What is the best MPEG player for the Amiga computer?

[BoingBoss]

Hi everybody,

I would like to install an MPG / MPEG player on my Amiga 2500 computer. What do you guys recommend? I have a 68040 board, will this be enough to play MPG movies?

[PMC]

@BoingBoss,

It depends... Obv playing MPEG files is quite graphically intensive work, and your 2500 isn't AGA (which as I'm sure you can guess means less than 256 colour playback), but if you've got a graphics card installed then you might try RiVA or MPEGA etc.

[kd7ota]

Yet,

Playing an MPEG would be difficult again.  You need more power then just a plain 68040.  I dont see why you are worrying to play it all on the A2500 when you got that Pentium 4 of yours which obviously plays them without a problem.

You can try FroggerMPEG or something around the name of that. Best program I have used to even TRY to play an MPEG.

My Amiga 1200 did pretty good to play AVI files, but NOT divx ones.

[BoingBoss]

Hi PMC,

Yes, I do have a graphics card.  I have a GVP EGS 28/24 Spectrum card.  I am looking for a Picasso II card.

[BoingBoss]

Hi kd7ota,

I dont see why you are worrying to play it all on the A2500 when you got that Pentium 4 of yours which obviously plays them without a problem.

I plan to use my Amiga 2500 in my office full time and put away my Pentium 4 PC.  I am really starting to hate the PC, so I want to go back to my Commodore roots.  I think that an Amiga can take a PCs place, I just have to figure out how to do it.   :-D

[PMC]

@BoingBoss

I don't know anything about the GVP and very little about the Picasso II.

All I can suggest to do is to try the Aminet for documentation on supported boards, but I think RiVA supports CGX and/or P96 under CGX emulation.  

The best you can expect is 3-5fps playback and patchy sound playback on an '040.  My comatose A1200 runs a 40Mhz '040 and the MPEG quality isn't encouraging.

[kd7ota]

@boingboss

Yea,

My amiga can actually replace this PC,but I want to first get at least an 060 before I do so. Sure I get sick of PCs, but its the only fastest machine I have right now.

[jeffimix]

If I'm not mistaken the Zorro2/3 autosensing Cybervision 64/3D (the later on DCE made) has mpeg decoding hardware...

[miles]

RiVA is very good, but you really want a 060 and good gfx card (Picasso 4 or Cybervision 64), Zorro 3 also helps here.

[Doobrey]

jeffimix wrote:
If I'm not mistaken the Zorro2/3 autosensing Cybervision 64/3D (the later on DCE made) has mpeg decoding hardware...

 Close but no cigar..
 Phase5 had an MPEG expansion module for the CV64 3D, but it never got into full production.

[Sparky]

jeffimix wrote:
If I'm not mistaken the Zorro2/3 autosensing Cybervision 64/3D (the later on DCE made) has mpeg decoding hardware...

It almost had MPEG decoding hardware, it used the same duaghterboard as PC's used for the Virge, except they are like rocking horse poo and I don't beleive the Amiga software ever made it out of the developers bedroom (now there's a surprise!)

It does however do YUV colour conversion and scaling in hardware which can accelerate MPEG/video decoding, but the software needs to make use of it, gives it a 15% or so boost I guess.

Quick edit : the name of the MPEG add-on is "S3 Scenic/MX2 MPEG-1 audio/video decoder" was an S3 produced add-on that the Cybervision3D could use as well.

Regards

[Holley]

The CV64 could have a hardware decoder added, couldn't it? (stubby connectors on the side)

[Hyperspeed]

RiVA GUI has to be the best!

Frogger is more versatile and can play VideoCDs and view in little
windows, but for standard Amigas you can't beat RiVA GUI.

I think the rule is - the larger the resolution of the MPEG the slower
it will be. An '040 would be fine for 160×100 but for 320×200 full
screen it might be slower.

Riva Audio also has sound and the demo doesn't limit you to maybe 20
seconds of viewing time unlike Frogger. Although it does stop you from
using colour until you register.

As for AmiPeg, that is not very configurable but gives smoothe colour
results with no sound, and it's free.

[Karlos]

Hmmm,

I might be wrong but doesnt the Virge as used in the cybervision have hardware YUV->RGB conversion and scaling? It doesn't decode MPEG streams but colorspace conversion and scaling certianly helps with software that can use it.

All said, without hardware assistance, an 040 board is going to struggle with mpeg video decoding on all but the smallest of resolutions :-/

[HopperJF]

Hi BoingBoss,

If you have a graphics card and an 040 then you might be lucky, mainly thanks to the graphics card.
For I know that in my A1200T I had in 2002, it struggled to play the .AVI files supplied on the OS 3.9 CD.
I was using AGA and had a 50MHz 030 on board.
Why did it struggle? It played them in black and white and they were of poor quality, quite jittery.
This was the case, even when my Workbench screen mode was set to 256 colours.

Thankfully, you have a graphics card and a more powerful processor, which just might save your ass and let you play MPEG files of a reasonable quality.

Players - No idea here. Does Frogger play MPEGs?
I'm quite out of touch with more modern Amiga software like this, as I never really had a powerful enough Amiga to run it on before I called new Amigas a day back in 2002.

Good luck anyway, I'm sure you will find something in terms of software for you to successfully play these files, and I'm 90% sure that your hardware is powerful enough to do so, albeit not perfect quality.