MPEG-FAQ 4.0:

MPEG Video Software Decoder

                  MPEG Video Software Decoder
                  (Version 2.1; May 1 1995)

 Lawrence A. Rowe, Ketan Patel, Brian Smith, Steve Smoot, and Eugene Hung
      Computer Science Division-EECS, Univ. of Calif. at Berkeley

This directory contains a public domain MPEG video software
decoder. The decoder is implemented as a library that will
take a video stream and display it in an X window on an 8, 24
or 32 bit deep display.  The main routine is supplied to
demonstrate the use of the decoder library. Several dithering
algorithms are supplied based on the Floyd-Steinberg, ordered
dither, and half-toning algorithms that tradeoff quality and
performance. Neither the library nor the main routine handle
real-time synchronization or audio streams.

The decoder implements the standard described in the Committee 
Draft ISO/IEC CD 11172 dated December 6, 1991 which is
sometimes refered to as "Paris Format." The code has been
compiled and tested on the following platforms:

 HP PA-RISC (HP/UX 9.X, X11R5) (i.e., HP 9000/7XX and 9000/3XX)
 Sun Sparc (SunOS 4.X, X11R5)
 DECstation 5000 and Alpha
 Silicon Graphics Indigo
 MIPS RISC/os 4.51

If you decide to port the code to a new architecture, please let
us know if there are any significant changes, so that we can incorporate
them into our sources. 

This directory contains everything required to build and
display video. We have included source code, a makefile, an Imakefile,
installation instructions, and a man page. Data files can
be obtained from the same ftp site this was located in.
See the INSTALL file for instructions on how to
compile and run the decoder. 

The data files were produced by XING. XING data does not take
advantage of P or B frames (ie, frames with motion compensation). 
Performance of the player on XING data is significantly slower 
(half or less) than the performance when motion compensated MPEG 
data is decoded. We are very interested in running the software 
on other MPEG streams.  Please contact us if you have a stream 
that does not decode correctly. Also, please send us new streams
produced by others that do utilize P and B frames.

Our future plans include porting the decoder to run on other
platforms, integrating it into a video playback system that
supports real-time synchronization and audio streams, and
further experiments to improve the performance of the
decoder. Vendors or other organizations interested in supporting 
this research or discussing other aspects of this project should 
contact Larry Rowe at Rowe@CS.Berkeley.EDU.


Other Versions:
There are three variations of the old mpeg_play:
  One added a very nice Motif interface (variously named 
	mpeg_play-2.0.1 and xmpegplay).
  One was mpegvga.patch and let linux play straight to a VC.
  One was an X interface (mpegplayer.tar.gz on linux sites)
We have notified the authors of those programs, and will
have new versions of them here as soon as they can find the time
to update them.


Reporting bugs:
    If you find any bugs in this software, please send them to
    mpeg-bugs@plateau.cs.berkeley.edu.  Since this software

    is unsupported, we make no guarantees about how long it will
    take to fix the bug, or if it will be fixed at all.  Bug fixes
    will be cheerfully accepted.  Please include as much detailed
    information as possible, including:

	1) the version number of the program you are using (cf. VERSION)
	2) the data file that caused the bug (if possible)
	3) the OS version and machine type you ran the program on
	4) the compiler used to compile the program

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
	We gratefully thank Hewlett-Packard, Fujitsu, the Semiconductor
	Research Corporation for financial support.

	We also want to thank the following people for their help:

	Tom Lane of the Independent JPEG Group provided us with
		the basic inverse DCT code used by our player.
		(tom_lane@g.gp.cs.cmu.edu)


	Reid Judd of Sun Microsystems provided advice and assistance.

	Todd Brunhoff of NVR provided advice and assistance.

	Toshihiko Kawai of Sony provided advice and assistance.

-- 
Eugene Hung                             eyhung@garnet.berkeley.edu