How about the Reel Magic ISA board?
I've read it can work on a 386SX-16 and has Windows 3.1 software.
But I don't know if it's 16-Bit friendly.

Re: Real Magic MPEG VGA Cards

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jC_LMV6_J40

dr.zeissler wrote on 2024-02-24, 10:24:

I need something for VGA Dos for 286/8Mhz.

Hm. That's tricky.

I've tinkered with CompuShow 2000, a picture viewer, in the past few days.

Mainly in PCem with 8088 and 286 machines.

It seems to me that decoding bigger stuff had a good use for XMS or EMS memory.

So I assume it's worse with pictures in motion.

I mean, Windows 3.0 and PC GEOS have FLI players, but these GUIs need some RAM to work smoothly.
Luckily, both can run in Real-Mode and use EMS.

Maybe that's also the case with DOS-based video players, that they have EMS support?

Because there's a new 4 MB EMS card, or so it seems.
I've just stumbled over a YT video about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EzCCTPdAM4

Interestingly, the YouTuber has an Amiga A2286 in use for testing. 🙂

I think I should use uncompressed video in 320/200 or less with 256 colors or 256 greyscales with 8khz mono-sound.
I need a solution to generate such files out of e.g. DVD's and a player that can run this on a 286/8 from HDD.
Space is not a problem. I have 4x2GB on that A2286.

Hm. I've once used to have an Hauppauge WinTV board with Windows 3.1 software.
It had a TV tuner and could encode MPEG.
I wonder if the chips on the board (full-size ISA) also had decoding functionality.
Not sure if the software ran on an 286, also.

Audio wise, I remember playing back VOC and WAVE files found on shareware CD-ROMs of the day (90s, on my 286).
These were in 22 KHz 8-Bit Mono format often (sometimes Stereo, too).

But that was audio alone, of course.
I'm not sure how much CPU load a higher sampling rate causes here.
I suppose it depends on the soundcard type, its capabilities (decompression etc) and if it's being using DMA or not.

Hi again! Found something interesting.. Video for Windows for Mac.

A source on the interwebs describes it as..

A utility set for moving AVI files to the QuickTime environment and for converting QuickTime files to AVI format.
Includes a Windows Compressors system extension, which contains compressor/decompressors (CODECs) for Microsoft RLE, Microsoft Video 1, and Microsoft Full Frame formats.

Does anybody have experience with this, by any chance ?
The old VFW 1.0 runs on a 286 PC w/ Windows 3.1, but it has Video 1 codec only.
Which this set of utilities seems to support. So..

PS: I *think* I've used an old copy of VLC player at some point to generate AVIs.
Not sure which codec, though. AVI is a container, foremost, after all.

Not sure if you’ve seen this:
https://www.andrews-corner.org/cinepak.html

It’s been helpful encoding vids to Cinepak, but now I have no way to show them on my 66mhz 486. Any msdos programs that can do this?

Besides that, is cinepak ideal in terms of quality? What about Indeo or Microsoft Video 1?

Old PC Hunter wrote on 2023-04-02, 02:22:

Trying to figure this out - I have tried to transcode from MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4 sources, but the only thing holding me bac […]
Show full quote

dr.zeissler wrote on 2023-03-30, 09:08:

Thx for that advice.... I have several Macs and therefore can produce MP4 content out of DVD's. FFMPEG should be supported on ma […]
Show full quote

Thx for that advice.... I have several Macs and therefore can produce MP4 content out of DVD's.
FFMPEG should be supported on mac too. What would be your advice to transcode from DVD.

I think the best way would be not creating MP4 content out of the DVD-Episode and then use FFMPEG to generate the final file.
That would be like making a 320Kbit AAC out of a CD and after that making a 64KB/mp3 out of that AAC.

What would be the settings you would reccomend for FFMPEG for a direct transcode from the DVD-Episode-Content?

I don't think about playing those files within windows...that would be way to much overhead....I am thinking about a playing Videos in DOS. So no WFW here.

Trying to figure this out - I have tried to transcode from MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4 sources, but the only thing holding me back is that FFMPEG's Microsoft Video 1 encoder. The encoder won't even encode in the RGB8 pixel format, only RGB555LE (16 bit color). It will generate a 256 color palette from a video just fine and use it, but it will still be in the wrong pixel format and show up as 16 bit color on any media player. The way it encodes MSV1 doesn't seem to be readable by QuickTime either. It would really be nice to use FFMPEG as it can palletize videos better than VirtualDub can and handle modern input codecs. There might be a intermediary codec I can transcode to that would allow me to load it in another software and encode it as MSV1 but I can't find one on FFMPEG that supports 8 bit color besides rawvideo, which I can't get any player to read (assuming it's missing a proper file header). Maybe I am doing this wrong because it has been such a long time since I have done this, but I believe I gave up on FFMPEG back then for similar reasons. The best option now would probably be to use an older software, but finding something that works in Windows 10, which is preferable, and can support semi-modern codecs might be a little bit difficult. As stated before somewhere else on VOGONS (I think by Radiounix), the encoders likely moved away from 8 bit color by 1995 when most PC's could handle 16 bit color anyways. Adobe Premiere 6.5 works, but it doesn't quite give me the performance I want it to - I've seen better done with MSV1. Here's my basic FFMPEG command i've been toying with. Like I said, I don't know if I'm doing this right, but this is what i've been able to figure out.

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -r 15 -s 160x120 -ar 11025 -c:a pcm_u8 -filter_complex "[0:v] split [a];[a] palettegen [p];[p] paletteuse" -pix_fmt rgb8 -c:v msvideo1 output.avi

If someone can provide their input on this and help us figure out how we can achieve better 256 color MSV1 video encoding on a modern PC, i'd greatly appreciate it.

When I look at the supported pixel formats using
ffmpeg -h encoder=msvideo1
It says that it only supports one pixel format, rgb555le

Anonymoose wrote on 2024-06-11, 01:05:

It’s been helpful encoding vids to Cinepak, but now I have no way to show them on my 66mhz 486. Any msdos programs that can do this?

QuickView Pro 2.61 supports "cvid Cinepak (8, 24 bit)", but requires 386+.

Hi, how about this?

https://x86dc.wordpress.com/

I've stumbled over it by accident, when I visited a YT channel.

XDC was being in the description of this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xReogNg9mao

The intro is a classic, btw! 😁

Hi guys, i archive best image quality and fullscreen video in my 4mb 286 25mhz CL5422 1mb , i tested 320x200 15fps 22khz 8bit mono and was perfect, no delay in audio

Here some photos, sorry i realize after the pictures i did to the 320x160 video of widescreen metal hurland

What i did to archive best quality

First, in ffmpeg convert whatever video to avi 24bits 320x200 uncompressed

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf scale=320:200 -c:v rawvideo -pix_fmt rgb24 -c:a pcm_u8 -ar 22050 -ac 1 in.avi

Second in ffmpeg extract a palette from the avi

ffmpeg -i in.avi -vf palettegen palette.png

third, after having the png

ffmpeg -i in.avi -i palette.png -filter_complex "[0:v][1:v]paletteuse=dither=bayer" -pix_fmt pal8 -c:v rawvideo -c:a copy out.avi

Whit this AVI, in a windows 3.1 machine... or maybe in a windows 95? not tested, for sure not work in NT, we need to use VidEdit that came from Video For windows 1.0, open the avi, create a palette, and save as microsoft video 1

Long work, but i did not have any luck making a video compatible in ffmpeg, virtual dub, or whatever. Maybe in need to try in a Windows 9x machine, but because i have a win3.1 celeron 500 one, i dont care much

I atach VidEdit with some extra files from VFW 1.0, that are not in VFW1.1 without this files not work

You're running that Windows 3.11 not-for-Workgroups in 256-color mode, right?

Grzyb wrote on 2025-06-08, 21:57:

You're running that Windows 3.11 not-for-Workgroups in 256-color mode, right?

Yes regular windows 3.1, WFW is for 386+ only. Yes in 256 colors, in fact there is no CL5422 drivers for 286 for 16+bits mode, only 256

It's 150 KB/s = 540 MB/h, right?
What kind of storage are you using?
Have you tried to play that video off a network share?

Yes, my dream is to watch a full-length movie on a 286 🤣

Grzyb wrote on 2025-06-09, 00:01:

It's 150 KB/s = 540 MB/h, right? What kind of storage are you using? Have you tried to play that video off a network share? […]
Show full quote

It's 150 KB/s = 540 MB/h, right?
What kind of storage are you using?
Have you tried to play that video off a network share?

Yes, my dream is to watch a full-length movie on a 286 🤣

Hi, i compress videos for my mitsumi 1x CDRom, i like to burn CDs and my idea is to burn some animations i like when kid

To test movies my 286 have Cf cards, up to 500mb i have enought space to test

I did not think in network share, the problem.i dont want to waste comvenctional ram in a packet driver, but i will test, maybe commect a raspberry to the 286 will.be a good idea

theelf wrote on 2025-06-09, 05:55:

i dont want to waste comvenctional ram in a packet driver

Windows runs in protected mode, the 640 KB limit is not a problem.

But the CPU may be too slow to handle both the video playback, and the network stack - especially considering that without WfW there's no protected-mode networking, and frequent real<->protected mode switching is sure to slow things down.

There's Windows for Workgroups 3.10 that runs on 80286, but with limited capabilities.
It can only work as a requester, not as a provider/server. It can only use resources on network, not providing anything.
Also, not sure how good/poor performance is in comparison to an entirely DOS-based network (packet driver and network stack). 🙁

Jo22 wrote on 2025-06-09, 11:50:

There's Windows for Workgroups 3.10 that runs on 80286, but with limited capabilities.
It can only work as a requester, not as a provider/server. It can only use resources on network, not providing anything.
Also, not sure how good/poor performance is in comparison to an entirely DOS-based network (packet driver and network stack). 🙁

OK, but the network stuff still runs in real mode, so there's plenty of jumping between real and protected.

Windows multimedia is pretty much 100% protected mode.
Windows networking - on a 286 - is mostly (entirely?) real mode.
Just can't avoid the painful switching.

OK, but the network stuff still runs in real mode, so there's plenty of jumping between real and protected.

I honestly don't know. Windows for Warehouses was strange..
Maybe it has Real-Mode network drivers, but Protected-Mode stack?

I merely do know that networking is always there and can't be disabled - that was fixed in WfW 3.11.
So something must be running, even if networking wasn't properly installed.

Grzyb wrote on 2025-06-09, 09:42:

theelf wrote on 2025-06-09, 05:55:

i dont want to waste comvenctional ram in a packet driver

Windows runs in protected mode, the 640 KB limit is not a problem.

But the CPU may be too slow to handle both the video playback, and the network stack - especially considering that without WfW there's no protected-mode networking, and frequent real<->protected mode switching is sure to slow things down.

Long time i did not do a network in DOS/win3.1 but in my memories i need to load a dos tsr packet driver, then something like lanman, etc in windows only tcpip like trumpet but network shares are in dos

maybe im very not updated