The CinePlayer DVD Decoder pack is a plug-in solution that enables your Windows XP system to play DVDs (and other MPEG2 compressed digital video sources) using the Windows Media Player. It is assumed that your computer must be equipped with a DVD-ROM drive in order to play DVD disc-based media.

• For information about purchasing, downloading and installing the CinePlayer DVD Decoder Pack, click here.
• For information on general use of Microsoft's Windows Media Player to play DVDs or MPEG2 video files, click this link to Microsoft's support site: Media Player.
• For configuration options unique to the CinePlayer DVD Decoder plug-in, we have provided the following section. This information is provided as a convenience to the end-user community. Content is subject to change without notice.

CinePlayer DVD Decoder Control Panel

Once installed, the CinePlayer DVD Decoder plug-in should work without further adjustment. There are, however, a few user-configurable preferences that you may wish to set. To facilitate this, we have provided a Control Panel applet. You can access this applet by selecting the Start Menu/Settings/Control Panel and double-clicking the CinePlayer DVD Decoder Pack icon.

CinePlayer DVD Property Pages

When run, the CinePlayer DVD Decoder control panel applet produces a window containing three tabbed property pages. Clicking the tabs at the top of this windows allows you to select among the different pages.

• About Tab: The About property page contains read-only information about the current version of the CinePlayer DVD Decoder plug-in. Clicking the button in the center of this screen will open your default Internet browser and load www.cineplayer.com.

• Video Tab: The Video property page contains two controls for configuring the CinePlayer DVD Decoder plug-in to work with advanced DirectX features of the Windows XP operating system. For maximum compatibility with the installed base of hardware, THE DEFAULT CONDITION FOR BOTH OF THESE SETTINGS IS UNCHECKED!.

• Enable Video Hardware Acceleration:The DirectX 8 technology included with Windows XP includes advanced video acceleration features known collectively as DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA). If your video card (i.e.: VGA adapter) includes DXVA compatible drivers, you can enable this checkbox in order to take full advantage of the DXVA support provided by CinePlayer DVD Decoder and the operating system.
  
  If your video card does not include DXVA drivers (or you don't know), leave this checkbox unchecked. The CinePlayer DVD Decoder provides the highest quality video available on unaccelerated systems. Leaving this box unchecked should not produce any observable degradation of the video playback.

• Enable Video Mixing Renderer Support- The Video Mixing Renderer (VMR) is another DirectX 8 enhancement that supports mapping video content onto 3D geometries in video cards that support them. The VMR replaces earlier "Overlay Surface" methods for mixing video and desktop graphics.If your video card (i.e.: VGA adapter) includes support for VMR (and a minimum of 16MB onboard video memory), you can enable this checkbox in order to take full advantage of the VMR support Provided by CinePlayer DVD Decoder and the operating system.
  
  >If your video card does not support VMR (or you don't know), leave this checkbox unchecked. The CinePlayer DVD Decoder provides the highest quality video available in systems where VMR is unavailable. Leaving this box unchecked should not produce any observable degradation of the video playback.

• Audio Tab: The Audio property page contains one control for configuring the CinePlayer DVD Decoder plug-in for Dolby soundtrack playback. For maximum compatibility with the installed base of hardware, THE DEFAULT CONDITION FOR THE SETTING IS 'SURROUND COMPATIBLE'.
• Dolby Options: There are two different ways that the CinePlayer DVD Decoder can interpret Dolby digital audio in a DVD title:
  
  • Stereo Mixdown- Dolby content (including multi-channel content) is interpreted as baseline 2-channel (Left and Right) stereo and delivered to the computer's stereo sound card.
• Dolby Surround Compatible- Dolby content (including multi-channel content) is mixed down to 2 baseline stereo channels (Left and Right) with Surround Sound cues embedded. Certain surround compatible stereo amplifiers are able to synthesize 3D spatial audio from 2-channel audio containing Surround Sound cues. This is the default setting.