© Werner Randelshofer

MultiShow

© Werner Randelshofe

Readme  Changes  License

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 use.

Commercial use and redistribution may be subject to a license fee - please contact me.

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.

QTJ indicates a feature that requires QuickTime for Java.
QTJ is preinstalled on Mac OS X. On other operating systems, you have to download and install it separately from Apple.

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
24 bit mono/stereo linear (QTJ required)
32 bit mono/stereo linear (QTJ required)
32 bit float mono/stereo linear (QTJ required)
64 bit float mono/stereo linear (QTJ required)
MACE 3:1 (QTJ required)
MACE 6:1 (QTJ required)
QDesign Music 2 (QTJ required)
Qualcomm Pure Voice (QTJ required)

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

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, Vertical 7, Vertical 8

Display modes: 1..8 bit indexed colors, EHB, HAM6, HAM8
Handles multiple color palettes
Ignores 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
many additional formats (QTJ required)
Video:Cinepak
H.261 (PP required)
H.263
JPEG 420, 422, 444
RGB
many additional formats (QTJ required)

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

MPEG-1 Video

.mpgVideo: Multiplexed System Stream (PP or QTJ required)
Video-only stream (PP or QTJ required)

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
Ignores color cycling

JPEG
Joint Photographic
Experts Group

.jpg 

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 

Macromedia Flash

.swf (QTJ required)

QuickTime QTVR

.mov,
.qtvr
(QTJ required)

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

Electronic Arts IFF 85 Interchange File Format

.iff

Shows structure of chunks.
Lists properties of well known chunks.

Microsoft RIFF Resource Interchange File Format

.avi Shows structure of chunks
Lists properties of well known chunks.

Apple QuickTime

.mov,
.qtvr
Shows structure of atoms.
Lists properties of well known atoms.

ZIP Archive / Java Archive

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

Hex

.*Hex dump of file.


Known Issues

  • Image files with multiple images: Only the first image is displayed.
  • Media displayed with QTJ are always scaled to 100 % after opening them.
  • Structures of files can only be shown for files that fit entirely into memory.

System requirements

Operating Systems

All operating systems for which Java 1.4 (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. 60 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 2.7

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)
  • QuickTime for Java 6.1 or above (QTJ) *

*QTJ is already preinstalled on MacOS X.


Installation

Mac OS X

  1. Download your platform edition of MultiShow.
    Download from http://www.randelshofer.ch/multishow/download.html
  2. Drag the icon of MultiShow into the Application folder.

Linux, Solaris, Windows

  1. Install a recent version of Java on your computer.
    Download from http://java.com/
  2. (Optional) Install the Java Media Framework Performance Pack.
    Download from http://java.sun.com/products/java-media/jmf/downloads/index.html
  3. (Optional) Install the QuickTime Player and QuickTime for Java
    (When installing use the custom installation option of the QuickTime Updater tool).
    Download from http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/
  4. Download your platform edition of MultiShow.
    Download from http://www.randelshofer.ch/multishow/download.html
  5. Install MultiShow using the provided Install Anywhere installer.

Other operating Systems

  1. Install a recent version of Java on your computer.
  2. Download the source edition of MultiShow.
    Download from http://www.randelshofer.ch/multishow/download.html
  3. Unzip the zip file.
  4. Double click the file multishow.jar in the "lib" directory to launch MultiShow.
    or
    cd to the "lib" directory and enter the following command:
    java -Xmx128M -jar multishow.jar

Copyright

MultiShow Copyright (C) 1999-2005
Werner Randelshofer, Staldenmattweg 2, CH-6405 Immensee, Switzerland
All Rights Reserved
werner.randelshofer@bluewin.ch