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December 12, 1996
These Release Notes include important information about your new video hardware, software (Software Essentials and Video Development Environment), and documentation from Parallax Graphics. This information supercedes the README file on your CD. The Release Notes include:
NOTE: A triangle symbol precedes bugs that may cause serious problems. NOTE: If you use Netscape, read Bug/Anomaly/Restriction # 9. NOTE: This version of Parallax Graphics Software Essentials or Video Development Environment for Solaris 2.3/OpenWindows 3.3 is the same as the previous (CD-ROM Release 1.0). If you already have that version installed on your system, there is no need to re-install it from this CD-ROM. This CD-ROM gives you the option to upgrade to another Parallax Graphics-supported operating system/windowing system whenever you want to. NOTE: The CD 2.0 release of Parallax Graphics software (for Solaris 2.3/OpenWindows 3.3 users) does not support XVideo-RGB cards. If you have an XVideo-RGB card, please use another release (we recommend our Solaris 2.5 release). If you have any questions, please contact Parallax Graphics technical support at 408-727-2220 (California, USA), 703-715-3017 (Virginia, USA), or e-mail tsupport@parallax.com.
Bugs, Anomalies, or Restrictions
We have identified the following bugs, anomalies or restrictions:
1. Pre-Installation: Where to Put Parallax Graphics Software This distribution builds a file tree relative to the directory ./parallax. The standard part of the file system to place the parallax directory in would be /opt. However, on many Solaris 2.3 systems the amount of file storage available in /opt is limited. If you do not have 35 megabytes of storage available you should choose a different disk partition which does have 35 megabytes (such as /usr).2. Pre-Installation: Do Not Use with RGB Cards The CD 2.0 release of Parallax Graphics software (for Solaris 2.3/ OpenWindows 3.3 users) does not support XVideo-RGB cards. If you have an XVideo-RGB card, please use another release.
3. Video Cards without Compression, Solaris 1.x Upgrade If you have a Parallax video card without compression (XVideo -24SV-xxx or MultiVideo) running on Solaris 1.x (SunOS 4.1.x) you will need to update the contents of the non-volatile RAM (NVRAM) on that card before installing the Parallax Solaris 2.x software. You need to execute the script multivideo_fix, which is in the directory ./parallax/diag/nvram_patches. To update the NVRAM, in console mode on Solaris 2.x, change directories to /opt/parallax/diag/nvram_patches and type: ./multivideo_fix
4. Pre-Installation: Sun Patches Required for SPARC 5 This release now supports SPARC-5's, including the SPARC-5 audio. To work correctly, you must install the recommended Sun patches for Solaris 2.3. Withoutthe patches, MovieTool may not work correctly and the audio driver may cause MovieTool to freeze up. Contact your Sun sales representative and ask for the following patches: Sun Package "SUNWaudcr.m" Sun Patch ID # 102182-02
5. Multi-Headed with 2 Parallax Cards Not Supported Do not put more than 1 Parallax Graphics video card in a workstation with this release of Parallax software, because this will cause the system to fail.
6. SPARC 20 with SX Framebuffer If you have a SPARC 20 with an SX framebuffer, contact Parallax Graphics technical support for special instructions on how to install your video card or Click here for instructions. 7. Weitek's POWERuP Chip Not Supported Weitek's POWERuP CPU chip is not currently supported by Parallax Graphics video products on Sun SPARCstation 2 and IPX workstations.8. Do Not Try Compressing with Non-Compression Video Cards MultiVideo and XV-24SV-nnn do not include hardware compression support. Any attempted compression action will hang the system, and you will have to cycle power in order to continue. Please do not select these options.
9. Netscape and Pull-Down Menus On some systems, if you are using the Netscape application and you rapidly select top-level pull-down menus, this may cause the server to crash.
10. Shared Memory Segment Problems Our widget does not correctly release shared memory segments and is not aware of how many shared memory segments are created or in use. When a shared memory widget is destroyed, it is not freed or destroyed correctly. Subsequently when you exceed the limit of shared memory segments (six) the system crashes.
11. Starting Openwin Without Options Starting OpenWindows by typing just "openwin" without any options causes a watchdog reset and an operating system crash. This can be avoided by using the "-dev" option and specifying a device when launching OpenWindows.
12. Multithreading Not Supported Multithreading (the distribution of tasks to multiple processors on a single workstation) is not supported in this Parallax release or in previous releases.
13. Video Cannot Be Placed into DirectColor Visuals The server code in this release will not allow video to be placed into direct color videos, only true color visuals.
14. Color Blotches after XView Alerts XView Alerts sometimes create "technicolor" blotches when they appear on top of TrueColor windows (a video window is a TrueColor window). To fix this problem refresh the screen.
15. Stippling Not Working: Inactive Buttons Look Active Stippling is not working correctly in this release. Inactive buttons look the same as active buttons instead of greyed out (stippled). Other stippling is also not working.
16. Digitizer Remains On after Exiting Test Programs When you exit test programs such as xlib_test, the digitizer remains on. The digitizer may also remain on if you exit VideoTool or MovieTool through a means other than the menu bar.
17. Video "Scanning" Error after Unexpected Video Quit If a video-enabled application quits unexpectedly while displaying video, and another application is launched that draws video, the new video (in the same area of the old display) will look as if it is trying to draw itself twice, creating a "scanning" effect. To fix this problem, do one of the following: 1. Open a second video window and then close it, or, 2. Quit and restart the window server. Either method will stop the first video digitization process, thereby clearing the "scanning" problem.
18. Graphics Over Video (and GOV Program) Graphics over Video is not properly supported in this release. Our sample program GOV does not run correctly and causes the server to exit. We recommend that you do not use this sample program.
19. C++ Compiler Support We are not 100% compliant with C++ compilers. This problem will be fixed in our Solaris 2.5 release. For full C++ compliance, add the following lines to XpPLlxProtos.h:
#ifdef __cplusplus
extern "C" {
#endif
#ifdef __cplusplus
}
#endif
20. Console Runs White Text on Black When exiting the Parallax OpenWindows server, the background of the console is not restored to white; instead, the console is set to "white text on black background" mode.
21. Automatic Detection of PAL Video With a VIO or RGB product (i.e., one with two separate video inputs), VideoTool and MovieTool sometimes get confused if signals of mixed types are both connected. For example, if an NTSC signal is connected to Input 1 and a PAL signal is connected to Input 2, the PAL signal will not always be sensed correctly. To fix this problem when using mixed input types, connect your primary source to Input_1; if it is not sensed correctly the first time, close the window and open it again.
22. Shared Memory Runs Slowly with Some Programs Shared memory is not working correctly with some programs. jpegContinuousTest runs slower with shared memory than without shared memory. The same result occurs when using jpegTimingTest with jpegPlaybackTest. These programs use the jpeg widget.
23. Video Flicker when Video Windows Overlap Obscuring a video window with another window causes video to flicker. This also happens on low-resolution output for XVideo-VIO or -RGB.
24. Shortened Delay for DoTimeOut Error The time limit before a call returns is too long and the error message DoTimeOut Error will appear on your console. You can ignore this error message.
25. Backing Store Refreshes Do Not Repaint Properly When you are using backing-store, refreshes do not repaint properly when jpeg or video is unmapped.
26. GXxor Does Not Work with Text GXxor does not work with text.
27. Xor Problems If you are using Xor, you may encounter some of the following problems: mouse droppings, portions of screen blacked out after refresh, and/or erasing not working in a graphics context.
28. Highlighting text caused it to blacken/disappear In Parallax's Solaris 2.3 and 2.4 releases, using a ddxPLXtv2.so.1a patch solved the Xor graphics context problem, but created a worse problem. The new bug prevented highlighting text. When a user selected text with the mouse, the text was blacked out instead of highlighted. This bug has been fixed in the Solaris 2.5 release.
29. Shared Memory Runs Slowly with Some Programs Shared memory is not working correctly with some programs. jpegContinuousTest runs slower with shared memory than without shared memory. The same result occurs when using jpegTimingTest with jpegPlaybackTest. These programs use the jpeg widget.
30. Shared Memory Segment Problems Our widget does not correctly release shared memory segments and is not aware of how many shared memory segments are created or in use. When a shared memory widget is destroyed, it is not freed or destroyed correctly. Subsequently when you exceed the limit of shared memory segments (six) the system crashes.
31. Any_Window Menu Button Not Working The Any_Window menu button (to allow non-video windows to be compressed) in the MovieTool Input menu is not working.
32. Decompressing Compressed Images in MovieTool, Uniflix When you first open MovieTool or Paradise Software's Uniflix, you must compress an image (any image or movie) first before you are able to decompress and display images or movies. This applies to displaying stored compressed 1images and movies, as well as live compressed images and movies coming in over the network.
33. Live Video Freezes Live video window freezes during movie playback: When playing back an image the live video window will freeze at the beginning of the operation. Click on the video window to resume live video display.
34. Monitoring Audio in MovieTool MovieTool: When you open the audio control panel, the audio Monitor On/Off tells you Monitor is on, but actually it is off. To monitor the audio, you will need to toggle the Monitor On/Off buttons (turn it off and then on).
35. Data Corruption in Bottom Right of Compressed Video MovieTool and scomp: Some JPEG-compressed frames have x bytes of garbage at the end of the frame, causing the lower right corner of the frame to look odd. This problem is increasingly frequent and obvious as the compression and Q factor are increased (image quality decreased).
36. Offset Wrong on Playback of Movie When playing back a previously compressed movie, the offset looks wrong. With each successive decompression, the decompression is placed lower and to the right. For example, one decompression created a 1/2-pixel wide line on top of the video.
37. SPARC 5: Corrupted Frames in Movies On some SPARC-5's, MovieTool encounters problems recording movies and will show corrupted images. To fix this problem, disable MovieTool's use of shared memory by launching MovieTool and do one of the following: 1. Type the following at the command line MovieTool -xrm '*useSharedMemory:False' 2. Type the following in your .Xdefaults file: MovieTool.useSharedMemory:False.
38. MovieTool Sample Rate Errors When you start MovieTool with a specified sample rate, MovieTool does not reflect the appropriate frame rate when it comes up, and when you start MovieTool with a sample rate of 8000 and try to record a movie, your attempts to record a movie will fail with a "Recording was stopped due to a problem recording audio for frame x" error.
39. Problems Opening VideoTool and MovieTool Some applications are based on the Xt Intrinsics toolkit; these include the (Motif-based) MovieTool and VideoTool applications, and some Xt-based example programs. If you do not have your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment set to include a lib directory containing Xt (i.e., libXt.so.x), you will encounter an error like this when trying to run Xt-based programs: libXt.so.4: can't open file: errno=2 To fix this problem, add the following to the appropriate startup file: setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/openwin/lib
40. SPARC 5: Compression Problems Using the shared memory extension to X windows may result in bad compression data (corrupted movies or JPEG or JFIF still images). On some software revisions of the SPARCstation 5 the use of the shared memory extension to X windows causes the C-Cube chip to incorrectly compress some images. To get around this problem set the sharedMemory attribute false when you launch the application from the command line, for example: MovieTool -xrm '*useSharedMemory: False' Or set the sharedMemory attribute false in your .Xdefaults file, for example: MovieTool.useSharedMemory:False.
41. Using MovieTool after VideoTool: Odd Behaviour Running MovieTool after running VideoTool may cause MovieTool records (movie files) to "misbehave." If you see anomalous behavior, exit and restart the windowing server.
42. MovieTool Movies and VideoTool JPEG Still Images Look Bad If you open a Parallax JPEG format still image or MovieTool movie that was captured under Solaris 2.5, HP-UX, or IBM AIX and it looks bad (low contrast, color too dim, and blocky), then you need to get the images converted with fixMovieQ. Solaris 2.4 and earlier releases of our Sun software use an incorrect JPEG compression Q table, which is fixed in Solaris 2.5, HP-UX, and IBM AIX. To display the images at high quality, you need to get new-Q-table-movies/images converted into old-Q-table-movies/images with fixMovieQ. (fixMovieQ also converts old-Q-table-movies/images to new-Q-table-movies/images for display under Solaris 2.5, HP-UX, or IBM AIX.) For information on how to use fixMovieQ, see your Multimedia User's Guide (Solaris 2.x) Appendix C. On your CD-ROM, fixMovieQ is available under Solaris 2.5. If you or a friend have a Solaris 2.5 (or 2.4) system, you can use fixMovieQ to convert the images. If not, contact Parallax Graphics technical support for a version of fixMovieQ for your operating system.
43. Greyed-Out JPEG Images On some of the faster machines (i.e Sparc 10 and Sparc 20) occasionally windows displaying JPEG images are greyed out. If this happens do a compression (save an image) and the problem will correct itself.
44. Do Not Quit from VideoTool Menu The quit menu item in the VideoTool application menu bar may cause a core dump in some cases. Rather than using this method of termination you should use the standard menu quit item, which is found by positioning the cursor on the title bar of the window and pressing the right mouse button.
45. Moving Input/Output Settings
Movement of the input or output settings pop-ups across the input window are not propagating exposure events to the input window when video is stilled. You will need to refresh the window or cause an exposure event by moving a non-pop-up window onto the input window.46. 4:3 Ratio Not Resizing The option VideoTool: 4:3 aspect, resize does not always resize Video.
47. Input Settings, B&W Effect Not Working The option VideoTool/InputSettings/Effect/B&W (Black and White video) is not working.
48. Pop-Up Dialog Exposure events for pop-up dialog movements are not reported.
49. OpenWindows/XView videotool: Playback Windows Fully On-Screen If you use OpenWindows with XView and are using XView videotool: Problems with video windows which are partially off the screen: If you try to play back a compressed video segment with a portion of the play-back window off the screen the program may terminate with a bad match error from XGetImage. To avoid this problem make sure your play-back window is positioned entirely on the screen. Xview-based videotool is located in: ./parallax/bin/videotool
50. No Support for RGB Output VideoTool does not support output of RGB video to VCR or other external devices for XVideo-RGB users.
51. VideoTool Output, Select_Window Not Working For XVideo-VIO/RGB users, VideoTool's Output/Select_Window feature is not working.
52. Extraneous Messages Saving a TIFF format still image in VideoTool causes an extraneous message to appear in the terminal window.
53. Resizing Video Window Resizing a VideoTool window does not always resize the video properly: occasionally a white bar appears at the bottom of the window. The work-around is to place the left mouse button on right bottom video window corner and move it upwards.
54. 2 Live Video Windows: Part of One May Appear in the Other When two live video windows are open simultaneously, occasionally a portion of one video will appear in