CDGPLAY Version 1.2 - (c) Computall Services 2001 Homepage: http://web.ncf.ca/aa571 CDGPLAY - What is it? --------------------- CDGPLAY is a DOS command line utility that displays the graphics contained on CD+G audio CDs. It will display either: - from a CDG file (like one produced by another of my programs CDDA) - directly from the CD It now supports SCSI drives through the ASPI drivers, ATAPI drives through the ASPI drivers in Windows 95/98, and ATAPI drives through the ATASPI drivers. It will not work under Windows NT or 2000. I am not aware of any other programs like this for the PC under DOS. There is a similar program for the MAC (see: http://www.thepalace.com/jbum/software.html), and I know that there is one for Linux under development. There is a lot of cdg related information on our CDG FAQ web page: http://web.ncf.ca/aa571/cdgfaq.htm This program runs best under DOS. It is sometimes very unhappy when you try to run it under a Win DOS window. It also is happiest when you have a VESA compliant video card. What's new in 1.2? ------------------ There is very little new in 1.2. All we have done is update the Reed Solomon encoder to do a better job of finding packs that have errors in them and NOT try and display those packs. This makes a big difference in reducing the wierd errors that get displayed with many of the various pack errors. What's new in 1.1? ------------------ There have been 2 big changes in 1.1. The first is a 2x display mode for all those people who have been emailing us saying that the tiny box in the top left corner is too small. The second change is that we now support all the Toshiba cdrom drives as well as most of the new HP, Plextor, Sony and Yamaha cdr/cdrw drives. It is important to note that the newer drives only support reading the cdg data, but not playing the audio at the same time. Where can I get the most recent version? ---------------------------------------- You can find pointers to the most recent versions of all my software on my homepage: http://web.ncf.ca/aa571 Acknowledgements ---------------- I need to acknowledge the help I received in writing this program. 1) Jim Bumgardner - he wrote the version for the MAC, and then release his source and a technical document discussing CD+G. I had given up trying to get the spec from Philips when they told me that the price was $20,000.00 US, but Jim saved the day. 2) Heiko Eissfeltd - he is writing a version for Linux, and has sent me a number of iterations of source code. Some of that code (which is copyrighted) is contained in CDGPLAY. What drives are supported by this program? ------------------------------------------ This release now supports SCSI and ATAPI cdrom drives. SCSI drives must be run from ASPI drivers, and ATAPI drives must be run from ASPI drivers under Win95/98, or ATASPI drivers under DOS. What drives support CD+G? ------------------------- The following is a list of drives that I understand will work with this program. There could be more. Drives that can read cdg data at the same time as playing audio: Apple 300, 300i, 300e (Sony CDU-8003, CDU-8003A) Apple CD300+, CD600+ Panasonic CW-7501 Plasmon CDR4240 Plextor 4Plex+, 8Plex, 14/32Plex, 12/20Plex, 12Plex (the 4Plex and 6Plex don't support CD+G) Sony CDU-561, CDU-55S, CDU-76S, CDU-415, 111, 211, 311, 511 Teac some models of scsi cdrom drives Drives that cannot play audio while reading cdg data: HP 7500, 7550, 8000, 8100, 8110, 8200, 8210, 8250, 9110, 9200, 9300, M820 Plextor PX-W8220T, PX-W4220T, PX-R820T, PX-R412C Sony CRX100, CRX110, CRX120, CRX140, CRX145 Toshiba all cdrom models except for the 3401 (dvd rom drives do not support cdg) Yamaha CRW2260, CRW4260, CDR200, CDR400, CDR401, CRW2260, CRW4260, CRW4416, CRW6416, CRW8424, CRW4001, CDRW4261 We have found that since the Toshiba drives don't error correct the cdg data from the drive, there tend to be a LOT of errors when our software finally gets the data from the drive. Until we can find someone who can write us a little Reed Solomon (24,20) decoder, these drives will not work as well as others. Also we've found that some of the newer HP drives do an equally poor job of error correcting. How do I use this program? -------------------------- The program has a number of command line switches. The /F option forces CDGPLAY to use the CDG file specified to display the graphics instead of reading from the CD. The /ID option allows you to manually set the SCSI ID of the CDROM drive you want to use. This is useful if this software incorrectly guesses your drive's ID, or if you have more than one CDROM drive in your system. The HA is the ID of the Host Adapter, the ID is the ID of the SCSI cdrom drive, and the LUN is the Logical Unit Number of the SCSI cdrom drive. If you are not sure about these values, you can use one of my programs SCSIPING (shipped with CDDA) and it will tell you how your drive is configured. The /MSC option allows you to manually set the MSCDEX drive letter of the CDROM drive you want to use. This is useful if this software incorrectly guesses your drive's ID, or if you have more than one CDROM drive in your system. The /T option allows you to specify the track on the CD you want to display. By not specifying a track, the whole CD is assumed. The /D option enables error logging. This means that any error messages will be saved to the file ERROR.DMP. This is useful for helping me fix any problems. The /LANG option selects the language of the lyrics (if any) that are displayed when the music is playing. The numbers are: 1 - English 2 - Spanish 3 - French 4 - German 5 - Italian The /SPEED option allows the drive to be set to a different reading speed than the default. Valid values are: 1, 2, 4, 8 The /SIZE option allows the user to select between the default 2x display size and the faster 1x display size The /MMC option allows the program to access the drives using the standard MMC command set. This option is needed for those drives that can only read the cdg data but cannot play the audio at the same time. This would be used with all the Yamaha, and HP drives as well as the newer Sony and Plextor drives. The /95ATAPI option selects the ASPI drivers for ATAPI drives under Win95. If you are using an ATAPI drive under Win95, this is the option you should use. The /ATASPI option selects the ATASPI drivers for ATAPI drives under DOS. If you are using an ATAPI drive under DOS with ATASPI, this is the option you should use. Have a look at the DOC file for CDDA on my web page for more information on how to find ATASPI drivers. If you are using either the /95ATAPI or /ATASPI options, the program will query your ATAPI drive to see if it supports reading CD+G information. Most drives don't, and the program will tell you what the drive reports back to it. As of version 1.0, you can also use CDGPLAY with ATAPI drives through the ATASPI drivers. These drivers are for DOS and Win95 and usually come as part of "PowerIDE" from Future Domain when you buy their IDE controller. However, as far as I can tell, the drivers will work on any IDE controller, not just the ones from Future Domain. If you have a Future Domain IDE controller and PowerIDE, you are all set. You just have to add the device drivers in config.sys and autoexec.bat. (see below my example and assuming the drivers are not already installed) If you don't have a Future Domain product, you will have to get the ATASPI drivers from Adaptec's web site www.adaptec.com The two lines needed in my config.sys file are: device=c:\ataspi\ataspi16.sys /c:170,15,376h /v device=c:\ataspi\fdatacd.sys /d:mscd000 The line needed in my autoexec.bat file is: c:\ataspi\mscdex /d:mscd000 /v /e If you use the /ATASPI or /95ATAPI options, CDGPLAY will also check to see if your drive supports reading CD+G. No longer do you have to guess to see if the drive supports this mode, CDGPLAY can now directly query the drive itself to see if it supports CD+G. Examples: CDGPLAY - will play the entire CD from the first SCSI cdrom drive it finds CDGPLAY /T 3 - will play track 3 from the first SCSI cdrom drive it finds CDGPLAY /ID 0:2:0 /MSC F - will play the entire CD from the SCSI drive at host adapter=0, scsi id=2, and lun=0, and MSCDEX drive F, using ASPI CDGPLAY /ID 0:2:0 /MSC F /95ATAPI - will play the entire CD from the ATAPI drive at host adapter=0, id=2, and lun=0, and MSCDEX drive F, using ASPI under Win95 CDGPLAY /ID 0:2:0 /MSC F /ATASPI - will play the entire CD from the ATAPI drive at host adapter=0, id=2, and lun=0, and MSCDEX drive F, using ATASPI under DOS CDGPLAY /F C:\LOU_REED.CDG - will play from the file instead of reading from the CD CDGPLAY /T 3 /D - will play track 3, like above, but will also dump any error messages to the file ERROR.DMP CDGPLAY /T 2 /MMC - will play track 2 from a drive using the MMC command spec CDGPLAY /T 2 /SPEED 2 - will set the drive to read audio at 2x speed instead of the default value for the drive CDGPLAY /T 2 /SIZE 1 - will play track 2, but use the 1x display mode instead of the slower default 2x display mode (1x works better on slower machines) When the program is running, sometimes the drive returns a fatal error message SC:0x05, ASC:0xbf. This usually means that the PC has failed to keep up with the data stream. At the moment, the only solution is to run this on a faster machine. My 486DX4-100 seems to be fine for most of the CDs I have tested. Sometimes the drive may also returns a fatal error message SC:0x05, ASC:0x24. This usually means that the drive has either stopped or not yet started streaming the CD+G data even though the audio is playing. Your only option here is to try and adjust the start and end times of the piece of music you are trying to play. Copying and Registration (does this mean it costs $$$?) ------------------------------------------------------- We are allowing full freedom to copy this program. It IS a fully functional version. It is NOT Crippleware! There is NOT a pro version available for an unreasonable sum of money. There is no registration fee. There will never be an another update. The zip file may be freely redistributed, only as long as all the files are kept together and unchanged in the archive and no additional files are placed in the archive. How to get hold of us for help. ------------------------------- Computall is no longer in business. Do not bother sending messages to any of our old email addresses you may find on the internet. None of the addresses still work and your message will likely be lost without you receiving a bounce message. We may occasionally check messages that are sent via the support web page: http://web.ncf.ca/aa571/support.htm Things on my wish list ---------------------- - some of the scrolling routines are not 100% - sometimes the drive stops streaming data for no apparent reason so more robust error checking is needed