
  Readme.txt                                           Oct, 2001


    VideoMach, version 2.5.3
    Copyright 1997-2001 Zeljko Nikolic and Robert Tibljas


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  ABOUT VIDEOMACH
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  VideoMach is a powerful audio/video builder and converter.
  Use it to build video clips from still images, add music to
  videos, extract audio tracks and pictures from movies, or
  just convert media clips from one file format to another.

  Take advantage of its abilities to change the compression,
  frame rate, color depth, audio format and other properties
  of media clips. Resize your video content in non-standard
  ways, arrange pictures in matrices or enhance video clips with
  filters such as sharpen, emboss, gamma correction, brightness,
  contrast, saturation, resample, crop, rotate, and dosens of
  others.

  VideoMach is the successor to Fast Movie Processor.

  == IMPORTANT ==
  It's a good idea to visit our site (www.gromada.com) and
  check if there is a newer version of the software available
  for download.

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  SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
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  * Windows 95, 98, Me, NT4, 2000 or compatible
    with DirectX 3 or better
  * 2.7 MB of disk space
  * AVIFIL32.DLL, MSVFW32.DLL and MSACM32.DLL
    in Windows System folder
  * Display adapter that supports (and is set to) Hi-Color or
    True-Color

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  LICENSE - REGISTERING - DISTRIBUTION
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  For details read files License.txt and Order.txt (run
  "License Agreement" or "How to Order" from VideoMach's
  program group).

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  SUPPORTED FILE FORMATS
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  AVI Windows Audio Video Interleaved
      (avi)
  BAY Bayer Image, (read only)
      (bay)
  BMP Windows Device Independent Bitmap, 8/15/24bit
      (bmp,dib,rle)
  FLC Autodesk FLIC/FLIC-Pro, 8bit
      (fli,flc)
  GIF Graphics Interchange Format, (read only)
      (gif,giff)
  HAV High quality Audio Video
      (hav)
  JPG Joint Photographic Expert Group, JFIF 1.02
      (jpg,jpeg,jif,jfif,jpe,J)
  MPA MPEG Audio Layer I/II/III, MPEG-1/2 (MP1/MP3 read only)
      (mp3,mpa,mp2)
  MPG Moving Pictures Expert Group
      (mpg,mpeg,mpe,m1v,m2v)
  OGG Ogg Vorbis Audio
      (ogg)
  PCX Zsoft Paintbrush, 8/24bit
      (pcx)
  PNG Portable Network Graphics
      (png)
  PNM Portable Image, 8/15/24bit
      (pnm,ppm,pgm)
  RAS Sun Raster Image, 8/24/32bit
      (ras,sun)
  RGB Silicon Graphics Image, 8/24/32bit
      (rgb,rgba,bw,sgi)
  TGA Truevision Targa, 8/15/24/32bit
      (tga)
  TIF Tagged Image File Format
      (tif,tiff)
  WAV Windows Wave Sound
      (wav)
  XPM X-Pixmap
      (xpm)

  WHY WRITING LZW COMPRESSED GIF/TIFF IMAGES IS NOT SUPPORTED
  -----------------------------------------------------------
  Writing LZW compressed files is not supported for legal 
  reasons. Our advice is to use PNG format for storing 
  compressed images, it's patent free, supports all bit depths 
  and produces smaller files than GIF/TIFF or any other lossless
  image format. Also, an animated GIF successor will be 
  available in the future (mostly depends on creators of the 
  upcoming MNG standard). Here is the web page with official 
  WWW Consortium recommendation regarding PNG file format:
  http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Graphics/PNG/

  WHY MPEG-2 IS NOT SUPPORTED 
  -----------------------------------------------------------
  Decoding/encoding of MPEG-2 video requires paying of 
  royalties to many different patent holders that would raise
  the price of VideoMach, so we didn't support it. In the near 
  future we hope to see a replacement for MPEG that will be 
  well designed, easy to implement and open to everyone, such 
  as JPEG and PNG are in the world of image formats.

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  ABOUT HAV FILE FORMAT
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  HAV is our own file format made for real-time playing and 
  archiving of high-quality audio and video, such as rendered 
  animations. HAV format keeps the original image quality (uses 
  lossless compression). In other words HAV supports 100% 
  uncompressed quality but still saves on disk space as opposed
  to uncompressed video. Other famous formats, like AVI, JPEG 
  and MPEG reduce the image quality each time you save the image 
  (more times you save, more details you loose). HAV compresses 
  in most cases twice as good as FLI/FLC and supports 256, 64k 
  and 16.7M colors (FLI/FLC supports only up to 256 colors).
  Player for HAV clips is available at our web site. Work on 
  freely available HAV library for programmers (source code 
  included) is in progress.


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  KNOWN ISSUES
-----------------------------------------------------------------

  There is a list of known issues regarding this version of 
  the software. To see it start VideoMach, click Help -> 
  Frequently Asked Questions -> Known Issues.

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  CREDITS GO TO
-----------------------------------------------------------------

  * GNU-CC team and Mumit Khan
      GNU Compiler Collection / gcc-2.95.2-mingw32
  * Jordan Russel
      Inno Setup
  * Bjornan Henden and Andrei Stcherbatchenko
      IS Tool for Inno Setup
  * Spencer Kimball, Peter Mattis and others
      The GIMP - GNU Image Manipulation Program
  * Mark Adler, Richard B. Wales, Jean-loup Gailly,
    Onno van der Linden and Kai Uwe Rommel
      ZIP compression and file packaging utility
  * Glen McDiarmid
      for his great ideas and suggestions

  VideoMach is based in part on the work of 
  the following people:
  * Independent JPEG Group
      JPEG library release 6b
  * Group 42, Inc. and all contributing authors
      PNG reference library version 1.0.12
  * Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler
      ZLIB library version 1.1.3
  * Sam Leffler and Silicon Graphics, Inc.
      TIFF library version 3.4 beta 037
  * MPEG Software Simulation Group
      MPEG-2 Encoder / Decoder, Version 1.2
  * ISO MPEG Audio Subgroup Software Simulation Group
      MPEG-2 Audio Simulation Software Distribution 10
  * Brent Beyeler
      bbDMUX version 1.9
  * The Multimedia Communications Lab, Boston University
      MPEG-I MULTI-STREAM SYSTEM-LAYER ENCODER/DECODER PAIR 
      v1.2 Release
  * GROUPE BULL
      XPM library version 3.4k
  * The XIPHOPHORUS Company
      Ogg Vorbis audio format library 1.0 Beta 2
  * Armin Sander of Digital SimpleX 
      Audio Compression Manager public header file
  * Erik Unger
      DirectX public header files
  * Marco van Hylckama Vlieg
      Wilber icon

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  HOME PAGE / CONTACT EMAIL
-----------------------------------------------------------------

  Home page:
    http://www.gromada.com/VideoMach.html
   
  Main web site:
    gromada.com

  E-mail:
    info@gromada.com

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END OF DOCUMENT
