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			       XingCD
			    MPEG Encoder
		     Xing Technology Corporation
		       1540 West Branch Street
		       Arroyo Grande, CA 93420

		  Technical Support:  805-473-7431
		  Fax:                805/473-0147
		  BBS:                805/473-2680
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Thank you for purchasing XingCD, Xing's MPEG encoding software.
Please make certain to send in your registration card.

The PRODBRF.WRI file in your XingCD directory contains a brief
introduction to other products from Xing Technology.

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RELEASE NOTES TO XINGCD VERSION 1.1
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FIXES MADE IN VERSION 1.1

Video Encoding
- Filtering of input images (when scaling source images to match output
  resolution) has been improved to eliminate color registration errors.
- There is now no problem encoding long videos. XingCD Version 1.01
  sometimes failed to encode clips longer than 1 minute.
- The syntax for script files described in the XingCD User's Manual
  is now fully supported. 
- The Video encoder now handles situations in which target file creation
  fails due to insufficient disk space.
- General tightening of the code has eliminated memory allocation errors
  that were evidenced as "Error in VIDADMIN.DLL" when running multiple jobs. 
- The "White Book" settings format now produces legal White Book MPEGS.
  XingCD Version 1.01 was not properly interleaving video and audio into
  a White Book compliant System Stream.
- Video Buffer Verifier values have been corrected; previous versions
  had incorrect values.
- SMPTE Time codes are properly inserted.
- A problem related to MPEGs encoded from bitmaps with a static background
  (e.g., animations with little or no movement in the background) has 
  been fixed. XingCD Version 1.01 was improperly maintaining the decoder
  buffer size when dealing with these sequences.

Audio Encoding
- All types of WAV audio data are now extracted and encoded properly.
  XingCD Version 1.01 had problems extracting 16-bit audio data,
  and stereo WAV data that was not 44kHz 16bit was not encoded properly.

System Stream Encoding
- The multiplexer has been improved to allow allocation of more bits
  to video frames.
- The predefined settings formats have been corrected to eliminate
  erroneous "Mux Rate Too Low" errors.

Other Fixes
- When you edit a System Stream Job in which the audio source is
  "From AVI Video Source" the "From AVI Video Source" checkbox now
  appears.

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NEW FEATURES IN XINGCD VERSION 1.1

Consult your XingCD User's Manual or XingCD's on-line Help for
complete descriptions of these features.

- Larger Input File Resolutions
  Source frames can now have a maximum resolution of 768x576 pixels.
- Expanded Support File Types in Bitmap Sequences
  You can now include in your bitmap sequences the following file types:
    BMP, DCX, EPS, GIF, JPG, PCX, PCT, TGA, TIF, WMF, and WPG.
  Source bitmap files can be saved to any color depths (i.e., 2bit -
  32 bit), but it is strongly recommended that you save bitmaps as
  24-bit color files to achieve maximum quality.
- Revised List File Syntax
  There is no longer a distinction between "short" and "long" list files.
  List files are now constructed according to the following rules:
  - each line of the list file can describe a single source bitmap
    or range of bitmaps;
  - a new "REPEAT" option can appear at the end of any line(s) in
    the list file. This option causes each source bitmap described on the
    line to be repeated in the target MPEG file.
- New Predefined Settings Formats
  The Settings Formats list now contains 5 pre-defined entries that
  produce common MPEG file types (two variations of each format
  appear in the list to accommodate NTSC and PAL standards).
- The dialog that appears when a source bitmap file can not be found
  (e.g., when a list file entry specifies a non-existent file) has
  been modified: clicking the FIX button now opens a dialog with
  which you can browse your PC's file system and select a replacement
  bitmap file.
- Error dialogs that previously let you "FIX" or "SKIP" a erroneous
  job now have a third option "STOP"; when this button is pressed
  the current job is skipped and the Job Queue is stopped.

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KNOWN PROBLEMS IN XINGCD VERSION 1.1

The following problem was discovered too late for fixing in version 1.1:

- When the input file for a video encoder job is a multi-module Script
  file, SMPTE Time codes in the resulting MPEG video are re-initialized
  at the start of each module; e.g., if the source Script file
  defines three input modules, the SMPTE Time codes in the resulting
  MPEG files are set to 0 at the start of modules 2 and 3.

  While this situation does not cause any problems for today's MPEG
  playback systems, it will be corrected to insure strict adherence to
  the MPEG standard and compatibility with any MPEG editing systems that
  may be developed in the future. Contact Xing Technical Support if you
  need a fix to this problem.
ADDENDA TO USER'S MANUAL

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UPDATING FROM AN OLDER VERSION OF XINGCD
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When the XingCD installation program detects a previous version of
XingCD on your PC's hard disk, it asks you if you want to preserve
the Settings Formats of your old XingCD database. If you answer Yes,
your original XingCD database (XINGCD.MDB) is copied to the OLDDB
subdirectory of your new XingCD's ENCODER directory. When XingCD
installation is complete, you can use the DB_Upgrade program to
copy user-defined Settings Formats from your old database to your
new database:
- Launch the UPGRADE.EXE program located in the XINGCD\ENOCDER directory.
- Enter the pathname of your old XingCD database file, e.g.:
  \XING\XINGCD\ENCODER\OLDDB\XINGCD.MDB 
- Enter the pathname of your NEW XingCD database file, e.g.:
  \XING\XINGCD\ENCODER\XINGCD.MDB
- Click the GO button.
The next time you start the XingCD Encoder, your Settings Format list
will contain XingCD's pre-defined Settings Formats plus all user-defined
formats from your old database.

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NOTE REGARDING IMAGE QUALITY
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XingCD has been tested with files from:
- Autodesk 3D Studio
- Micrografx Picture Publisher
- Microsoft Video for Windows Version 1.1 samples
- .AVI sequences generated by Motion JPEG cards
   from VideoLogic, Truevision, Zoran, miro, and FAST
- .AVI sequences edited by Adobe Premiere and Video for Windows VIDEDIT

While XingCD can produce a very high quality MPEG stream, the quality
of the output can fundamentally never exceed the quality of the
source material.  There are a variety of .AVI capture cards currently
available, but in our experience, only the Motion JPEG cards have the
potential to capture adequate quality video for content authoring.

When working with Motion JPEG cards, we recommend using minimum 
compression, so as not to introduce JPEG compression artifacts.
Your compression setting should minimally be 2 bits per pixel (12:1 
compression), and best results will be found in the range of 3-4 bits 
per pixel (6:1 to 8:1 compression).  You should always select 4:2:2 
chrominance subsampling (not 4:1:1)  At 320 x 240 x 30fps, this will 
require disk storage in the range of 400kbytes to 800kbytes per 
recorded second.  Again, the higher the quality of the source 
material, the higher the quality of the output MPEG stream.

When capturing audio, the same guidelines apply.  XingCD can work with 
standard 11kHz 8-bit .WAV files, but best quality will result from 44kHz
16-bit files. Some Windows sound cards have difficulty recording at 
44kHz, so make certain the captured audio is free of drop-outs, clicks, 
noise, etc.

Please contact us if you get good (or bad) results from a given 
combination of video and audio capture hardware.  We are testing 
compatibility of XingCD with a variety of Motion JPEG capture cards, 
but we also want to hear about your experiences, good or bad.

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NOTE REGARDING HORIZONTAL RESOLUTION OF .AVI FILES
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Our testing has revealed that some AVI codecs may not properly handle 
horizontal input resolutions that are not evenly divisible by four
(GP faults may occur when these codecs are asked to deliver bitmaps
to the XingCD Encoder). To avoid potential problems, you should avoid
using such input resolutions (all standard MPEG settings are divisible
by four).