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Text File | 1996-09-02 | 19.9 KB | 476 lines

****************************************************** Welcome to Scala MultiMedia MM101! We hope that you will find this software a new concept in multimedia for the personal computer. Just as the laser printer revolutionized desktop publishing, we believe that Scala will revolutionize multimedia. Now anyone can create their OWN multimedia productions with the look of Computer Television in a few simple steps. There are nearly unlimited uses for Scala. We've included an entire CD worth of demos, clip art, animations, sounds, music, scripts, and even some games to give you some ideas of what you can do with Scala. Enjoy. Please carefully review the Installation and Setup Guide included in this box. It contains important information on how to set up Scala for the best possible performance on your PC. It also contains many helpful hints to get you started. We hope you enjoy Scala MultiMedia MM101 as much as we do. For all the latest news, information and updates on Scala, please visit our Web site at http://www.scala.com. Sincerely, Scala Inc. ****************************************************** This README file has six sections: I. Introduction II. Media Support III. Getting Started IV. Troubleshooting V. Recent Updates VI. Advanced Topics ****************************************************** I. INTRODUCTION ****************************************************** Now anyone can create multimedia productions with the impact of television. Introducing Scala MultiMedia MM101, the first Computer Television product for the PC. Scala MM101 gives you the power to create multimedia productions that combine graphics, symbols, animations, text, music, sound effects, and even buttons for interactivity all on a standard PC. Scala MM101 software is so sophisticated that the performance and quality of its playback is like a television production. Both you and your viewers will enjoy the look and feel of television. Scala MultiMedia MM101 is so easy to use that even the least experienced PC user can develop television-quality multimedia productions in minutes. No programming is necessary. Just "point-and-click" and MM101 automatically generates your multimedia script. Use Scala MM101 whenever you need the impact of television: o Presentations o Interactive Training o Multimedia Games o Cartoons and Entertainment ****************************************************** II. MEDIA SUPPORT ****************************************************** Media Support Graphics: BMP, GIF, IFF, JPEG, PCX, photo CD, PNG, TIFF Sound: MIDI, WAV, CD-Audio (requires sound card, CD-ROM drive) Animation: FLC, FLI Video: MPEG (requires MPEG hardware card) Font: TrueType«, ScalaType ****************************************************** III. GETTING STARTED ****************************************************** To start Scala or the Font Converter, double-click the appropriate icon. To start Scala from DOS, at the prompt, enter: c: <-- the drive where Scala is installed cd \scala <-- the Scala directory mm <-- the Scala program If you have problems starting Scala, please refer to the Installation and Setup Guide and the Troubleshooting tips in Appendix H of the Users Guide. If you would like to install other demos from the CD, use the Windows Setup program and choose "Custom Install" to select only the parts you want to install. To install scripts manually, be sure to copy both the script and the artwork directory for that script located in the \scala\scripts directory. For example, to copy fontbook.sca, copy the script, fontbook.sca, to \scala\scripts, and also copy \scala\scripts\artwork\fontbook directory from the CD to \scala\scripts\artwork\fontbook on your hard drive. It is easy to do this from the File Manager in Windows 3.1 or from Windows Explorer in Windows95. ****************************************************** IV. Troubleshooting ****************************************************** Problem: The mouse pointer doesn't move in Scala. Reason and possible solution: You must have an MS-DOS mouse driver to run Scala. Remove the REM at the beginning of the MOUSE.COM or MOUSE.EXE command line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. If you don't have a DOS mouse driver, the technical support for your PC company or mouse company should have drivers available for downloading from various on-line services. If you have mouse driver, but are unable to get Scala to work, please check to see if an updated mouse driver is available from your manufacturer. Problem: Sound doesn't seem to work right in Scala. Reason and possible solution: You must set up the proper sound parameters first. Go into the Options menu and set up the Sound EX to work with your sound card. Scala supports the following cards for playing .WAV files: Sound Blaster 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, Pro, 16, and AWE32 Media Vision, Business Audio Scala also supports the following wavetable cards for playing MIDI files: Sound Blaster AWE32 Gravis Ultrasound Any card compatible with the General MIDI/MPU 401 standard (many wavetable cards support this) Sound Blaster cards normally use Address 220, an IRQ of 5, and a DMA of 1. Most MPU 401 wavetable cards use an address of 330. The AWE32 normally has a MIDI address of 620. We currently do not have audio drivers every type of sound card or chip on the market today (ESS Technology or IBM's MWAVE, for instance). The autodetect logic in the Sound Options dialog may not fully detect "Sound Blaster Compatible Cards" since these cards may not be 100% Sound Blaster compatible. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO SET YOUR SOUND OPTIONS MANUALLY. FAILURE TO DO SO MAY CAUSE SOUND TO FUNCTION IMPROPERLY. If you do not know the proper Address, IRQ and DMA for your sound card, please consult your user's guide for your PC or sound card. You may observe the settings in Windows 3.1 by opening the Main Program Group and double-clicking on Control Panel. Then double-click on Drivers. This lists all the drivers loaded on your system. Choose the audio driver from the list and click the Setup... button. Many times this will show you the settings for your sound card. DO NOT CHANGE THESE SETTINGS, but write them down. Click on Cancel and Close to exit the Drivers Control Panel. In Windows95, you may observe the settings for your sound card by clicking the Start button, then click on Settings, and click on Control Panel. Now double-click on the System icon. Next click on the Device Manager Tab at the top of the window, then scroll the list until you can select the line called "Sound, Video, and Game Controller". Double click on this line, then select the Sound Card driver and click on the Properties button. Next click on the Resources tab and take note of the FIRST number listed in the following categories: ^^^^^ Input/Output Range (This is the Address for Scala) Interrupt Request (This is the IRQ number for Scala) Direct Memory Access (This is the DMA number for Scala) After noting these values, click on cancel and again on cancel to get out of the System Control Panel. In many cases, "Sound Blaster Compatible" cards are actually Sound Blaster Pro or Business Audio compatible. If you do not have a Creative Labs sound card, some experimenting may be necessary to choose the right settings. Here are some examples of audio chips you may have that are NOT from Creative Labs: ^^^ Crystal Semiconductor CS4231: Try Business Audio Setting Crystal Semiconductor CS4232: Try Business Audio Setting Analog Devices AD1848: Try Business Audio Setting Microsoft Sound System(1848): Try Business Audio Setting Ensoniq SoundScape(1848): Try Business Audio Setting ESS Technologies 1688: Try Sound Blaster Pro or Business Audio Settings IBM MWAVE: Try Sound Blaster Pro or (depending on model) Business Audio Settings Compaq Presario: Uses ESS -> Try Sound Blaster Pro IBM Aptiva or Thinkpad: Uses MWAVE -> Try Sound Blaster Pro Toshiba Protege or Tecra: Uses ESS -> Try Sound Blaster Pro NEC VersaM Laptop: Uses CS4231 -> Try Business Audio Packard Bell/Aztech: Uses AD1845 -> Try Business Audio This is not an exhaustive list, and you will still need to set up the Address, IRQ and DMA settings accordingly. This is just a sampling of some common systems. Unfortunately, even if you have the same sound chip, there may be completely different settings from one vendor's card to another. Often times vendors change hardware configurations on the same model computer from time to time, so please be careful to set this correctly. If you still have difficulties, we may have more information from time to time on our Web site. http://www.scala.com Problem: When using Scala, sound quality is lower than normal. Reason and possible solution: If you have a 16-bit sound card, it may only be "Sound Blaster Pro" compatible which is an 8-bit mode. You may wish to try the "Business Audio" setting which is a 16-bit audio mode. Newer drivers may be available from time to time, so please check our Web site for details. Problem: When using Scala from Windows NT, I don't get any sound. Reason and possible solution: Windows NT does not support sound from a DOS box. You will need to exit to DOS to start Scala with sound support. Problem: When using Scala from Windows 3.1, the program stops when it encounters sound, but otherwise works ok. Reason and possible solution: Some Windows 3.1 sound drivers can conflict with Scala's sound drivers. You may get around this by disabling the Sound EX in Scala, by disabling the sound drivers in Windows 3.1, or by exiting Windows completely and running Scala from DOS. Problem: I have a Plug and Play sound card, and can't get it to work correctly with Scala. What can I do? Reason and possible solution: Plug and Play allows a card's Address, IRQ and DMA to be reassigned by the BIOS. First, install the card on your system with Windows95 to verify that the card is working. Next use the above techniques to observe how Windows95 has assigned the Address, IRQ and DMA. If that fails, you may try to disable Plug and Play by putting: set SCALA_PNP=no in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Remember to reboot after making changes to AUTOEXEC.BAT. If you are using a Plug and Play board with an OS that does not support Plug and Play, you may put: set SCALA_DIRECTPNP=yes in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to allow Scala to use Plug and Play boards in operating systems that do not have Plug and Play support (such as Windows3.11 or OS/2). If that still does not work, you may be able to set the address in your BIOS. Please refer to your PC's Users Guide for information. If that does not work, you may be able to force a particular address by using an ISA Configuration Utility called ICU.EXE. This program is available on many services to help sort out Plug and Play problems on PCs. A similar utility may have shipped with your sound card. Please check the sound card Users Guide for further information. Problem: When I type in Scala, the wrong characters appear. Reason and possible solution: You need to choose the correct keyboard driver in the Input EX dialog in the Options menu. PLEASE NOTE: The Input EX dialog in the Options Menu looks slightly different than is documented in the manual, but we hope it is easier to understand. We have also added the capability to set your mouse speed. Be sure to save your settings before exiting this menu. Problem: I am running a Scala video driver, but the display becomes garbled, the computer crashes, or there are other problems. Reason and possible solution: Finding the correct settings to properly support a given graphics card can take some experimentation. Please refer to the Installation and Setup Guide included in the box. It is possible to diagnose video driver problems with a special diagnostic program called DIAG included with MM101. Information on how to use DIAG is included in the Installation and Setup Guide. Problem: Scala seems slow and jerky in playback. Reason and possible solution: Any bottleneck in your system will easily be seen in Scala. This includes using a slow processor, a slow hard drive, a slow video card, or too little free memory. Improving any of these features will help Scala's performance. Software utilities that claim to double your hard disk space do so by compressing and uncompressing data on-the-fly. We recommend that you do not use these utilities when running Scala for best performance. ****************************************************** V. RECENT UPDATES ****************************************************** In addition to the changes mentioned in the above section regarding the mouse speed setting for the Input EX, the following corrections did not make it into the manual: 1. The cropping of clips by use of the Alt key and dragging the handles can sometimes produces undesired results. For more accurate control over the cropping of clips, we recommend using the design Styles menu. 2. All Demo Scripts and Help Scripts of this release are in English. Please check our Web and FTP sites for further updates on this in the future. 3. A detailed technical discussion of the ScalaScript language is contained in the doc directory of the CD. Advanced users may wish to use a text editor to edit more sophisticated scripts than can be authored in the graphical editor. 4. There is no dialog box when using the Copy to Dir? option when saving scripts. The directory will be given the same name as the script (minus the .sca extension). 5. Cutting and Pasting buttons with Go To, and Grouping and Ungrouping pages with Go To may cause a dialog box to appear if the Go To cannot be retained. If you continue, the Go To will be removed. You will need to go back and reset where the page or button should go in the Branch menu or Buttons menu. 6. Snapload does not have a Static mode option as defined in the manual. Snapload options are only None or Dynamic. 7. Predefined buttons are located in \scala\buttons and not in subdirectories as explained in the manual. 8. The buttons in the online help window looks slightly different from the illustration in appendix C of the manual. They function the same, however. 9. Infinitely repeating animations cannot be stopped by a Duration pause as documented in the manual. ****************************************************** VI. ADVANCED TOPICS ****************************************************** Advanced users can achieve even smoother transitions in Scala by using the support for vertical retrace interrupts that many PCI based video cards have. Scala can take advantage of vertical retrace interrupts, but this capability must be specifically supported in your video card. Please refer to the documentation that came with your video card for information. A separate, non-shared, interrupt line must be used to take advantage of this feature. Scala supports the following DOS environment variables: set SCALA_DIR=c:\scala;z:\scala Sets multiple default directories (not normally recommended) set SCALA_MEM=8000000 Allocates 8MB for Scala up front set SCALA_DRIVES=ACMTZ Checks only a:,c:,m:,t:, and z: set SCALA_VIDEO=vesa.bok Forces Scala to use a specific video driver (not normally recommended) set SCALA_PNP=no Turns off Plug and Play support set SCALA_DIRECTPNP=yes Accesses Plug and Play devices in non-PnP operating systems set SCALA_VESADB=yes Attempts to do double buffering in VESA set SCALA_VESACLEARMEM=yes Clear memory when setting a VESA mode (some older cards need this) set SCALA_CONFIG=c:\scala\config When running Scala from a CD or a network, it may be useful to keep your private configuration data. In this case, copy the entire \scala\config directory to your hard drive and add this command to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. set SCALA_DISABLESWITCH=yes Disables switching support between Scala and Win95, OS/2 or Win3.1 Problem: My mouse moves in a jerky or erratic manner, or Scala MM101 itself just seems to be very slow and/or freezes. What can I do about this? Reason and possible solution: There are combinations of the MS-DOS program EMM386.EXE, some PC's, and some DPMI applications, (like Scala MM100), that do not work well together. A possible solution is to disable EMM386.EXE and run your PC without it. Some people use the EMM386 program to "LoadHigh" various utility programs, (mouse drivers, CD-ROM drivers, etc.), in order to free up more DOS memory. In order to run MM101 on such a PC you will have to "boot clean" from a formatted DOS system floppy disk or use the MS-DOS Boot Menu functionality to have multiple CONFIG.SYS and/or AUTOEXEDC.BAT options. (this example CONFIG.SYS is ONLY AN EXAMPLE! Do not use this exact configuration on your own computer! There is almost no chance that it would work! Every computer system has its own particular configuration needs. If you do not know what these lines mean in relation to your own PC, consult a PC configuration technician.) For Example: [menu] menuitem=Total, Total system function--all adapters active. menuitem=EMSmem, Setup for EMS/LIM games--no Windows or CDROM. menuitem=MAXram, Game setup--maxium conventional RAM--no CD or WFW. menuitem=NoUMB, No EMM386 loaded [for Scala MM100] menudefault=Total, 10 [common] rem Load ASPI drivers for Adaptec 1543B ISA SCSI Controller: DEVICE=C:\system\aspi4dos\aspi4dos.sys /p330 /D DEVICE=C:\system\aspi4dos\aspidisk.sys /D rem Set up General DOS environment: DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\SETVER.EXE DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS /testmem:OFF /v FILES=80 LASTDRIVE=Z DOS=HIGH,UMB BREAK=ON [Total] rem Load EMM386 to provide support for Upper Memory Blocks: DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE noems x=a000-c7ff i=c800-ebff x=ec00-f7ff rem Create a RAM disk for scratch space during compiles: DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\RAMDRIVE.SYS 1024 512 128 /E rem Load Driver for SoundBlaster16: DEVICEHIGH=C:\sb16\drv\asp.sys /P:220 rem Load CD-ROM driver: DEVICEHIGH=C:\sb16\mke_dev\cdmke41.sys /D:MSCD001 /SBP:220 DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\ANSI.SYS [EMSmem] rem A minial configuration for games that need LIM/EMS meory: DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE ram 2048 x=a000-c7ff DEVICEHIGH=C:\sb16\drv\asp.sys /P:220 SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM C:\ /E:512 /p [MAXram] rem A configuration with the most free conventional ram: DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE noems x=a000-c7ff i=c800-ebff x=ec00-f7ff DEVICEHIGH=C:\sb16\drv\asp.sys /P:220 SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM C:\ /E:512 /p [NoUMB] rem No memory management - Safe for SCALA on an older PC: DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\RAMDRIVE.SYS 1048 512 128 /E DEVICE=C:\system\coreldrv\cuni_asp.sys DEVICE=C:\sb16\drv\asp.sys /P:220 DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\ANSI.SYS [common]