FAQ

What OS are supported ?
MMB and the applications you create with it works on Windows Platform. It works on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows NT.

Is there a version for MAC?
No there is no version for MAC.
MMB is for Windows platform only.

Do I have to pay any royalties?
No. You need to just register once and you can make as many applications as you want.

Can I distribute the files I create?
Yes. If you are registered user you can distribute your files free of any royalties etc...

Is there a book about MMB?
We are not aware of any book about MMB. However MMB may be mentioned in books about multimedia generally. The best place to learn MMB is looking at a many samples on this or many others web pages dedicated to MMB. Also Discussion Board is a great help.

What is the recommended graphic application to make my art work?
We recommend CompactDraw (www.mediachance.com/compactdraw) because it is the only program where you can make a fully functional page with buttons and then export it to MMB. However there are other tools you can use as a PaintShop Pro, PhotoShop etc...

What is autorun ?
When a CD-ROM disk is inserted into the drive the Windows examines the disk looking for file autorun.inf .The autorun.inf is a simple ASCII text file and could be edited just with the notepad and it tells windows what program to run and what icon to show for the drive when it appears in the My Computer folder.

What are the lines in autorun.inf ?
Inside the autorun.inf file you will see lines:
[autorun]
OPEN=autorun.exe
ICON=autorun.exe,0

The autorun.inf file must be on the root of the CD. However you can even put that file to the root of a harddrive and then your icon of the harddrive will change.
Note: You can use for the icon directly icon file if you want so the third line will look like: ICON=myico.ico

How to enable Autorun on my computer?
Select Start Button, then Settings > Control panel. Doubleclick on System. Select Device Manager tab, expand the CD-ROM entry and click on appropriate CD-ROM drive and click Properties. Select Settings tab and finally check the "Auto insert notification" box.a
Trick: If you as an user don't want the AutoRun application to start when you inserting new CD, hold down the Shift key while you insert the CD !

I f I want to make an audio CD with digital multimedia track, what is the format and software to do it?
The industry standard format is CD Extra. In this format the audio tracks are recorded in the first session and the second session are the data. You can create CD-Extra with most of the mastering software, Adaptec Easy CD Creator for example.
There is a also an older format named Mixed Mode CD. On such CD the audio and data are recorded in the same session where the data are as a track 1 with following audio tracks. The disadvantage of this is that a CD player can play a CD from track 2 skipping the track 1.

Why I can't play Audio Tracks from my CD-ROM
You can't play Redbook audio (regular CD audio tracks) and read files off the CD at the same time. Redbook audio tracks are streamed off the CD at 1x speed. If your drive is faster than 1x (let's hope so), it actually slows down to play Redbook.
Most games do one of two things:

Mmb90000.gif Copy all game files to the hard disk during install. This ensures the fastest possible loading times, brisk play, and huge installs (Balder's Gate install is over 500MB).

Mmb90000.gif Read all necessary data off the CD before starting the Redbook track. If your level/map/whatever data is small enough to fit entirely in RAM, you can get away with this.

MMB actually offers a third strategy: embed your data. This means your data gets unzipped to a temporary directory each time you run. If at all possible, I would recommend not using this option unless absolutely necessary.
I would probably use MP3s, since they are already so nicely supported by MMB. This sort of depends on what kind of machines you need to run on and how CPU intensive the rest of your project is. MP3s can eat some clock cycles, Redbook audio is free.

Why my video doesn't play on other computer?
The video on PC is a complex issue. Please read the next questions about AVI

Avi or MPEG ?
The AVI format is supported in all versions of Windows. The MPEG format is not supported directly by OS and it require a MPEG software player installed which supports MCI.
New Windows Media Player can play many formats and MPEG as well. All new Windows 98 installation should have MPEG support already installed (or not...). For older versions of Windows you have to carry the Windows Media Player installation or DirectShow 6 and newer with you.
MPEG format has better compression and quality than standard AVI, however it needs more CPU to play the video.
To make it more difficult not all AVI's are the same. AVI uses Codec's to compress its data. (And in fact it can also use MPEG codec)

What is CODEC ?
You can use uncompressed AVI, but you will end up with hundreds of MB of data just for few minutes. Instead you should use a compression/decompression software. CODEC is such software component. In order to be able to play the video encoded with any CODEC the component must be installed on the computer.
As always there are many Codecs, producing better or worse video quality. You can choose any one, but remember if you go wild you will have to also install the CODEC on the user computer before he will be able to play your video.
There are already few Codecs installed on every Windows95, 98, 2000 by default:
Cinepak, Indeo 3.2, Indeo 4, Indeo 5, Microsoft Video 1.
Each codec is identified by 4 letters code in AVI file (for example Cinepak is CVID)

Microsoft Video 1
The original CODEC shipped with ancient Video for windows.
Quality: Bad, it is CODEC from times when 256 colors was a luxury.
Tip: The best is to avoid this CODEC.

Cinepak
Cinepak was originally developed by Radius to play small movies on 386 from CD ROM.
Quality: Many years ago this was amazing, however today it doesn't compare well with newer CODECs
Tip: All Windows Versions will be able to play AVI encoded with Cinepak. To play the video, the CODEC need just very little CPU.
If you want to have video play back on any Windows machine Cinepak would be your choice.

Indeo 3.2
Developed by Intel in 80's
Quality: Not much to say, the quality is in the range of Cinpak - which means 'medium' quality. It doesn't like fast movement.
Tip: All Windows versions should be able to play AVI encoded with Indeo 3.2. The time needed for compressing is less than Cinepak, however it needs faster computer to play back than Cinepak. (Today's Pentiums are far fast enough anyway)

Indeo 4 and 5
Some name but different technology than Indeo 3.2.
Quality: Produces better results than Cinepak or Indeo 3.2, but needs fast Pentium
Tip: Most of the Windows 95 and 98 will have this CODEC already installed. However it requires a fast Pentium to play it back

MPEG-1
MPEG-1 provides excellent quality (audio and video)
This format is very popular and most of the MPEG files you download from Internet are encoded in MPEG-1.
Also it is the format for VideoCD (VCD).

MPEG-2
MPEG-2 is designed for broadcast quality digital audio and video. The image quality is outstanding. This is the format DVD uses. To play MPEG-2 videos you need fast Pentium or special hardware.

MPEG-4
MPEG-4 is designed for high quality web streaming video. It is similar to H.263 (video conferencing CODEC)
The quality is excellent even at low datarates. Microsoft has its own implementation in the new ASF format

So which CODEC?
Well that's again your choice. There is no one for all. If you look at the previous paragraphs it looks that if you want to play video on any windows computer you use AVI format encoded with Cinepak. The quality is not the best, but it will play on all computers for sure. If your video has low motion ( talking head) you can also try Indeo 3.2 CODEC. Then if the quality is important use MPEG, but you have to let user install Microsoft Windows Media Player first (it is free)