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- Hour 20 -

Multimedia Is Really Here

In the early 1990s, several companies, including Microsoft, got together to design a new multimedia standard. There are many ways to implement graphics, motion video, and sound. In fact there are so many ways, virtually every company that was designing multimedia software implemented its multimedia differently from the others. The result was a confused marketplace where many companies' software would not work with very much hardware.

This hour describes the standard that resulted from an industry consortium of software and hardware developers led by Microsoft. As long as you have a computer with the standard hardware, you are certain to be able to run all software that conforms to the multimedia standard.

The availability and compatibility of multimedia hardware and software, combined with the increased power of today's computers and the decreased price associated with that power, make multimedia a reality. Windows 95 continues the tradition that Windows 3.1 started by adding multimedia capabilities never before available. This hour introduces you to Windows 95's multimedia capabilities.

The highlights of this hour include:

The MPC Standard

When Microsoft programmers developed Windows 3.1, they saw the need for an industry-wide multimedia standard. If that standard included Windows 3.1-compatibility, then Microsoft would benefit nicely. The good news for the rest of us is that we would also benefit nicely if there were standards in place. We would then know that if we bought a hardware device or software that followed the standard, our investment would be safe because our software would work as expected and fewer conflicts would result.

As computers get faster, multimedia becomes even more important. Thankfully, the industry settled on the MPC standard. MPC stands for Multimedia Personal Computer. Every software product that is MPC-compatible is known to work as long as you have MPC-compatible hardware.

JUST A MINUTE: The multimedia consortium has now adopted a more advanced MPC standard called MPC-3.

To be MPC-compatible, your computer must be capable of running Windows 95 (it must be already if you've gotten this far) and contain a sound card (SoundBlaster-compatibility is always safe), speakers, a CD-ROM drive, and a microphone. The technical requirements of MPC compatibility used to be more important than they are today because almost every computer with a sound card and CD-ROM sold since 1991 is compatible to the MPC standard.

TIME SAVER: Buy multimedia programs with the Windows 95 or Windows 3.1 logo on them because those software products are MPC-compatible.

Windows 95 goes beyond all other operating environments in its support of multimedia services to you as a user. Whether you play games, use motion graphics, or create online presentations, Windows 95 supports your needs and makes your Windows 95-compatible hardware work better with multimedia products than previous versions of Windows did.

Playing with AutoPlay

AutoPlay is a new feature of Windows 95 multimedia capabilities. If you've ever played a game or played an audio CD in your computer's CD-ROM drive, you'll appreciate AutoPlay very much indeed. AutoPlay automatically inspects your audio CD or CD-ROM as soon as you place it in the computer's CD-ROM drive. AutoPlay then does one of three things:

During the development of Windows 95, Microsoft decided that putting a CD-ROM (or audio CD) into the CD-ROM drive almost always meant that you were ready to do something with that CD-ROM. Of course, you could be inserting the CD-ROM in the drive for later use, but that's rare; most of the time when you insert a CD-ROM, you're ready to do something with it right away.

If you took the time to run the Hover game during Time-Out 3 (appearing immediately before this hour), you saw the effects of AutoPlay. As soon as you placed the Windows 95 CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive, Windows 95 displayed the opening menu screen from which you then played the Hover game.

Now that you've seen AutoPlay used on a CD-ROM (in Time-Out 3), you can see (and hear) the use of AutoPlay using an audio CD in the next task.

JUST A MINUTE: Task 20.1 requires a CD-ROM drive. You must have a CD-ROM drive to be MPC-compatible and, in today's world, you can take advantage of very few multimedia services without a CD-ROM.

TIME SAVER: If you want to insert a CD-ROM but want to bypass the AutoPlay feature (perhaps you will want to access the CD-ROM later but insert the disc now), press Shift as you insert the CD-ROM. Keep holding Shift until the CD-ROM light goes out. Windows 95 will not start AutoPlay.


Task 20.1: Using AutoPlay to Play Music from a CD

Step 1: Description
This task demonstrates the AutoPlay feature as it works on an audio CD. Not only does Windows 95 provide for AutoPlay, but it also supplies all kinds of support for audio CDs and CD-ROMs that may surprise you when you see them.

Step 2: Action

1. Find an audio CD that contains music you like to hear.

2. Place the CD in the CD-ROM drive and close the door or push the CD-ROM drive's insert button to close the CD-ROM drive.

3. Windows 95 immediately recognizes that you've inserted the CD into the CD-ROM and begins playing the music! Notice the new CD Player button on the taskbar.

JUST A MINUTE: Depending on the date of your CD's release, something even more may happen: you may see a picture of the CD's cover on your screen! If so, move your mouse over the picture and click various parts of the screen to see information about the artist, song lists, the lyrics, and other things. The feature you are viewing is called Enhanced CD, and audio CD makers are going to be adding Enhanced CD support to their audio CDs over time so that you can begin to fully integrate your PC and audio and video capabilities. If the CD you place in the drive does not yet contain the Enhanced CD format, you can still add a title and song list as explained in the rest of this task.
4. Click the CD Player button on the taskbar. Windows 95 displays the CD Player window shown in Figure 20.1.



Figure 20.1. The CD Player window controls the CD's play.


The CD Player acts like a physical CD player that you can control by pushing the buttons. It displays a Play button (grayed out because your CD is already playing), Pause, Stop, Eject, Previous, and Next track buttons, Previous and Forward time buttons, and an Eject button that you can click when you're done listening to the CD. (Move the cursor over the buttons on the CD Player's window to see a roving help box that describes each button.)

Click the Pause button. Click the Play button. Press Alt+K to move the cursor to the dropdown listbox and click the down arrow button to play a different track on the CD.

TIME SAVER: You can adjust the volume control by double-clicking the speaker icon on the taskbar. Task 20.2 describes how to adjust the volume.
5. If your CD is not an Enhanced CD, something will be missing because CD Player cannot know who the artist is or what the name of the songs are. You must tell CD Player what the artist's name is and what songs are on the song list.

Select Disc | Edit Play List. CD Player displays the window shown in Figure 20.2.


Figure 20.2. Describe the CD to the CD Player application.

JUST A MINUTE: If you have more than one CD-ROM drive attached to your computer, you can select from among the various drives by clicking the listbox labeled Drive.
6. Find the box your audio CD came in. Type the name of the artist in the text box labeled Artist. Type the artist's last name first, followed by a comma, and then the first name so that you can later compile an alphabetical list of artists.

7. Press Alt+T to enter the title of the CD.

8. There will be a track listed for each song on the CD. Instead of the default titles of Track 1 and Track 2, and so on, you can enter the song titles. Here is the easiest way to do that: Press Alt+K and type the first song title. Press Alt+N to add that title to the track list and enter the second song title. Press Alt+N to add the second title to the track list and enter the third song title. Continue entering all the titles. When you run out of tracks, you will have entered all the songs.

9. The Play List and Available Tracks listboxes will now contain the song titles. Don't do so now, but you can later select certain songs from the Play List and click Remove to remove those selected songs from the Play List (the song titles will remain in the Available Tracks listbox). CD Player only plays those songs listed in the Play list.

The CD Player remembers the artist, title, play list, and track lists by storing the information on your hard disk. Click OK to close the window and return to the CD control window. The window now contains a dropdown listbox from which you can select specific songs you want the CD Player to play.

10. Display the various menu commands to see what else the CD Player can do. Display the Options menu to select Random Order, Continuous Play, or Intro Play to play the CD randomly, play the CD over and over from the beginning to end, or to play only the first few seconds from each track.

11. Select Options | Preferences to display the Options Preferences dialog box shown in Figure 20.3. You can control what the CD Player does upon completion of playing a CD, as well as several other items, including the amount of time the Intro Play will play each track's introduction.


Figure 20.3. You can set various playing options.


12. Click OK to close the window.

13. If you want to enter information about more of your favorite CDs, eject the CD and insert additional CDs to add their descriptions to CD Player's repertoire of CDs.

14. When you're done, eject the CD from the drive and select Disc | Exit to close the CD Player.

JUST A MINUTE: CD Player recognizes each individual CD once you've entered the CD's detailed information. In other words, you can, a week later, insert a CD into the CD-ROM drive, and if you've entered that CD's information at any time in the past, CD Player will remember the CD and automatically display that CD's descriptive title, artist, and song information.


Step 3: Review
The CD Player application not only plays as soon as you insert CDs, but CD Player also keeps track of artists, CD titles, and the CD song lists. After entering a CD's information, CD Player remembers that information. If you insert a CD that CD Player does not recognize, it still plays the CD, and you can subsequently enter the CD's information.

Full-Motion Video

Windows 95 supports full-motion video better than previous versions of Windows did. Windows 95 can display video in a full-screen resolution or smaller windows, if you prefer. The video is smoother than previous Windows versions because of the way Windows 95 handles the playback.

No matter how much Microsoft improves the Windows 95 video playback software, the ultimate quality of video playback depends on your computer's hardware speed. If you notice your video is sluggish, you may have to get a faster computer with a faster CD-ROM drive. Since its release, Windows 95 has included several forms of a video player. Video for Windows was the original video player that played sound and motion from a CD-ROM or a disk file. Newer Windows 95 versions include the Active Movie Control program that more smoothly plays video. You can access either from the Multimedia menu on your Accessories menu.

3.1 Step Up The Microsoft Video for Windows was formerly distributed as a separate product. If you bought Windows 3.1, you also would have to buy Video for Windows to play full-motion video under Windows 3.1. (Many multimedia products included a licensed version of Video for Windows where you may have purchased your Video for Windows.) Windows 95 automatically includes Video for Windows so you don't have to search for a copy, and software makers don't have to worry about getting a license to include Video for Windows with their products.

Windows 95 uses the Media Player application to play video. Media Player is capable of playing all of the following kinds of items stored on the disk:

Most full-motion video clips fall within one of these categories. Rarely do you have to know anything about the details of these files. Windows 95 recognizes the file formats and plays any of them.

Although you saw an example of Windows 95's full-motion video if you looked at the Hover game in Time-Out 3, Task 20.2 demonstrates an even more impressive full-motion video clip that you can play.


Task 20.2: Looking at a Full-Motion Multimedia Video

Step 1: Description
This task uses the Windows 95 installation CD-ROM that comes with your system. It demonstrates the full-motion video and sound that Windows 95 supports.

Step 2: Action

1. Locate your Windows 95 installation CD-ROM and insert it into your CD-ROM caddy.

2. After a brief pause, Windows 95 displays the CD-ROM screen that you saw if you ran the Hover game in Time-Out 3.

CAUTION: If you do not hear a musical sound when the CD-ROM's opening screen appears, you may not have turned on your speakers or the volume control on your sound card could be turned down too low.
3. Click the icon on the right, labeled Cool Video Clips. Depending on the release date of your Windows 95, you'll see a window that contains many, if not all, of the file folders in Figure 20.4.


Figure 20.4. Choose a video clip to play.

TIME SAVER: When you see document icons that contain a video camera, such as the ones shown in Figure 20.4, those documents are video clips. You can right-click over an icon and select Play or double-click the icon to play the video.
4. Double-click the icon labeled Weezer. You won't believe your eyes and ears! Figure 20.5 shows one shot of the video clip you'll see.


Figure 20.5. Have a happy day with this video clip.


5. Although the video clip window does not have a maximize button, you can resize the window to full-screen size by dragging the window's edges to the sides of the screen. Resize the window now to suit your viewing preference.

Depending on your video card and monitor's resolution, the video may look better in a smaller window size than a larger size. Use the play and pause buttons at the bottom of the video clip's window. You also can adjust the position of the play by dragging the play meter's indicator left and right.

6. If you want to adjust the volume, you can. Double-click the taskbar's speaker to see the series of volume controls and left and right balance controls shown in Figure 20.6. Depending on the type of multimedia sound you're listening to, you can adjust these volume and balance controls:


Figure 20.6. You can adjust volume levels for several controls.


1. Volume Controls the entire system's volume, no matter what is playing.

2. Wave Controls wavetable sound volume. Wave sounds are realistic sounds unlike FM synthesis, which cheaper sound boards and older PCs use.

3. MIDI Controls MIDI sound (stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface) that reproduces musical instruments and other sounds.

4. CD Controls the volume of your audio CDs when played with CD Player.

5. Line-In Most sound cards contain a line-in port in which you can connect an outside sound source such as a stereo's output.

6. Adjust the volume to a comfortable level and then close the video window after you finish watching the video.

7. Close the Videos window, and then close the Windows 95 installation CD-ROM opening screen's window. You are now finished with the CD-ROM, so you can put the Windows 95 installation CD-ROM away for now.


Step 3: Review
Full-motion video is a lot of fun to see on a computer. For too long, computer graphics have been low quality. Full-motion video requires ample storage space, so most video resides on CD-ROMs that can hold a lot of data. The Windows 95 Media Player application controls all full-motion video, and the volume control window lets you adjust the different kinds of volumes to the best levels.

TIME SAVER: Open the Multimedia icon inside the Control Panel to find a tabbed dialog box that lets you control audio, video, and CD-ROM settings. For example, you can select an option that displays all full-motion video clips full-screen by default.

JUST A MINUTE: Although the technology is still fairly advanced, you soon should begin seeing powerful video-editing hardware and software interfaces for Windows 95. As disks get larger, the capacity to store video clips becomes more cost-effective. In addition, video hardware quality is getting better and less costly every day. The bottom line is that soon you'll be able to send your video camera's tape output to your computer; edit, rearrange, and add special effects to your home movies; and output a final produced and edited film. The new digital video cameras promise to help promote home video editing to a higher level.


Task 20.3: Unhooking Windows 95's AutoPlay Feature

Step 1: Description
You learned earlier in this hour how to bypass the AutoPlay feature when you insert individual CD-ROMs. Windows 95 lets you turn off AutoPlay completely if you do not want to use AutoPlay.

Step 2: Action

1. Display the Start menu.

2. Select Settings | Control Panel.

3. Double-click the System icon.

4. Click the Device Manager tab.

5. Click the plus sign next to your CD-ROM drive; the CD-ROM drive's description appears.

6. Click Properties.

7. Click the Settings tab. Windows 95 displays the Settings dialog box shown in Figure 20.7.


Figure 20.7. Turn off AutoPlay from the Settings dialog box.


8. Uncheck the option labeled Auto insert notification to turn off AutoPlay. (If you subsequently check this option again, AutoPlay will return.)

9. Click OK to close the Settings dialog box.

10. Click OK to close the System dialog box.

11. Close the Control Panel window.


Step 3: Review Although the AutoPlay feature is helpful, many Windows 95 users choose to turn off AutoPlay because they want to start the CD-ROM at a later time and are inserting the CD-ROM for subsequent use only. The Control Panel's System icon gives you access to the AutoPlay feature.

Summary

This hour described how Windows 95 finally integrated multimedia into the windowed multitasking environment. The multimedia capabilities of Windows 95 are advanced and provide for smooth video and sound. As computer hardware gets faster, Windows 95 will support better multimedia that uses the extra speed.

Windows 95's AutoPlay multimedia feature automatically installs CD-ROM software, loads and runs CD-ROM software, and plays audio CDs as soon as you insert the CD-ROM or CD into its drive. If you like, you can enter a description of the CD's artist, title, and tracks so that when you insert that same CD in the future, Windows 95 recognizes the CD and displays the lists from which you can select specific songs. The new audio CD format named Enhanced CD places text and graphics on the audio CDs you purchase at the music store.

Audio is only part of the multimedia glitz. Full-motion video capabilities allow for full-screen viewing of video clips using the Media Player. The video is smoother than previous versions of Windows.

Workshop

Term Review

Active Movie Control The new Windows 95 video player. If you do not see the Active Movie Control on your Multimedia menu, you can contact Microsoft or check out their Web site at www.microsoft.com for an update.

AutoPlay The ability of Windows 95 to install or start a program from a
CD-ROM as soon as you place the CD-ROM in the drive. AutoPlay plays audio CDs as well.

Enhanced CD A new audio CD standard that puts graphics and text on the same CDs that your stereo plays.

FM synthesis An older sound standard that produces non-realistic computer-generated sounds.

Media Player The Windows 95 application that plays video clips.

MIDI Stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface and reproduces musical instruments and other sounds.

MPC Stands for Multimedia Personal Computer. A computer hardware and software standard that has been in effect for several years. It determines the minimum hardware and software requirements for a product to be called a multimedia product that's endorsed by the MPC compliance committee.

MPC-3 A more modern version of the MPC standard that requires a double-speed CD-ROM drive.

Video for Windows The internal player Windows 95 uses to produce full-motion video on your screen.

Wave Also called wavetable. Sound that produces realistic sounds from your computer's speaker.

Q&A

Q How do I know if my computer is MPC-compatible?
A Your PC's manual should say somewhere if the computer is MPC-compatible or not. Most likely, you have an MPC-compatible computer if you've purchased your computer within the past few years and your computer has a sound card, speakers, a microphone, and a CD-ROM.
Perhaps the easiest way is to work through the two tasks in this hour. Your computer will probably have few or no MPC problems if the tasks work on your computer as described in the text.

Q Why can't I use the CD volume control to adjust a video playing from my CD-ROM drive?
A The volume control labeled CD is useful for controlling audio CDs that you play using the CD Player application. When playing videos, the computer uses one of the other volume controls such as the Wave or MIDI volume control.

Q Why are there so many kinds of sounds (CD, Wave, FM synthesis, and MIDI)?
A The different sounds produce different qualities of audio. Your hardware and software determine the kinds of sound that come out of your computer's speakers. Luckily, you probably won't have to worry about the different sounds because Windows 95 recognizes most sound sources and selects the proper playing software accordingly.

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