© Werner Randelshofer

MultiShow

© Werner Randelshofe
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Readme

Contents

Introduction
License Fee
Supported Data Types
Known Issues
System Requirements
Installation
Copyright

Introduction

MultiShow is a multipurpose file viewer for audio, video, images and text. It is entirely written in Java and runs on a wide range of operating systems including Windows, Macintosh, Solaris and Linux.

To support as many data types as possible, MultiShow relies heavily on Java Extensions. Most of these extensions ship with MultiShow. However, you may consider to install some additional Java Extensions on your computer to improve the functionality and performance of MultiShow (see section Installation).

I hope you enjoy MultiShow. Please send me an eMail in case it does not work as advertised or if you have suggestions.

License Fee

MultiShow is free for personal and commercial use.

Send me a bottle of wine if you want to honor the time I have invested into MultiShow.

Supported Data Types

Data types without a mark are supported on all platforms. Data types marked as shown below are only available on a limited number of platforms:

PP indicates a feature that requires the Java Media Framework Performance Pack
You have to download and install it separately from JavaSoft.

Please note that the fidelity of audio and video data types benefits greatly from installed Performance Packs and from QuickTime for Java.

Audio

IFF 8SVX
8-Bit Sampled Voice

.8svx

8 bit mono/stereo linear
8 bit mono/stereo fibonacci

Plays stereo sounds as mono.
Plays single octave audio clips only.
Ignores Attack and Release info.

AIFF
Audio Interchange
File Format

.aiff8 bit mono/stereo linear
16 bit mono/stereo linear
G.711 mono (U-law)
A-law 2:1
IMA4 ADPCM 4:1

GSM

.gsm

GSM mono audio

MIDI

.midType 1 & 2 MIDI (PP required)

MPEG Layer II

.mp2

MPEG Layer 1 and 2 audio

MPEG Layer III

 .mp3 MPEG Layer 3 audio

OGG Vorbis

 .ogg  

Sun Audio

.au8 bit mono/stereo linear
16 bit mono/stereo linear
G.711 (U-law)
A-law 2:1

Wave

.wav8 bit mono/stereo linear
16 bit mono/stereo linear
G.711 (U-law)
A-law
GSM mono
DVI ADPCM
MS ADPCM

Video

IFF ANIM
CEL Animations

.animAudio:

IFF ANIM+SLA
IFF ANIM+ANFI

Video:

Byte vertical 5, Byte vertical 5 XOR,
Vertical 7, Vertical 8, Eric Graham

Display modes: 1..8 bit indexed colors, EHB, HAM6, HAM8
Handles multiple color palettes
Supports Anim Brushes
CCRT, CRNG and DRNG color cycling

Apple QuickTime

.movAudio: 8 bit mono/stereo linear
16 bit mono/stereo linear
G.711 (U-law)
A-law
GSM mono
IMA4 ADPCM
Video:

Cinepak
H.261 (PP required)
H.263
JPEG 420, 422, 444
RGB
PNG
ZMBV (DosBox Capture Codec)
TSCC (TechSmith Capture Codec)

AVI
Microsoft Audio Video

.aviAudio:8-bit mono/stereo linear
16-bit mono/stereo linear
DVI ADPCM compressed
G.711 (U-law)
A-law
GSM mono
Video:

Cinepak
MJPEG 422
RGB
YUV
JPEG
PNG
ZMBV (DosBox Capture Codec)
TSCC (TechSmith Capture Codec)

Atari CyberPaint Sequence .seq Video Compressed Copy
Compressed XOR

MPEG-1 Video

.mpgVideo: Multiplexed System Stream
Video-only stream

MPEG-2 Video

 .vob Video: Video Object File (VOB)

Image

BMP
Microsoft Windows
Bitmap Image File

.bmp

Version: 2.x, 3.x and (limited) 4.x support
Color: 1, 4, 8 bit indexed colors, 16, 24, 32 bit RGB
Default RGB color space only
Alpha channels not supported
Format: Uncompressed, BI_RGB, BI_RLE8, BI_RLE4, BI_BITFIELDS

FlashPix Format

.fpxSimple FlashPix files only.
Extracts a single resolution out of FlashPix files.

Compuserve's Graphics Interchange Format

.gif

Color: 1..8 bit indexed colors, 1 transparent color
Animated GIF's supported

IFF ILBM
Interleaved Bitmap

.ilbmColor: 1..8 bit indexed, 24 bit RGB, EHB, HAM6, HAM8
Format: Uncompressed, ByteRun1, Vertical (Atari)
CCRT, CRNG and DRNG color cycling

IFF PBM
Pixel Bitmap

 .pbm Color: 8 bit indexed
Format: Uncompressed, ByteRun1
CRNG and DRNG color cycling

JPEG
Joint Photographic
Experts Group

.jpg RGB, RGBA, CMYK, YCCK
MPO
Multi-Picture Format		 .mpo  

PGM
Netpbm grayscale image format

 .pgm  

PNG
Portable Network Graphics

.png 

PNM
Portable Any Map
File Format

.pnmEncodings: ASCII, raw
Format: PBM (bitmap), PGM (grayscale), PPM (RGB)

TIFF Tag Image File Format

.tif

RGB only
No LZW compression.

Interactive

IBM HotMedia

.mvr 

Text

HTML
Hyper Text Markup Language

.html

 

RTF Rich Text Format

.rtf 

Adobe Acrobat
Portable Document Format

.pdf 

Plain Text

.txt
.* 		Character Sets: US-ASCII, ISO 8851-1, UTF-8, UTF-16, platform specific default set

File Structure

Apple QuickTime

 .mov,
.qtvr		 Shows structure of atoms.
Lists properties of well known atoms.
CyberPaint Sequence .seq Shows structure of chunks.
Lists properties of well known chunks.

Electronic Arts IFF 85 Interchange File Format

.iff

Shows structure of chunks.
Lists properties of well known chunks.
Exchangeable Image Format (Exif) .jpg
.mpo		 Lists the following tags: TIFF, Exif, Interoperability, GPS and MPF (Multi Picture Format).

Hex

 .* Hex dump of file.
JPEG File Interchange Format (JFIF)

.jpg
.mpo

Shows markers, marker segments and entropy encoded data.
Lists properties of well known marker segments.

Microsoft RIFF Resource Interchange File Format

.avi Shows structure of chunks
Lists properties of well known chunks.
MP3 .mp3 Shows the frames of the MP3 elementary stream.
MPEG4

.mp4
.m4v
.m4a

 Shows structure of boxes.
Lists properties of well known boxes.
NeoChrome .neo Shows structure of chunks
Lists properties of well known chunks.
Portable Network Graphics (PNG) .png Shows structure of chunks
Lists properties of well known chunks.
Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) .tif Lists the tags in the Image File Directory (IFD) of the TIFF file.

ZIP Archive / Java Archive

.zip,
.jar		Shows file structure.
Supports browsing of archived files.

Known Issues

  • Image files with multiple images: Only the first image is displayed.
  • Structures of files can only be shown for files that fit entirely into memory.

System requirements

Operating Systems

All operating systems for which Java 1.5 (or above) is available.

i.e Linux, Mac OS X, OS/2, Solaris, Windows, ...

Note: MultiShow requires lots of memory to work properly. On most operating systems, Java defines a maximum of 20 MB per application. If you run into problems when using MultiShow, you should start MultiShow with a higher amount of memory (e. g. 256 MB).

Java Extensions

MultiShow needs the following Java Extensions:

  • JavaBeans Activation Framework 1.0.2 (JAF)
  • Java Advanced Imaging Image I/O Tools 1.0_01 (JAI)
  • Java Media Framework 2.1.1e (JMF)
  • Java MP3 Plugin 1.0
  • Adobe Acrobat Viewer JavaBean 1.1
  • Quaqua Look and Feel 3.7
  • Jffmpeg 1.1.0

These extensions ship with MultiShow, so you don't have to worry about them.

To improve the performance and functionality of MultiShow, you may consider installing one of the following additional extensions on your computer before you are going to install MultiShow:

  • Java Media Framework Native Performance Pack 2.1.1e or above (PP)

 

Installation

All operating systems

  1. Install a recent version of Java on your computer in case it is not installed yet.
  2. Launch the JavaWebStart distro of MultiShow from http://www.randelshofer.ch/multishow

Mac OS X

  1. Alternatively you can install MultiShow from a disk image available from http://www.randelshofer.ch/multishow

Copyright

MultiShow Copyright (C) 1999-2011
Werner Randelshofer, Hausmatt 10, CH-6405 Immensee, Switzerland
All Rights Reserved
werner.randelshofer@bluewin.ch