HistoryA Multimedia Subsystem was added with OS/2 Version 2.1 named Multimedia Presentation Manager (MMPM). MMPM offered capabilities to play and edit video/ sound streams. The subsystem has its own configuration utility minstall to install/configure both hard- and software, e.g. device driver and audio/video codecs.With OS/2 Warp V3 more features were added: new driver, VideoIn and other applications. New interfaces for the upcoming Game Toolkit were announced but the project was discontinued while in Beta. Fortunately the interfaces like DART (Direct Audio RouTnes), Dive (Direct Interface to Video Extensions), EnDive and RTMIDI (Real-Time MIDI) were integrated in the upcoming OS/2 Warp4. TodayThe Design of MMPM is good but not the implementation as well. IBM stopped fruther development of MMPM (only some fixes and new driver were added), therefore the OS/2 community has to look for alternatives. At Warpstock 2002 a replacement for MMPM was announced - DTA (Data Transport Agent). This project has a long history and some interesting features, have a look at the presentation 'DTA: A Multimedia Regeneration' (pdf).
A short listing how to play different kinds of audio/video data follows.
There is also a list of OS/2 supported soundcards
available, check out the PCI soundcard driver matrix.
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Video-Player |
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| universal | ||||||||||
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| AVI - Audio Video Interleave (*.avi) | ||||||||||
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MMPM has build in support for avi codecs but they are outdated (check with XWP Multimedia object).
You can add some codecs with AnPoCodec6
(MSVC,CVID & RLE). But better use an external player like WarpVision and WarpMedia
because they support newer codecs (DivX;-) and more).
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| Quicktime (*.mov, *.qt) | ||||||||||
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Back in days IBM and Apple developed a Quicktime player for OS/2 but
the project was stopped while in Beta. In 2001 Somebody uploaded this
version to hobbes ;-)
This will play some more Quicktime video than with
Quickmotion.
This program from Practise (QuickMotion)
supports Quicktime 1.x and QuicktimeVR. |
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| RealAudio/Video (*.rm, *.ram) | ||||||||||
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To play RealAudio and Video in OS/2 you have to
use the Realplayer V8 for Windows with the ODIN runtime.
RP8 is no longer available from Real so get it from the web, somewhere
...
Be aware of newer ODIN builds because they will break the sound support and the loader win32k.sys.
Recommend ODIN build for RealPlayer8 is dated xx.11.01. The new RealOne Player will not work with ODIN because it uses some components from IE. I use RP only for radio streams and some video, no need for the RealChannels. Tip: configure RealPlayer as 'Netscape helper application' see SCOUG or WarpDoctor. |
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| MPEG (Video)- Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPG, CDI, VBS, DAT, M1T, M2T, M2P) | ||||||||||
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Better MPEG Video support was added with the
PlugIn-Pak 3.0 for Netscape Communicator 4.61.
MPEG Hardware decoding is available on IBM MWAVE or ReelMagic cards.
Configuration is done with the new page in the MM-Notebook and the
'Internet-Manager' in the 'system setup' folder.
Another option is to use the WarpVision player.
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| Shockwave-Flash (*.swf) | ||||||||||
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InnoTek brought the Flash support to OS/2. The
'Macromedia Flash Player for OS/2' Version 4 was free but newer version are not, you have
to register or you get a
nag screen after every 5th click on a Flash movie. The Flash 5 package includes a
PlugIn for Netscape/Warpzilla and a Flash PM-Player.
The Opera Browser ships with the Win32 Plash-PlugIn Version 5 (you can use Win32 and OS/2 PlugIns as well). |
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Audio-Player |
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| MPEG 1.0 layer III (Audio) (*.mp3) | ||||||||||
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