Ultimotion decoder for Win32 is a Windows 32 bit video codec which allows applications to decode Ultimotion video.  Watch the Bill Gates OS/2 AVI!

OVERVIEW

Ultimotion is a video compression format developed by IBM in 1994.  Codecs were available for Windows 3.1, OS/2 and AIX.  Unfortunately, the Windows 3.1 codec is not usable by the current versions of Windows.  Fortunately, IBM did release to the public the "Ultimotion Digital Video Data Stream Specification", which makes it possible to create applications and codecs which can decode and display Ultimotion movies.  The Ultimotion decoder for Win32 is a Windows 32 bit video codec which allows applications to decode Ultimotion video.  Encoding is not supported.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000 or XP 
The Ultimotion decoder for Win32 supports output to 15 or 24 bit RGB and 16 bit YUV.  YUV is recommended for transcoding to MPEG and other YUV based formats.  24 bit RGB is recommended for display.

INSTALLATION

The following files should have been included as part of the Ultimotion decoder for Win32:

ultimo.txt	this file
ultimo.lic	the license agreement
ultimo.inf	the install script
ultimo.dll	the Ultimotion Video Codec

To install right-click on the included ultimo.inf file and select "Install". There is no need to reboot. If you're asked to insert a disk named "Ultimotion Video Codec Install Disk or Directory" just click OK and select the appropriate directory if necessary. 

Once installed, most applications (including Windows Media Player) will automatically recognize AVI files encoded with Ultimotion compression.

Note: OS/2 MMPM also supported DIB and Indeo 2.1, 3.1, and 3.2 formats.  Indeo 2.1 is not supported by the current versions of Windows and a specification is not available.  The DIB format is not recognized by current versions of Windows.

To uninstall the Ultimotion Video Codec use Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel. 

BUGS

The Warp Ads had serious artifacts with version 1.0 of the Ultimotion decoder for Win32.  This bug has been corrected in version 1.1.

There is an error in the "Ultimotion Digital Video Data Stream Specification" which may cause the display produced by the Ultimotion decoder for Win32 to differ from other decoders.

QUIRKS AND MISSING FEATURES

The Ultimotion decoder for Win32 has been used to display all of the Ultimotion AVI files originally included with the OS/2 Warp Installation and Bonus Pack CDs, the contents of the Hobbes Ready to Run CD, and those available for download from http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/multimedia/video/avi.  Although some of these files contain noticable video artifacts, these artifacts also occur with OS/2.  Therefore, they are due to capture or encoder errors.

The Ultimotion decoder for Win32 does not implement any encoding function.  Ultimotion video compression is obsolete, being both inferior and more difficult to implement than MPEG compression.

DEVELOPMENT RESOURCES

This product uses Ultimotion(tm) IBM video technology. 
(c) Copyright International Business Machines Corporation 1994. All rights reserved.

modeled on Huffyuv v2.1.1, http://math.berkeley.edu/~benrg/huffyuv.html
copyright 2000 Ben Rudiak-Gould, distributed under GNU GPL v2
which is based on MSYUV sample code. Copyright (c) 1993 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

translation tables from Ultimotion 6Y4U4V to R'G'B' & Rec.601 Y'CbCr
info from Frequently Asked Questions about Color by Charles Poynton
Copyright  1997-02-27 http://home.inforamp.net/~poynton/ColorFAQ.html
and comments in xa_avi.c from XAnim Revision 2.80.1
Copyright (C) 1993-1998,1999 by Mark Podlipec, All rights reserved.
http://xanim.va.pubnix.com/home.html

FOURCC information from http://www.webartz.com/fourcc/ 
The (Almost Definitive) FOURCC Definition List by Dave Wilson

SOURCE CODE

The source code for the Ultimotion decoder for Win32 is not available.  Although the source code for Huffyuv (which is distributed under GNU GPL v2) was used as a model for the Ultimotion decoder for Win32, the Ultimotion decoder for Win32 is not derived from Huffyuv.  The only similar source code is the WDM API wrappers, which are similar to the Microsoft MSYUV sample code.

Anyone who wishes the source code for the Ultimotion decoder for Win32 may use the resources listed above to develop it for themselves.

CONTACT

ultimotion@hotmail.com

Requests for the source code will be forwarded to /dev/null

August 22, 2003
