not matching (the Hollywood Plus region code
          is ignored in this case).  Movies will not playback if
          the drive is new and has NOT been set for a region.

IV  - TV OUT
      ======

    The REALmagic Hollywood Plus can display on a VGA monitor or a
    TV set.
    To switch between these modes an icon is provided on the left 
    corner of the DVD Station control panel that toggles between 
    computer monitor and TV.

    In order to display on a TV, some additional settings may be 
    required. From the DVD Station control panel click Options 
    button. This will open a window for options setting. Click the
    settings tab. Select the options according to your TV type. 
    The color control, brightness, and contrast controls have also
    been provided for TV.

    Note :  Some TVs are sensitive with video frequency input and 
            may show Black and White video on TV. This has 
            specially been noticed on some PAL TVs. In such a
            situation do the following WHILE the TV-Out option is
            active and DVD/MPEG is playing on TV.:
		1. From the DVD station click the "Options Dialog-
                   Settings tab.
		2. Press Configure and then press Advanced 
                   Settings.
		3. Select Expert Settings and click the mouse. 
                   This will open a pop-up window. Adjust 
                   different values until you have color picture
                   on TV.  Notice that you need to keep on going
                   in one direction when changing the values i.e.
                   either always increasing or decreasing because
                   of the hysteresis nature of this adjustment.
	   
		     					

V  - FULL SCREEN PLAYBACK
     ====================

    In order to playback in full screen, double click the left 
    button of mouse anywhere in the MPEG window or press Ctrl+Z.
    This will playback the video in full-screen mode. In order to
    go back to the window mode, press Space in full-screen mode
    and it will resume playback in the restored MPEG window. See
    "What's new in 1.8.2." above for details in starting 
    DVD Station in full-screen mode.
      


VI - HINTS TO RESOLVE PROBLEMS AND BETTER PLAYBACK 
     =============================================

1.  The drivers are installed and the Hollywood Plus appears in 
    the "Device Manager" but the CD's won't play.

    Run SETUP from the second diskette (Applications) to create
    the "REALmagic Hollywood Plus" group. This group contains the 
    DVD-Station, README file, REALmagic Configuration, and 
    Uninstall.

2.  With the Hollywood Plus board and the drivers correctly 
    installed the system crashes after boot-up.

    Start Win 9X in the Safe mode, select the Hollywood Plus board
    in the Device Manager, manually change the Memory Range to a
    different setting for the Hollywood Plus and reboot.

3.  The REALmagic Configuration can be run but when the 
    DVD-Station is started (or the Media Player with an MPEG file)
    the system hangs.

    Check the Device Manager for a conflict in the IRQ resources
    and make the necessary change(s).

4.  After installing the first disk for the drivers, and run SETUP
    from the second disk, the following message comes up : "Driver
    cannot be loaded, another instance from the driver may be
    running".  Or when playing an MPEG file after the software
    installation, there is an error message  "MMSYSTEM 266 : 
    undetectable error ...".

    Reseat Hollywood Plus in different PCI slots because of some
    of the motherboards BIOSes handling of the resources.


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

    Run "REALmagic Configuration" and select "Auto Calibration." 
    Or, make sure that the output of the Display Adapter is routed
    to the Hollywood Plus input and the Display Adapter's output
    is routed to the monitor.

6.  The picture is waving.

    Run "REALmagic Configuration," select "Border Adjust" and
    adjust the STABILITY: smoothness of the two vertical sides.

7.  MPEG 1 files run normally, but DVD movies are shaky.

    Make certain that the DVD-ROM drive is connected as a Master
    on the IDE controller. And turn ON the DMA flag in the 
    "Device Manager-DVD ROM drive-Settings-DMA."

8.  When running Video CD on the CD-ROM drive, the playback is
    shaky.

    Connect the Video CD drive as a slave to the hard disk and not
    on the same controller with the DVD-ROM drive. If you are 
    using the original release of Win 95 make sure you have
    installed the Microsoft fix (IOSYSUPD.EXE - from their web
    site). This fix smoothes the playback of Video CDs from the
    slave drives.

9.  I get an "MMSYSTEM error 275" when I try to play a DVD 
    encrypted movie.

    This can happen if you are using the original release of 
    Win 95 and you have the CD-ROM drive as a slave to the DVD-ROM
    drive. Replace the file ESDI_506.PDR with its equivalent in 
    OSR2 in the subdirectory IOSUBSYS of Windows/System.  Another
    possible reason is the presence of an RPC2 DVD-ROM drive NOT
    set for any region.  

10. For DVD-ROMs that require high data transfer rates, it is
    better to have the DVD-ROM drive connected to an IDE 
    controller with the "Bus Master" mode activated.  Most of the
    recent systems have it activated. 
    
11. If you are using Rel OSR2 of Win 95 or Win 98, check on the
    DMA feature of your DVD-ROM drive. This can be found in the
    Device Manager by double-clicking the entry for the DVD-ROM
    drive, clicking the tab Settings, and checking 'On' the DMA
    feature.

12. Playing long DVD movies, above 4 GB in size, is supported by
    the Microsoft CDFS.VXD of Win 95 Rel OSR2 and later versions.

13. Capturing of an MPEG frame from an encrypted DVD movie is not 
    supported because of Copyright issues. In other cases the 
    capture feature gives its best results at a color depth of
    64K (16 bits) or higher.

14. Playing VOB files using the Media Player might not show the
    best performance because of different navigation schemes. Use
    the DVD Station for this.

15. Video is fine on VGA but is Black and White on TV.
 
    Please see section for TV-Out.  Please note that some TV sets
    in Europe using the SCART connector have inputs for S-Video
    but do not support, however, the S-Video signal.  The display
    will be B&W.  Check your TV manual for details.

16. When watching the movie on TV, the picture gets dimmer and
    brighter at short intervals and with some movies some yellow
    horizontal lines appear on the TV screen.

    The TV set is connected to the PC system via a VCR or an alike 
    device.  This device initiates the Macrovision protection of
    the movie.  Connect the TV directly to the PC system.

17. The S-Video connector on Hollywood Plus is a 7-hole jack and
    my S-Video cable has a 4-pin socket only.

    The 4-pin cable is compatible with the 7-pin socket.  There 
    are more pins on the 7-pin socket to provide for the composite
    TV output.

18. I lost the S-Video/Composite Converter cable and have no 
    access to another one.

    Order another one from your supplier.  In the USA, you can
    check the phone number or the email address of the fulfillment
    center on the web site . The  pinout of this converter is as
    follows :

          _________
	 /         \
	|  7  6  5  |
	| 4 3   2 1 |
	|           |
	 \  OOOOO  /
	  ---------

	1:GND
	2:Composite
	3:GND
	4:GND
	5:Luma
	6:not connected
	7:Chroma
            

19.  You can watch some movies but not others, using a Toshiba 
     DVD-ROM drive model SD-1202 with the firmware number 1018.

     Upgrade the firmware to 1020.

20.  The Hollywood Plus drivers do not support DTS audio on DVD
     movies. It allows only the DTS stream to go out to an 
     external decoder. If you do not have such decoder, play the
     Dolby AC-3 stream instead.
     

21.  You want DVD Station to check your DVD-ROM first and it has
     a drive letter after the CD-ROM.  

     Rel 1.6 and later of this DVD Station allows you to set your 
     preferred drive.  Options_Dialog/Play_List/Default Drive.

22.  You see the video but no audio.

     - Try first the speakers plugged in Hollywood Plus and be 
       sure the output from DVD Station is Stereo.
     - Check the audio jumper cable from the output of Hollywood
       Plus to the input of the sound card. If no sound, check the
       volume mixer to have Line-in NOT muted or at low level.
     - If you are using a Dolby Digital Receiver, make sure that
       it accepts AC-3 streams (if your setting in DVD Station is
       AC-3), otherwise it must be a PCM decoder and in this case
       set the DVD Station output to Surround.
     - There is no need for an audio cable between the back of the 
       DVD-ROM drive and the CD-IN of Hollywood Plus.  You can
       connect this cable straight to the CD-IN of the sound card.
       This is used by the audio CDs and not the DVD discs.
    

23.  The maximum refresh rates allowed with the Hollywood Plus 
     MPEG playback depends partially on the display board.  
     However, the following can be used as a guideline:

		 640 x  480	120 Hz
		 800 x  600	100 Hz
		1024 x  768	 85 Hz
		1152 x  864	 85 Hz
		1280 x 1024	 85 Hz (75 with some boards)
		1600 x 1200	 85 Hz
   
     If you have some blurriness on the Windows desktop due to the
     analog overlay and some display adapters, please reduce
     either the resolution or/and the refresh rate of the display
     adapter for a better display.   You can remove the pass-thru
     cable if you watch the MPEG video on the TV set only.

24.  The Hollywood Plus does NOT support the MP3 files playback.

25.  While the movie is playing, the DVD Station freezes.  

     Check if you have a network card 3C905B.  If it is, uninstall
     its driver and install only the 4th disk (avoiding the 
     diagnostic program).  Or upgrade the 3Com drivers to version
     4.1 or higher.

26.  You have a third generation DVD-ROM drive (RPC2 specs that
     require a region code on the drive) and you cannot playback
     movies.

     Run the utility for this drive to set the region code to your
     country code.

27.  One of the possible reasons of being unable to play encrypted
     movies is having a Virus Scanner running on the system.  

     Please disable the virus scanner before running DVD Station.
     

28.  What is the pinout of the VGA signals on the pass-thru cable?

       View of the 9 pin socket of the pass-through cable,
       seen from the bracket:
                         
                         _________
                        /_________\
                       |           |
                       | 9    8  7 |
                       |  6 5 4 3  |
                        \   2 1   /
                         ---------

                       1:Blue  IN
                       2:GND
                       3:Green IN
                       4:GND
                       5:Vsync IN
                       6:Hsync IN
                       7:Red   IN
                       8:SDA (from pin12 of DB15) - PnP monitors
                       9:SCL (from pin15 of DB15) - PnP monitors

29.  Connecting the digital audio output in the back of some 
     DVD-ROM drives to the S/P DIF input of some revisions of the
     Hollywood Plus, might disable the S/P DIF output of the 
     Hollywood Plus.  It depends on the drive model.  If this
     happens to your system, just disconnect the digital audio
     cable (not supplied with Hollywood Plus) between the drive
     and Hollywood Plus.

30.  Implementing new flags in the Registry to disable the 
     resetting of the board between files.  Adding these flags
     allow you to play a list of files in the "PLay List" of DVD
     Station without loosing the synch signal going to the TV set
     between files. Add under :
         HKLM\Software\SigmaDesigns\REALMagic\13\General
     two DWORD entries - DontDoHwReset with value 1 and 
     ACPIEnable with value 0.  These flags will also remove the
     flashing between files on some systems.
     NOTICE : Corrupting the Registry could make your system
              unusable, please make backup and exercise caution
              when modifying it.


31.  Hollywood Plus plays back DVD, Video CD, and S-VCD disc
     formats besides regular MPEG 1 and MPEG 2 files.  It does not
     play the "what's called " DiVX format.

32.  I have a USB speakers system and I don't hear audio.

     Add a DWORD entry "EnableDac" with value 0 under the Registry
     entry :  HKLM\Software\SigmaDesigns\REALmagic\13.
     If you are using an ESS sound card and notice that changing 
     the audio volume in DVD Station does not affect the Center 
     channel, add in the same place the DWORD value 
     "SetCentreChannel" with value 1.

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

	END   OF    FILE

