Subject:    -6- I need to play MPEG movies.  Does SGI offer MPEG
                support?
Date: Thu Feb 16 15:42:49 PST 1995

  Again, the answer to this depends on the IRIX system release
  that you have.

	- In all releases of IRIX up to and including IRIX 5.3,
	  the SGI movieplayer does not support MPEG movies.

  	- If you use IRIX 5.3 with the WebFORCE software product,
  	  the SGI movieplayer supports MPEG-1 movies.  You can
  	  also create MPEG movies using the dmconvert or Movie Master
  	  tools.  See elsewhere in this FAQ for information on
  	  ordering WebFORCE.

  For free, you have several options which work regardless of the
  IRIX release you have:

  1) You can use the Berkeley mpeg_play. You can get the file
  mpeg_play.Z by anonymous ftp from

      ftp://sgigate.sgi.com/pub/Mosaic/mpeg_play.Z

  Please use the binary transfer mode to get that file, and then
  enter:

      uncompress mpeg_play.Z

  to get mpeg_play.  You can use mpeg_play to play MPEG files specified
  in Mosaic documents.

  2) Another MPEG player is available via FTP.  Here is its URL:

      ftp://geom.umn.edu/priv/daeron/src/mpeg_play-src.tar.Z

  This MPEG player has Motif frame controls.

  3) You might want to check out sgimpeg, a program based on
  mpeg_play, with all graphics replaced with IrisGL calls.  It also
  features some limited frame controls. The full package, bit, also
  offers conversions of any frames within the MPEG stream to
  jpeg/pnm/rgb and other formats.  Both bit and sgimpeg are available
  from

      ftp://monte.svec.uh.edu/pub/bit/

  via anonymous ftp.

  [ Editors note: at the time of latest revision, sgimpeg was not
    available at this Internet location. ]

  4) Here is yet another MPEG player from Greg Ward (greg@pet.mni.mcgill.ca):

  I have also written a GL-specific MPEG player -- same general
  idea as sgimpeg, but it has a cruder user interface (all keyboard) and
  a lot more features (memory or disk buffering, pixel doubling/tripling/
  whatever, pause, single step forward or backward).

  It's available by anonymous ftp from yorick.mni.mcgill.ca, in /pub/mpeg.