  THE SIDPLAY HOME PAGE
  http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/5147/

  THE HIGH VOLTAGE SIDTUNE COLLECTION:
  http://www.hvsc.c64.org/

  AUTHOR'S MOST FAVOURITE SIDS
  http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/5147/sidplay/sids.html
  
GENERAL NOTES:

  This version strictly requires libsidplay >= 1.36.26 to ensure
  proper compilation on libc5 systems.

  For easier package configuration and compilation, you are advised
  to upgrade to libsidplay 1.36.45.

  Get libsidplay and headers and install it from either source or
  binary package. If the configure script can't find the library or
  header files in standard or common places, you need to specify the
  paths to where you've installed libsidplay (see INSTALL or
  configure --help).

FURTHER REQUIREMENTS:

  Qt

  Consult the file README.QT on where to get Qt. Apart from the Qt
  library and header files you also need a working meta object
  compiler (moc) which is part of the Qt distribution. The user
  interface compiler (uic) is not required.

  This version is made for Qt 2.2.0 and above. It will not compile
  with the Qt 1.x series. Also, minor and major problems have been
  reported with Qt 2.0.x and various beta versions of Qt 2.2.0.

  libstdc++

  To remove a bit of burden from the programmer ;-), parts of the
  code use features provided by the Standard Template Library which
  is part of the C++ Standard. If you have trouble upon compilation
  it may be that you need a newer version of your C++ compiler or
  Standard C++ library.

  HVSC & STIL

  When listening to sidtunes, it is recommended that you get the
  most accurate and most complete sid music collection currently
  available, the High Voltage SID Collection (HVSC). See the FAQ
  files hv_sids.faq and STIL.faq which are included within this
  package.

  If you keep your custom collection of favourite sids in a
  directory structure which equals the HVSC, you can continue to use
  HVSC-specific support files like the STIL database and the Bugged
  Tunes List. Just make sure you place a copy of the DOCUMENTS
  directory from the HVSC in the root of your private collection.

  SONGLENGTH DATABASE

  Each time you add a sidtune to a playlist, a prebuilt songlengths
  database can be queried to provide a default playtime for the
  current or default subtune respectively.

  An experimental songlength database file for always the latest
  version of the High Voltage SID Collection (HVSC) can be obtained
  here:

  http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/5147/sidplay/index.html#songlendb

  Here, "experimental" means the playtimes in the database file may
  be inaccurate and in the worst case far off the actual length of a
  song. It is possible that you miss the end of a good sidtune if
  you rely on the database entries when building playlists. In the
  future, this might change with improvements in the utility which
  is responsible for creation of the database file. The database
  file has been built automatically by an experimental utility which
  runs a modified version of libsidplay on all sids in the HVSC in
  order to try to determine a songlength for each sub-song in a
  sidtune.

  All times in the database have been created with an emulator
  system running at PAL clock speed and using the song speed
  specified in the sidtune file itself. If you have your SID player
  set to override the default song speed of sidtunes (e.g. NTSC
  clock speed + force song speed), any sids that are affected will
  not match the given playtime by 20% (for VBI speed) or 3.8% (CIA
  timer speed). Future SID players will be able to preset the
  correct clock speed setting, too.

  A newer implementation of the experimental songlength database
  uses MD5 fingerprints to lookup the playtimes for sidtunes. This
  separates sidtune files from the fixed structure of the HVSC. You
  no longer need to store your favourite sids in a HVSC-like
  directory tree, and you don't need to keep the file names either.

  In other words, you can install the songlength database file in
  either
  
    $HOME/.sidplay/Songlengths.txt
    
  or
  
    $HVSC_ROOT/DOCUMENTS/Songlengths.txt

  and use it together with files previously fetched from the HVSC
  but now stored at arbitrary locations on your filesystem.

  If you add sids files to a playlist and have the songlength
  database enabled, the sidtune and its playtime will be identified
  by an MD5 fingerprint of relevant parts of the sidtune.

  If your particular sidtune file doesn't match any fingerprint in
  the database, you are left with playlist defaults and need to
  determine the playtime of the song yourself (for now).

  If you fetch your sids from the HVSC usually, it is recommended
  that you update your private collection of sidtunes with possibly
  newer versions from the HVSC. Also check out for possibly newer
  and improved releases of prebuilt songlength database files.
  
USAGE:

  PLAYLIST & HOTLIST

  The playlist implementation can read format 1 and 2 playlists from
  SIDPLAY/Windows and writes playlists in format 2.

  Stopping the current song disables the playlist, so if you start
  it via the player control buttons, it is not affected by the
  playlist's playtime which might be too short. You can enable the
  playlist again via the checkbox or the playlist dialog.

  The hotlist is meant to provide the cheap capability to "bookmark"
  sidtunes while listening to sids from directories or playlists,
  respectively. The contents of the hotlist can be added to a
  playlist anytime either by saving the hotlist as a playlist file,
  or by moving the hotlist contents into the current playlist. The
  latter operation will clear the hotlist after it has been added to
  the current playlist.

  PLAYLIST UPDATE

  This function is useful if you want to keep playlists in sync with
  a sidtune collection like the HVSC which moves and updates files in
  the collection.

  HISTORY

  The purpose of the history logfile is just to provide the user
  with a way to go through the last X sids that have been played.
  Often, after having listened to a new sidtune collection update,
  it can happen one or more days later that one remembers the melody
  of a good sidtune, but -- without having saved it in a playlist or
  separate directory -- is unable to find it among the 14000+ sids
  in the complete collection or the several hundred sids in an
  update.

  Because sids can appear in the history as often as they have been
  played, the history is not a playlist, but a simple text file
  which keeps the title and filename of a sidtune. Upon application
  exit it is saved automatically in: $HOME/.sidplay/xsidplay-history.txt

  CONFIGURATION
  
  Most configuration settings can be changed via the graphical user
  interface. Upon application exit all settings get saved to:
  $HOME/.sidplay/xsidplay.ini

  You can use this applications as a command line player as well or
  start it from the SIDPlug wrapper plug-in (ln -sf xsidplay
  sidplug).

  Syntax:
    
    xsidplay [-|<sidtuneFile>] [<options>]

  Options:
    
    -bufsize<number>    the sample buffer size in bytes (0 = use default)
    -o<number>          the starting song number (default: preset)

  If really necessary you can tune the Open Sound System (OSS) audio
  driver of the Linux Kernel with additional command line arguments.
  These get saved upon application exit, too. Be sure to check the
  kernel driver defaults at least once.

	-maxfrags<number>   maximum number of fragments (0 = use default)
	-fragsize<number>   size of each fragment in bytes (0 = use default)

  The waveform viewer (Oscilloscope) is disabled by default until
  fully-working synchronization of video and audio output can be
  assured. Hence the code is not completely implemented. With
  command line argument "--expert" you can try the very basic
  viewer. Note, however, that you likely need to adjust the OSS
  driver settings to get rid of delays in the audio output. Those
  special "--expert" settings will not be saved.

  Depending on the version of Qt you have used to compile XSIDPLAY,
  the following interesting command line options are available. For
  more options consult the Qt documentation:

    -style=<style>, sets the application GUI style. Possible values for
     <style> are "motif" and "windows". 
    -display display, sets the X display (default is $DISPLAY). 
    -fn or -font font, defines the application font. 
    -bg or -background color, sets the default background color and an
     application palette (light and dark shades are calculated). 
    -fg or -foreground color, sets the default foreground color. 
    -visual TrueColor, forces the application to use a TrueColor visual
     on an 8-bit display.

