Video for Windows 1.1 - Supplementary Release Notes for Creative Labs, Inc. Video Blaster FS200 Contents: ========= 1. Creative Video Blaster FS200 VFW Driver 2. Creative Video Blaster FS200 Capture Driver 3. Creative Video Compressor Ver 3.0 ====================================================================== Creative Video Blaster FS200 VFW Driver ====================================================================== The Creative Video Blaster FS200 VFW Driver consists of a set of 2 drivers, namely Creative Video Blaster FS200 Video Capture Driver and Creative Video Compressor Ver 3.0, which functionally perform video capture and video compression / decompression (CODEC). This current driver version number is 3.0.0.0. Installation procedure ====================== 1. Install the Video Blaster FS200 following the Installation Guide as provided by Creative Labs, Inc. Use the Creative Labs supplied "FS200STW.EXE" utility to setup the hardware and align the overlay window position. Verify proper operation of the hardware using the Creative Labs supplied "FS200WIN.EXE" Windows application. 2. Use the Control Panel Drivers applet to add the Video Blaster FS200 captured driver and Video Blaster FS200 CODEC driver from the WINDRV directory. Use the "Setup..." button to configure the playback configuration. After the installation is complete, your "SYSTEM.INI" file should contain the entries: [Drivers] msvideo=fs200cap.drv VIDC.cyuv=fs200cod.drv VIDC.aura=fs200cod.drv Use the supplied "FS200ENV.EXE" DOS utility to alter base memory address, interrupt or base port address. 3. Video Blaster FS200 card contains 1Mb of memory. The base address of this block must be ABOVE all physical extended memory. If your system has more than 16Mb of memory, select the memory address at Expanded Memory region in the "FS200ENV.EXE". There will not have any performance degradation when you map your Video Blaster FS200 memory to Expanded Memory region. ====================================================================== Creative Video Blaster FS200 Video Capture Driver ====================================================================== Creative Video Blaster FS200 Video Capture Driver supports 6 different capture formats - 8-bit RGB palettized, 16-bit RGB, 24-bit RGB, Truncated YUV, Packed YUV and Compressed YUV. The YUV formats are parts of the Creative YUV DIB Format Extension which are proprietary to Creative Labs, Inc. The YUV formats play back directly to the Video Blaster hardware and give better color resolution at low data rate. Palette capture is NOT required when capturing using the YUV formats. Truncated YUV yields better image quality while retaining the same data rate as 8-bit RGB palettized. Compressed YUV will yields the same image quality as Truncated YUV while having a lesser data rate than Truncated YUV. ===================================================================== Creative Video Compressor ===================================================================== Creative Video Compressor is a Compression / Decompression (CODEC)driver that supports the playback of Creative YUV AVI file. It also supports the conversion of Creative YUV AVI file to other file formats and vice versa. Default playback of Creative YUV AVI file is through Video Blaster Frame Buffer. On machines not equipped with Video Blaster, Creative YUV AVI files may be played back through the VGA Display using the CODEC driver. Playback configuration can be selected in the Control Panel drivers option. Both Video Capture and Video Playback share the same Video Blaster hardware. Because of this, there are certain guidelines that need to be observed when using both simultaneously. - At any one time, only one Creative YUV AVI video sequence can be played back through the hardware. Multiple copies of Creative YUV AVI video sequence will be played back through VGA. - Some conflicts will occur when VidCap.exe is run while Media Player or VidEdit.exe is playing Creative YUV AVI file. Unpredictable results might occur. - Since there is only one VBFS200 card, at any one time, only one application can access the frame buffer (i.e. the VBFS200 card). Running multiple application that access the frame buffer will cause unpredictable results. - Creative YUV AVI file playback on Video Blaster Frame Buffer has a fixed size and cannot be stretched. Zoom by 2 or Full Screen option are also supported. When the playback window size is resized, the image will be cropped. ====================== End of FS200AVI.TXT ========================