Settings

Transcript

2 Copyright © 2002 Autodesk, Inc. All Rights Reserved This publication, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form, by any method, for any purpose. AUTODESK, INC. MAKES NO WARRANTY, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, REGARDING THESE MATERIALS AND MAKES SUCH MATERIALS AVAILABLE SOLELY ON AN “AS-IS” BASIS. IN NO EVENT SHALL AUTODESK, INC. BE LIABLE TO ANYONE FOR SPECIAL, COLLATERAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES IN CONNECTION WITH OR ARISING OUT OF PURCHASE OR USE OF THESE MATERIALS. THE SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE LIABILITY TO AUTODESK, INC., REGARDLESS OF THE FORM OF ACTION, SHALL NOT EXCEED THE PURCHASE PRICE OF THE MATERIALS DESCRIBED HEREIN. Autodesk, Inc. reserves the right to revise and improve its products as it sees fit. This publication describes the state of this product at the time of its publication, and may not reflect the product at all times in the future. Autodesk Trademarks The following are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., in the USA and/or other countries: 3D Plan, 3D Props, 3D Studio, 3D Studio MAX, 3D Studio VIZ, 3DSurfer, ActiveShapes, ActiveShapes (logo), Actrix, ADE, ADI, Advanced Modeling Extension, AEC Authority (logo), AEC-X, AME, Animator Pro, Animator Studio, ATC, AUGI, AutoCAD, AutoCAD Data Extension, AutoCAD Development System, AutoCAD LT, AutoCAD Map, Autodesk, Autodesk Animator, Autodesk (logo), Autodesk MapGuide, Autodesk University, Autodesk View, Autodesk WalkThrough, Autodesk World, AutoLISP, AutoShade, AutoSketch, AutoSurf, AutoVision, Biped, bringing information down to earth, CAD Overlay, Character Studio, Cinepak, Cinepak (logo), Codec Central, Combustion, Design Companion, Design Your World, Design Your World (logo), Drafix, EditDV, Education by Design, Generic, Generic 3D Drafting, Generic CADD, Generic Software, Geodyssey, gmax, Heidi, HOOPS, Hyperwire, i-drop, Inside Track, Kinetix, MaterialSpec, Mechanical Desktop, Media cleaner, MotoDV, Movie cleaner Pro, Multimedia Explorer, NAAUG, ObjectARX, Office Series, Opus, PeopleTracker, PhotoDV, Physique, Planix, Powered with Autodesk Technology, Powered with Autodesk Technology (logo), RadioRay, Rastation, Softdesk, Softdesk (logo), Solution 3000, Terran Interactive, Texture Universe, The AEC Authority, The Auto Architect, TinkerTech, Videofusion, VISION*, Volo, Web-Motion, WHIP!, WHIP! (logo), Woodbourne, WorkCenter, and World-Creating Toolkit. The following are trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., in the USA and/or other countries: 3D on the PC, 3ds max, ACAD, Advanced User Interface, AME Link, Animation Partner, Animation Player, Animation Pro Player, A Studio in Every Computer, ATLAST, Auto-Architect, AutoCAD Architectural Desktop, AutoCAD Architectural Desktop Learning Assistance, AutoCAD Learning Assistance, AutoCAD LT Learning Assistance, AutoCAD Simulator, AutoCAD SQL Extension, AutoCAD SQL Interface, Autodesk Animator Clips, Autodesk Animator Theatre, Autodesk Device Interface, Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk Map, Autodesk PhotoEDIT, Autodesk Software Developer's Kit, Autodesk Streamline, Autodesk View DwgX, AutoFlix, AutoSnap, AutoTrack, Built with ObjectARX (logo), cinestream, cleaner, cleaner central, ClearScale, Colour Warper, Concept Studio, Content Explorer, cornerStone Toolkit, Dancing Baby (image), DesignCenter, Design Doctor, Designer's Toolkit, DesignProf, DesignServer, DWG Linking, DXF, Extending the Design Team, FLI, FLIC, GDX Driver, Generic 3D, gmax (logo), gmax ready (logo),Heads-up Design, Home Series, Intelecine, introDV, jobnet, Kinetix (logo), Live Sync, ObjectDBX, onscreen onair online, Ooga-Chaka, Photo Landscape, Photoscape, Plans & Specs, Plasma, Plugs and Sockets, PolarSnap, Pro Landscape, ProjectPoint, Reactor, Real-Time Roto, Render Queue, SchoolBox, Simply Smarter Diagramming, SketchTools, Supportdesk, The Dancing Baby, Transform Ideas Into Reality, Visual LISP, Visual Syllabus, VIZable, and Where Design Connects. Autodesk Canada Inc. Trademarks The following are registered trademarks of Autodesk Canada Inc., in the USA and/or Canada, and/or other countries: fire, flame, flint, flint RT, frost, glass, inferno, MountStone, riot, river, smoke, sparks, stone, stream, vapour, wire. The following are trademarks of Autodesk Canada Inc., in the USA, Canada, and/or other countries: backburner, backdraft, discreet, heatwave, Multi-Master Editing. Third-Party Trademarks All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Third-Party Software Program Credits RealSystem® technology is provided under license from RealNetworks, Inc., copyright ©1995-2002 RealNetworks, Inc. and/or its suppliers. 1601 Elliott Avenue, Suite 1000, Seattle, Washington 98121, U.S.A. Patents Pending. All rights reserved. RealNetworks and RealSystem are registered trademarks of RealNetworks, Inc. Sorenson Video 3 is a registered trademark of Sorenson Media, Inc. Apple, Mac OS, Macintosh, Power Macintosh, QuickTime, iMovie, SoundManager and the respective Apple logos are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Apple Computer Incorporated. Portions utilize Microsoft Windows Media Technologies, ©1999-2002 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. PowerPoint, Windows, Windows Media Technologies, ActiveMovie, Video for Windows, DirectShow, and Microsoft’s respective logos are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. MPEG Layer-3 audio coding technology licensed from Fraunhofer IIS and Thomson multimedia. Kinoma Exporter for Discreet Version 1.0 Copyright © 2002 Kinoma Inc. All rights reserved. www.kinoma.com. 3 Kinoma is a trademark of Kinoma Inc. Sony, CLIÉ, and Memory Stick are registered trademarks of Sony Inc. Handspring and Springboard are registered trademarks of Handspring Inc, HotSync and Palm OS are registered trademarks, and the HotSync logo and Palm are trademarks, of Palm Inc. or its subsidiaries. Yamaha is a registered trademark of Yamaha Inc. Cinepak is a registered trademark of Autodesk, Inc. Media Excel SoftStream for Discreet Version 1.0 Copyright © 2002 Media Excel, Inc. All rights reserved. www.mediaexcel.com. Media Excel, SoftStream, and the Media Excel logos are trademarks of Media Excel, Inc. GOVERNMENT USE Use, duplication, or disclosure by the U.S. Government is subject to restrictions as set forth in FAR 12.212 (Commercial Computer Software-Restricted Rights) and DFAR 227.7202 (Rights in Technical Data and Computer Software), as applicable. 4 toc Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Skipping files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Selecting Destinations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 What’s New in cleaner 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Mac OS system requirements . . . . . . . . . . 11 Mac OS Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Activating cleaner 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Registration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Streaming Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Typical Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2 Capture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Capturing Video. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Digital Video Capture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Analog Capture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Choosing a Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Shooting Video for Streaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Shooting Techniques. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 3 Batches. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 The Batch Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Project Modification Icons. . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Batch Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Adding Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Importing from Audio CDs . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Connecting files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Adding Numbered Stills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Replacing a File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Removing Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Assigning Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 File Naming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Processing Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 4 The Default Destination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Custom Destinations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Customizing Output File Names. . . . . . . . Processing a Batch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 33 35 36 Pausing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Changing and Restarting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Clearing Project Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Getting Project Status Details . . . . . . . . . . The Batch Log. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 36 37 37 38 38 38 Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 The Project Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 The Movie Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 The Source File Tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 The Data rate graph. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 The Settings, Modifiers, and EventStream Tabs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Cropping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Manual Cropping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Numeric Cropping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preventing distortion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trimming Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 47 47 49 Manually Setting In/Out Points . . . . . . . . Numerically Setting In/Out Points . . . . . . The cleaner Time System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Go to Frame/Go to Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 50 50 50 6 Enhanced Movie Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 5 Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Using Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Choosing a Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Organizing Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Creating a New Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Modifying Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Assigning a Setting to a Project . . . . . . . . . 60 Assigning a Setting to Multiple Projects. . 60 Assigning Multiple Settings to Multiple Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Settings Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Previewing Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Sharing Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Using Aliases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Protecting Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Automating Setting Creation. . . . . . . . . . . 64 6 Pre-processing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 The Image Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Cropping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Image Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Aspect Correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Deinterlacing Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Shift Fields. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Telecine for NTSC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Blur. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Sharpen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Adaptive Noise Reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Static Mask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Watermarking Video and Images . . . . . . . 73 The Adjust Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Gamma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Brightness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Boosting Contrast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Black Restore and White Restore . . . . . . . 76 Hue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Saturation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 QuickTime Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 The Audio Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Using Audio Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 7 Low Pass Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . High Pass Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Noise Removal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dynamic Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Noise Gate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notch Filter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reverb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Experimenting with Audio Filters. . . . . . . Begin/End Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 82 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 Video Fade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Audio Fade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Out Point. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 88 88 88 Formats. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 QuickTime. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Preparing QuickTime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . QuickTime Scalability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Required Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . QuickTime Version Compatibility. . . . . . QuickTime Codecs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Audio-only movies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . QuickTime movie suffix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . QuickTime Streaming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alternates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 92 93 93 95 96 97 97 99 Creating Alternates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Organizing Alternates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Alternate Movie Fallbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Single version fallback. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 Putting QuickTime online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Creating QuickTime Embed Tags. . . . . . 115 QuickTime MIME types. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Special QuickTime Options. . . . . . . . . . . 118 RealSystem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 RealSystem Scalability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 RealVideo 8. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 Creating RealSystem Files . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 Choosing RealSystem Codecs . . . . . . . . . 125 Making SureStreams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Viewing RealSystem Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Putting RealSystem Files on a RealServer127 Creating RealSystem HTML . . . . . . . . . . 128 7 AIFF and WAV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 BMP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 FLC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Kinoma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Hinted Movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 MPEG Audio Layer-3 (MP3). . . . . . . . . . 167 uLaw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 DV Stream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 QuickTime Media Link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 Image Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 MPEG-4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 System 7 Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 Tracks Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Placing RealSystem SureStream Files on a Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Adding downloadable RealSystem Files to a Web Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Controlling RealSystem Content. . . . . . . 129 Windows Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Windows Media formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Windows Media codecs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 Creating Windows Media files. . . . . . . . . 132 Downloadable Windows Media Files . . . 132 Uploading to a Windows Media Server . 133 Adding Downloadable Files to a Web Page. 134 MPEG. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Flatten Only Option (Quicktime) . . . . . . 173 Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Copy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 Preload. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 Omitting Tracks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 Specifying Unusual Quicktime Tracks. . 174 Encode Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 MPEG Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 MPEG Aspect Ratios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Group of Pictures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 MPEG Licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 MP3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Creating MP3 Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Choosing Encoding Parameters . . . . . . . 139 MP3 and QuickTime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Copyright Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 MP3 Licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 DV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Codec. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Bit Depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Quality Sliders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Frame Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Choosing the Data Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Frame Rate and Frame Size . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Processing Still Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 Audio Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Working with DV Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Creating DV Streams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Video for Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 Required Components for AVI . . . . . . . . 144 Creating AVI Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 8 QuickTime Audio Codecs . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Begin/End Tab Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 High Quality First/Last Frames . . . . . . . . 190 End Frame URL Link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Metadata Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Output Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 The Format menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 QuickTime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 RealSystem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Windows Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 MPEG 1 & 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 AVI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 JPEG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 PNG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 PICT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 QuickTime Image (QTIF) . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 Adding Metadata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Summary Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Preview Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Dynamic Preview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 The Output Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 9 Eventstream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 EventStream Authoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 Adding EventStreams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 8 Adding Markers in Real Time . . . . . . . . . 203 Saving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 Exporting/Importing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 Supported Events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Playback Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Processing Events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 10 Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Setting Streaming Server Paths . . . . . . . . . . . 216 QuickTime Streaming Server Preferences . . 216 RealServer Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Windows Media Server Preferences . . . . 218 StreamPublisher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 Specifying the Destination for Streaming Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 11 Workflow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 Preproduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 Watch Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 Contextual Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Improving Processing Speed . . . . . . . . . . 224 Helpers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Interface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 QT Alternates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 Server Paths. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 12 Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Common Problems and Solutions. . . . . . . . . 231 Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Hardware codecs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Image quality problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 Older machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 Progressive-streaming movies . . . . . . . . . 232 Realtime-streaming movies . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Technical Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 Before you contact us: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 13 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Introduction Welcome to Discreet® cleaner™ 6 for Apple® Macintosh®, the world-wide standard for professional video encoding. This User Guide provides all the information you need to process, author and encode video and audio for Web, CD and DVD delivery. cleaner 6 is designed to integrate seamlessly into your video editing and multimedia production workflow, speeding up your encoding process while outputting the highest quality content in all popular delivery formats. What’s New in cleaner 6 QuickTime 6 exporter — Using QuickTime 6 you can encode ISO-compliant MPEG-4 audio and video files. The MPEG-4 video codec enables you to get high quality output with relatively short encoding times. QuickTime 6 also enables you to encode audio using the efficient, high quality AAC audio codec. MPEG 1 and 2 exporter — Our new high-performance MPEG exporter enables cleaner 6 to output high quality MPEG content for VCD and DVD delivery. We have included professional presets to help get you started and advanced settings controls for fine tuning. Kinoma exporter — The Kinoma Exporter for Discreet allows cleaner 6 to convert digital audio and video into the Kinoma movie format for play back on any Palm handheld. The Kinoma Exporter also provides control over the presentation of the video including background image, background color, and layout of the elements. All new Settings — All of the Settings presets in cleaner 6 have been updated to provide improved output quality and encoding efficiency. Plus, there are lots of new presets for QuickTime 6 and MPEG. Sorenson B-frame audio synch fix — cleaner 6 now lets you automatically adjust for the audio offset resulting from using B-frames with Sorenson Video 3. 10 Increased performance — cleaner 6 is faster than ever, due to rewritten filters, G4 Velocity Engine optimizations and increased utilization of multiple processors. Watch folders — These are folders on your desktop or network that cleaner 6 "watches" for media to be added. When you drop media into a watch folder, it is processed by cleaner 6 using the setting assigned to the folder. Improved Settings management — You can drag and drop folders and settings within the Settings window and between the Settings window and the Finder. Batch window enhancements — The Batch window can be resized, columns can be resized and rearranged. OS X native user interface — cleaner 6 has been written to take advantage of OS X user interface technologies, featuring an Aqua look and feel and tabbed window implementation. Installation Installation Mac OS system requirements • Apple Macintosh computer with a PowerPC processor (Single or dual processor supported). • Mac OS 9.1 or later. • QuickTime 4.1.2 or later (QuickTime 6 included on CD-ROM). • 32 MB of available application RAM with 2 MB available for System. Monitor capable of displaying at least 1024x768 pixels in millions of colors (24-bit) recommended. • CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive. • 10 MB of hard drive space for application. Mac OS Installation 1. Insert the cleaner 6 CD-ROM into the drive. 2. Double-click the Install cleaner 6 icon. 3. The Software License Agreement appears. 4. Read the agreement and click Accept to continue. The install cleaner 6 screen appears. 5. Accept the default Destination Directory location or browse to another location and click Install. The Installing screen appears. The Finish screen appears. 6. Click Quit if installing in OS X, click Restart if installing in OS9. 11 12 Activating cleaner 6 The first time you launch cleaner 6, it asks for your activation key, name and company. The activation key is located on a sticker attached to the back of the cover of the User Guide. Enter your information and click OK. If you are upgrading from a previous version, the previous Activation key window appears. Enter your cleaner 4 or 5 activation key and click OK. Registration Please register your product online at http://www.autodesk.com/registration. Alternatively, you may register your product by contacting Discreet through Autodesk, Inc. worldwide: United States, Canada and Latin America: phone: 1.800.551.1490 or 1.415.507.4690 fax: 1.800.225.6490 or 1.415.507.4937 Europe, Middle-East, Africa e-mail: [email protected] fax: +41.32.723.9169 Asia Pacific: fax: +65.6735.4857 Streaming Basics Streaming Basics There are two common approaches to streaming today: Progressive streaming and realtime streaming. Media files that are served from a Web (HTTP) server are progressively streamed. Realtime streaming files are delivered using a streaming media server. cleaner also creates files that must be downloaded entirely to the hard drive before they can be played. Downloadable files are common practice for MP3 and MPEG files, but can also be used for other file types. Progressive streaming Progressive streaming, also known as progressive download, refers to online media that users can watch as the files are downloaded. The user can see the part of the file that has downloaded at a given time, but can’t jump ahead to portions that haven’t been transferred yet. Progressive streaming files don’t adjust during transmission to match the bandwidth of the user’s connection like a realtime streaming format. Progressive streaming is often called HTTP streaming because standard HTTP servers can deliver files in this fashion and no special protocols are needed. QuickTime’s fast start feature is an example of a progressive streaming technology. Progressive streaming delivery is well suited to short movies that you want to be viewed at high quality, such as movie trailers and product advertisements. This method guarantees the quality of the final movie because the viewed portion of the file is downloaded before it is played. This means users will experience a delay before the movie starts, especially with slower connections. Progressive streaming is especially useful for modem delivery of short pieces because it lets you create a movie with a higher data rate than a modem could stream in realtime. Although doing this causes the viewer some delay, it also allows you to present a much higher-quality movie. Progressive streaming is not a good solution for long movies or material the user may want to randomly access, such as lectures, speeches or presentations. Realtime Streaming Realtime streaming refers to technologies that keep the bandwidth of the media signal matched to that of the viewer’s connection so that the media is always seen in realtime. The word realtime differentiates this type of streaming from HTTP streaming delivery. Dedicated streaming media servers and streaming protocols are required to use realtime streaming. RealSystem, Windows Media and QuickTime all offer realtime streaming capabilities. 13 14 Realtime streaming also supports random access of material, so the user can fast forward to other parts of the movie, which may be useful for presentations and lectures. In theory, realtime streaming movies should never pause once they start playing, but in reality, periodic pauses may occur. Realtime streaming movies must match the bandwidth of the viewer’s connection, which means the image quality is generally poor at modem speeds. Also, information that is lost in the network due to errors is often ignored, so the video quality will suffer if the network is congested or having problems. Realtime streaming media requires special servers, such as a QuickTime Streaming Server, a RealServer or a Windows Media Server. These servers give you a greater level of control over media delivery but can be more complicated to set up and administer than a standard HTTP server. Also, realtime streaming uses special network protocols, such as RTSP (Realtime Streaming Protocol) or MMS (Microsoft Media Server). Standard vs. streaming servers A standard Web (HTTP) server is designed to send text and graphics as quickly and in the largest data packets as possible. However, this is not the best method for streaming audio and video. Streaming media servers are designed to deliver smaller data packets just before they are rendered and seen. Streaming servers allow a movie to be watched as it is downloading, eliminating the long wait for a complete download. Dedicated streaming media servers and streaming protocols, such as Realtime Streaming Protocol (RTSP) and Microsoft Media Server (MMS), are required to enable realtime streaming. Bandwidth Scalability Bandwidth scalability refers to the ability of the streaming video server to adapt to fluctuating network conditions. Since viewers use many different ways of connecting to the Internet, the streaming server can deliver the source video at several rates for optimum streaming. This allows users with slower 56K modems or fast T1 connections to view the Webcast at a size and data rate that is appropriate for their connection. If the Internet connection slows down, the server can also deliver a slower data rate stream until the transfer speed returns to normal. The streaming server and the player communicate constantly to determine which data stream to use and switch streams as needed. Buffering Buffering is a technique used by media players to ensure that the movie plays smoothly. It does this by saving a specified amount of movie data in the player’s internal memory, which allows for smooth playback even when the network gets congested. Streaming Basics For example, a typical buffer stores about 10 seconds in its memory before the stream starts playing. When you watch streaming movies on the Internet, you will typically see a “Buffering” message displayed by the player, and you must wait until buffering is complete before you can see the movie. If network congestion causes incomplete buffering, the player rebuffers the file and begins playing as soon as it can store 10 seconds. Streaming architectures QuickTime QuickTime scalability is accomplished through the use of alternates. You can create alternate versions for various connection speeds and other criteria. You can intermix real-time streaming and progressive-streaming alternates within the same alternate group to provide the optimal experience for a range of viewers. Often, it works well to make alternates for modems as progressive-streaming movies and the higher-bandwidth alternates (ISDN and above) for realtime streaming. RealSystem RealSystem offers scalability through its SureStream feature. With cleaner, you can create up to six different audio and video tracks that are encoded for the most common user connections. In addition to SureStream, RealPlayer can drop frames and/or degrade the image quality to maintain realtime playback over slower connections. Windows Media Using a Windows Media Server, Windows Media’s Intelligent Streaming has bandwidth scalability to support up to five alternate video streams and one audio stream. Using cleaner, you can create a single file that contains up to three video tracks covering a range of connection speeds. Windows Media supports one audio stream, so the audio quality will be the same for all versions of the file. The Windows Media Player can also drop frames to maintain realtime playback over slower connections. 15 16 Typical Workflow • Capture Capturing involves transferring video from your camera onto your computer’s hard drive. If the source video is in the DV format, you can use the iMovie software included with your computer. Since cleaner also reads a wide variety of video and audio formats, you can also use it to process previously captured material in the AVI, MPEG and QuickTime formats. • Edit Use your preferred non-linear editor to create your video master. • Organize into Projects — A project is comprised of a source file and all the processing details associated with it. Each row in the Batch window represents a project. Batches — A batch is a group of projects. cleaner makes processing many projects easy — you can drag and drop hundreds of source files directly onto the Batch window and quickly assign settings, destinations and other processing options. Settings — cleaner lets you save the encoding and general processing parameters you apply to a file as a group, called a setting. This makes it easy to assign these parameters to other files you want to process in the same fashion. cleaner comes with a wide variety of factory settings to help you get started right out of the box. • Pre-process Use cleaner video and audio filters and adjustments, such as Adaptive Noise Reduction, Gamma and Dynamic Range to optimize the movie for encoding. • Add events All the major streaming formats offer some level of interactivity or special features. cleaner’s EventStream authoring allows you to access these features to create stream navigation, synchronize HTML to streaming media, embed links and interactive hot spots, and add text tracks for inclusion in the streams. • Encode Set the major encoding parameters, such as data rate, frame rate (fps), keyframe frequency and image size. • Publish cleaner’s StreamPublisher feature lets you upload the files directly to a remote streaming server or save them in a local folder on your hard drive after the file is encoded. Capture Capturing Video To work with video on a computer, you must first get it onto the hard drive. This is called “capturing” the video and is the first step in the cleaner workflow. If the source material was shot with a DV camera, simply transfer the video to the computer via the camera’s IEEE 1394 port, also called FireWire or i.Link, using iMovie, which is included with the Macintosh operating system. This results in very high-quality source video because there is no analog-to-digital conversion when capturing DV to the computer. Note: Many computers have built-in IEEE 1394 (FireWire or i.Link) ports. However, if your computer does not have an IEEE 1394 port, you can purchase a IEEE 1394 card to add this capability to your system. If the source material was not shot on DV, you have two options. You can use a converter to translate an analog signal to a digital signal and then capture it via iMovie. Or you can capture the analog video with a video capture card or a system that can handle analog signals. IEEE 1394 iMovie DV Camera or Deck A/D converter Analog Camera or Deck Hard Drive Capture Hardware cleaner 6 18 Chapter 2: Capture Digital Video Capture The MiniDV and DVCAM (DV25 format) are popular high-quality digital formats that integrate well with computers. With QuickTime 6, the DVCPro format is now supported. The Macintosh operating system includes iMovie which allows you to easily capture DV movies. The DV format offers higher image quality and resolution than Hi8, S-VHS and VHS. It is a digital format, so DV does not suffer from generation loss — a copy of a DV tape is identical to the original. DV equipment is reasonably priced for its level of quality. These attributes have made DV the new format of choice for many Web and video professionals. Some DV cameras offer a progressive scan feature. This records each frame as a single noninterlaced image instead of two separate interlaced fields. Progressive scan source material may not play as smoothly on a television monitor as interlaced material, but it is superior for streaming because it contains no interlacing artifacts. You should look for this feature when buying a DV camera and use it when creating streaming content. There are a wide range of DV cameras available. Lower-priced cameras generally have smaller optics and fewer features. Higher-quality DV cameras have usually have higher-quality optics, image stabilization and many other features to deliver superior image quality. Analog Capture Analog consumer formats (Hi8, S-VHS, and VHS) produce noisier signals and lower-resolution video than DV and the professional formats. Hi8 and S-VHS are superior to VHS. You need either an analog-to-DV converter or an analog-compatible video capture system to work with them on the computer. If you are using an analog video system, you can do several things to improve the quality of the captured video. To get the highest-quality results, capture analog video at full-screen resolution — 640x480 (NTSC) or 720x486 (DV) — depending on the native resolution of the source. Even if you intend to deliver smaller final movies, a full-screen capture generally gives better results for a number of reasons. For example, capturing at full screen and scaling down the image tends to reduce video noise and results in a smoother-looking image, which encodes better. Full-screen capture is required to use cleaner de interlacing features. If the original source was shot on film and transferred to video tape, capturing at full-screen resolution and full frame rate is required to use Intelecine, which removes 3:2 pulldown frames and returns the material to its original 24 fps. Capturing Video Most captured video has black edges around the perimeter. This is called overscan or edge blanking. To deliver professional results, you must remove these edges. Starting from a larger image allows you to crop and then scale the image down. If you only capture at the final size that you wish to deliver the video, removing edge noise requires you to crop and then scale up the video, which degrades image quality. Finally, if you capture and edit the material at full-screen resolution and archive the source, you can later repurpose the content for future codecs, architectures, and larger delivery sizes without having to recapture and re-edit the project. Capture with a High-Quality Setting Many capture systems have an adjustable quality setting. This controls how much hardware compression is used on the video during capture. Higher-quality settings produce larger files with superior image quality by applying less compression. However, if you exceed the data rate the system can handle by choosing too high a quality setting, the capture card drops frames. Capture at the maximum quality the system can properly handle (normally at least 3 MBytes/ sec). If you cannot capture at a very high-quality setting, seriously consider buying a faster drive or a RAID. To find out the best way to capture full-screen material at a high-quality setting, contact the capture card vendor. Capture from Master Tapes To maintain the absolute highest-quality video signal, capture directly from the master tapes, not copies of the originals. Do not assemble a “rough cut” of the project on a new tape and then digitize it. Because these clips are second generation, they have more noise than the original masters. Note: This advice only applies to analog formats. Because DV is digital, it does not suffer generation loss in this fashion. Also avoid excessive “scrubbing” (fast forwarding and rewinding) through the master tapes. Playing tapes many times can degrade their quality, so you should only view the material a few times prior to capturing it. If you need to view the material several times, make a duplicate and view the dub instead of the master. This is particularly important with Hi8, which is a relatively fragile tape format and can be damaged by excessive scrubbing. Audio Capture Settings As with the video, you should capture the audio at the highest possible quality. This is generally 44-kHz, 16-bit, stereo. Capture in 16-bit audio depth if possible because 16-bit source material generally gives you more options and higher final quality, even if the final movie is to be delivered with 8-bit audio. 19 20 Chapter 2: Capture Make sure to test the capture system before capturing clips. Audio levels are often different between capture and playback, so you should monitor and test the results before capturing the whole project. Capture the audio through the video capture card, if possible. The built-in sound hardware in most computers may introduce line noise and is often of lower quality than dedicated capture hardware. Dropped frames The biggest problem while capturing video is missing or “dropped” frames. The most common cause of dropped frames is trying to capture the video at a higher data rate than the hard drive can support. As it falls behind, the capture starts to lose frames. Dropped frames often appear sporadically in the captured video, causing the video to randomly stutter or jerk. Be sure to configure the capture system to warn you of dropped frames and to stop capturing if you get errors. To avoid dropped frames, you may need to defragment the hard drive, buy a faster hard drive or lower the quality (and hence data rate) of the capture. Choosing a Camera A common misconception is that because the final movie ends up small on the computer screen, a cheap camera does not make a difference — this is absolutely wrong. Video noise substantially degrades encoding, so a clean video signal produced by a high-quality camera encodes much better than a noisy signal produced by a low-quality camera. Also, the resolution and sharpness of the camera has a significant effect on the final stream quality. For more information, see the following overview of four common camera classes used to create streaming video. Video-Conferencing Cameras These types of cameras are designed to be connected directly to the computer. They usually do not have any mechanism for storing the video within the camera, so they are not portable. They are often sold with video-conferencing systems and are usually connected via a serial or USB cable. Generally, these cameras produce lower-quality video than the other types of cameras outlined here, so, use a better camera for higher-quality streams. Professional Formats These professional formats (Betacam, D1, studio/broadcast equipment) generally produce the highest-quality results and often work with bluescreen better than the other types of cameras. However, professional formats are expensive — unless you are a professional videographer, you’ll probably have to rent this equipment. Shooting Video for Streaming Shooting Video for Streaming Carefully shooting and editing video for streaming can substantially improve the final quality of the video. The general tips that follow are aimed at creating video that encodes and streams well. For details on choosing encoding parameters and using video and audio processing to improve encoding, see “Encoding” on page 145 and “Pre-processing” on page 65. The overall goal in producing video that encodes well is to create the highest-quality video signal with the least amount of noise, camera movement and fine detail. This helps the source encode as efficiently as possible and look good at smaller image sizes. In order to create a good video source, you should use a high-quality camera, light the subjects well, and stabilize the camera with a tripod when possible. When editing material for streaming, you can improve encoding by avoiding certain types of transitions and keeping scene changes to a minimum. For the best results, shoot tests of the source material and run it through the entire production process before you shoot the whole project. It is important to view the final results on the desktop as they will appear in the final project. Your image may look great when filmed and edited, but might look less optimal after resizing and encoding. Early and thorough testing can help spare you painful and expensive reshoots. Shooting Techniques Just as the camera makes a difference to the quality of the final stream, so does the way in which you shoot the source material. Below are some of the more important things you can do to produce higher-quality material. Reduce Movement Using a tripod makes a dramatic impact in the quality of the final movie. Tripods keep the camera steady, which reduces the differences between frames and therefore improves the compression of the video. Be sure to use a sufficiently heavy tripod for the camera. If you plan to pan the camera during filming, use a high-quality fluid-head tripod and keep the pan smooth and slow. Irregular or jerky camera motion is hard to encode. Avoid zooms whenever possible — these are hard to encode because they introduce a high level of change over the entire image. Avoid hand-held shooting if possible. If you need to film a hand-held shot, a motion stabilizer, such as a Steadicam® or gyro, can improve the results. If the camera has an image-stabilization option (either optical or electronic), you should generally use this feature to reduce subtle changes between frames from camera motion. 21 22 Chapter 2: Capture Keep Detail to a Minimum Keeping the detail within the scene to a minimum helps the individual frames of video compress more easily, giving you better results than video with lots of detail. It also makes the video easier to see when the movie is reduced in size for desktop delivery. If you are shooting an interview, keep the background simple — plain backdrops are often a good choice. If you have the experience and equipment, bluescreen or greenscreen can work very well for interviews. It is fairly common to film people indoors in front of windows. If there is a lot of detail or movement outside, you can throw the background significantly out of focus, which makes the file easier to encode. Trees are often used as backdrops for interviews filmed outside. The excessive detail of the leaves poses a challenge for encoding and should be avoided if possible. If you must film against a background that uses trees, use a shallow depth of field to blur the leaves and improve the final movie. Beware of trees moving in a breeze — the high detail and subtle changes between frames make both temporal and spatial compression very difficult. Ask the subjects to wear clothes that do not have high-contrast patterns or lots of detail. Plain colors are best — bold stripes or checked patterns can do very odd things when resized and encoded. Proper Lighting Generally speaking, video that is well lit encodes better than under- or over-exposed material. Most codecs work best with moderate-contrast material, and many codecs do not work well with dark scenes. Adequate lighting is critical to producing superior streaming movies because low-light conditions also produce excessively noisy video signals that lack details in the shadows. Overexposure is usually less of a problem but should also be avoided. You should not shoot video that you know is incorrectly exposed and plan to fix it in postprocessing. Missing detail and excessive noise can never be fully corrected after the fact. Properly lighting the scene is the only way to ensure the highest-quality results. Blue Screen and Green Screen Properly executed blue screen or green screen can significantly improve the quality of streaming movies. For example, if you use a bluescreen to composite an actor in front of a digital still, the background image is perfectly steady and noise-free. The lack of video noise and movement in the background improves both temporal and spatial compression of the movie, which produces higher-quality results. Shooting Video for Streaming However, blue screen and green screen work is technically challenging and should not be attempted unless you have the experience and equipment to do it correctly. Simply shooting an actor in front of a blue backdrop generally does not work. There are very specific ways you must design the set and lighting to ensure good results. Proper testing is critical, and poorly shot material cannot usually be fixed in post-processing. Using a professional camera is required for good results. Streaming Audio Audio production values are often overlooked when creating streaming media, but are critical to achieving professional results. As with video, the goal is to produce as high-quality and noise-free an audio signal as possible. You should use high-quality audio equipment and remote microphones whenever possible to reduce camera noise. You should also try to minimize any unnecessary noise in the audio signal such as wind or street sounds (for example, cars or construction). Shotgun mics may be useful for minimizing background noise, and lavalier mics often work well for interviews. Use AIFF or WAV with high quality settings for mastering the audio. If you are recording a voice-over in a studio, use professional equipment. The microphones that come with computers cannot match the quality of a professional-grade microphone. If you are recording directly into a computer, beware of hard drive noise. This is often hard to hear when recording, but increases noise in the final audio signal. On many systems, the built-in sound hardware also introduces noise, so it is usually better to record directly through the capture card. Editing for Streaming To improve the encoding, you should avoid elaborate transitions. Hard cuts and simple wipes are usually the easiest transitions to encode because they introduce the least amount of sustained change. Fades are difficult to encode well, but are often unavoidable — in that case, make fades as short as possible. Complex transitions, such as page curls, pinwheel wipes and paint spatters are more difficult to encode and often look pixelated in the final encoded movie. Frequent cuts between scenes make encoding more difficult, which is why many music videos do not compress well. If possible, try to keep the number of cuts in the piece to a minimum. Effects that add lots of minute and/or random detail to an image, such as film noise and explosions, are especially difficult to encode and should be avoided if possible. Of course, you often have no control over how an existing video has been edited, so these guidelines are frequently hard to follow. When difficult transitions are inevitable, using variable bitrate encoding can often help improve the final quality by giving the transition a temporarily higher bitrate. 23 24 Chapter 2: Capture Batches The Batch Window You can add files to the batch by choosing Batch > Add Files... or drag and drop source files directly onto the Batch window and then quickly assign settings and destinations. The list in the Batch window is called a batch and can be saved for future use. Each row is a separate project. The columns show information relating to each project. Use the Batch window to manage projects and the settings assigned to them, to monitor status, and to start or stop encoding. 26 Chapter 3: Batches Batch window columns include: •Project — Displays the source file name and a thumbnail of the file, as well as icons to indicate if cropping, In/Out points, Settings Modifiers & Metadata and EventStream authoring have been set in the Project window. Double-clicking on the source file’s name in this column opens the Project window and allows you to edit the options indicated by the icons in this column. •Setting — Displays the name of the setting assigned to the project. Double-clicking on this column opens the Settings window. •Destination — Displays the location where the encoded file will be placed. Use Batch > Set Default Destination to choose the default location for all items in the batch. Double-clicking the project column opens the Destinations dialog box and lets you specify a unique destination (either local or remote) for the file. You can also set a unique name for the file with this dialog. •Priority — Clicking on this column displays a pop-up menu that allows you to choose a priority number between 1 and 10. Use this feature to sort projects so that lower-numbered files are processed before those with higher numbers. Also, clicking the Priority title bar reorders the batch in numerical order. •Status — Displays the processing status of the projects in the batch, such as Done, Ready and Error. It also shows the uploading status if you have specified a remote destination for the file. Double-clicking on this column displays additional information about the status, such as the error dialog text if a problem was encountered during processing. Click and drag the bottom right corner to re-size the Batch window. Click and drag column names to re-order them. Click and drag the column name dividers to resize the columns. Click and drag to re-order Click and drag to re-size The Batch Window The Batch window has three processing buttons at the bottom right: Pause Start Stop •Start — click the triangular button in the middle to start encoding the projects in the batch. •Stop — click the square button on the right side to halt encoding. •Pause — click the double-rectangle button on the left side to temporarily pause encoding. The Batch window displays instructions in the panel at the bottom left. Review this information as you use cleaner. Project Modification Icons Project modification icons appear under the project name in the Batch window. There are four icons: crop — A crop was applied to the project. i/o — Custom in/out points were set for the project. evs — EventStreams were authored for the project. mod — The project’s base setting was modified using Settings Modifiers. 27 28 Chapter 3: Batches Batch Files The first time you open cleaner, the Batch window is empty. When you drag files onto this window, you create a batch. To save time, whenever you launch cleaner, the last batch you were using automatically opens. By default, the current list of Projects is saved in an Untitled Batch file that is automatically created in the cleaner Folder. You can also manually save a batch by choosing File > Save Batch As. When you save a batch, you are prompted for a name and location. You can open a previously saved batch at any time by choosing File > Open or pressing aO. Opening a new batch replaces the current one. To return to the current batch, you must save it prior to opening a new batch. To process new files, you can delete the old files from the current batch or create a new, empty batch. To create a new batch, choose File > New. Adding Files To add files to a batch: Perform one of the following: •Drag files onto the Batch window •Double click on an empty area in the Batch window. •Choose Batch > Add Files. •Control-click the Batch window, choose Add Files to Batch... in the contextual menu, and select the files you want to add. •You can use Watch Folders to automate batch processing. See “Watch Folders” on page 222. You can add QuickTime, AVI, MPEG, and DV source media files. To add many files at once to a batch: •Drag and drop folders or volumes onto the Batch window. cleaner searches up to six levels of folders deep and adds all files it finds to the batch. Note: cleaner adds all the files it finds to the batch, not just movies. To remove unwanted files, select them in the Batch window and delete them. The Batch Window Importing from Audio CDs To import a track from an audio CD: • Drag tracks from the CD onto the Batch window. You can also drag the entire CD onto the Batch window to import all of the tracks at once. Note: Delete the .TOC contents file before processing. Connecting files Some capture systems produce both a video file (usually AVI or MPG) and a separate audio file (usually WAV or AIFF). cleaner can automatically reconnect these two different files so that they can be processed into a single streaming movie. Both the files must have the same name, end with the correct suffix and reside in the same folder. Drag the video file onto the Batch window and cleaner automatically finds the audio file and links them into one listing in the batch. Note: You can also use an alias that points to the audio file in another folder to connect it to the video file. The alias must have exactly the same name as the actual audio file. For example, the movie file tennis.mpg and sound file tennis.wav reside in the same folder. If you drag tennis.mpg onto the Batch window, cleaner automatically adds tennis.wav and combines them into one project listing in the Batch window. You can now apply any settings to the file and process it as a single movie file. To process these files separately, uncheck Enable multifile sources in the Preferences dialog box or add the source files to the Batch window from different folders. Adding Numbered Stills You can process sequentially numbered still images as if they were a movie. Use this feature for 3-D and effects programs that output serialized stills instead of movies. For details, see “Making Movies Out of Still Images” on page 188. Replacing a File If you are working with only one file at a time in the Batch window, it is often convenient to replace the current file with a new file instead of adding the new file to the batch. To replace the current file with a new one: 1. Hold down the a key. 2. Drag the new file onto the Batch window. 29 30 Chapter 3: Batches Removing Files To remove files from a batch: Select the file(s) in the Batch window. 1. Choose Batch > Remove Selected Projects or press the Delete key. The question “Remove this item from the list?” appears. 2. Click Yes. To remove all the items in a batch: 1. Choose Edit > Select All or press aA. The question “Remove all (n) items from the list?” appears. 2. Click Yes. To create a new, empty batch: 1. Choose File > New. Assigning Settings Settings are groups of processing and encoding parameters that are used to encode the source file. It is very easy to customize settings and use them again and again. You can assign these settings to project files in the Project window, or as a shortcut, you can directly assign them in the Batch window using contextual menus. For more on Settings see “Settings” on page 53. To assign a setting to a file: 1. In the Batch window, double-click the project setting or press aT. The Settings window appears. You can also Control-click on the Project row to open the Settings window or apply a Setting using the contextual menu. 2. Use the settings window to select the setting(s) to assign to the source file. 3. Click Apply to close the Settings window and return to the Batch window. The selected setting appears next to the file. You can assign a setting to several projects at once. Use this feature if you have many files to encode that use the same parameters. To specify the same setting for multiple projects: 1. Highlight more than one project in the batch. 2. Double-click the Setting column next to any of the highlighted projects or choose Batch > Specify Setting. The Batch Window 3. Use the settings window to choose the setting to assign to the projects. 4. Click Apply. This closes the settings window and returns you to the Batch window. The selected setting appears next to all the highlighted files. You can automate the process using a Watch Folder. See “Watch Folders” on page 222. You can also assign multiple settings to one or more files, which is helpful for creating multiple versions of the movie. For more information, see “Assigning Multiple Settings to Multiple Projects” on page 61. File Naming When you process a single project at a time, you are prompted for the name and destination of the final output file before it begins encoding. This gives you flexibility when working with a small number of files. However, naming each file individually is inefficient for large batches, so cleaner automatically names multiple files depending on your settings and preferences. This makes it easy to process multiple files without having to name each one individually. If you prefer, you can use the Destinations dialog to manually define unique names and locations for files in the batch. See “Custom Destinations” on page 33 for more details. When working with more than one file, cleaner will not overwrite any existing files as it puts your final processed files in the destination. If a new file has the same name as an existing file in the destination, cleaner creates a unique file name for the new file by placing a three-digit number before the suffix. The number starts at 001 and increases in increments of one until a unique file name is found. For example, if you have a movie named Presentation in the Batch window three times and you are creating QuickTime movies (.mov files), cleaner produces the following three movies in the destination folder: •Presentation.mov •Presentation001.mov •Presentation002.mov cleaner cannot encode more than 99 files with the same name at the same time. If you have a batch that contains 100 or more files with the same name, you should check the Append setting to file name option in the Preferences dialog to ensure that the files have different names. If you try to encode more than 99 files with the same name at the same time, cleaner stops encoding when it reaches the 100th file. 31 32 Chapter 3: Batches If you are encoding the same file multiple times with different settings, check the Append setting to file name option in the Preferences to avoid a naming conflict. This adds the setting you used on the file to the end of the file name, which helps you identify what version was created with what setting. Note: cleaner truncates file names to 31 characters if necessary. You can also specify custom names for files in the batch using the Destinations dialog. To do this, double-click the project Destination column in the Batch window and type the desired name at the bottom of the Destinations dialog. Processing Order It is often helpful to control the order in which files in the batch are processed. For example, if you have a very long file and a few shorter files, you might want to see the results of the shorter files before waiting for the long file to finish. You can sort the batch to make this easy. When processing files, cleaner always starts at the top of a batch and works its way down. Therefore, placing files at the top of the batch causes them to be processed before files lower in the batch. For details about processing order with Watch Folders see “Watch Folders” on page 222. To sort the batch list: 1. Click a column title in the Batch window to sort the batch list by that column. For example, to sort files alphabetically by the name of the source file, click the Project title bar. 2. To sort the list by whether the file was processed or not, click the Status title bar. Double-clicking the Priority column next to a file displays a menu with a range from 1 to 10. Choose the priority to assign to that file. The lower the number you pick, the sooner the file is processed. By default, files are added with a middle setting of 5. You can sort the Destination column alphabetically by destination name. This is useful, for example, if you need to encode and upload a group of files in your batch to a folder on a server before cleaner continues processing the rest of the batch. You can click the Reverse Sort button on the right side of the column header to reverse the sorting order of the list. Sort Order Selecting Destinations Skipping files If you want to exclude an item that’s in the Batch window from being processed, select the file and choose Batch > Skip Selected Projects ( aK). This marks the file so that cleaner skips it the next time you process a batch. Selecting Destinations Before you begin processing a batch, you can specify a local default destination where your encoded files will be saved. You can also specify unique local or remote destinations for specific files in the batch using the Destinations dialog. The Default Destination The Default Destination is the location where all files are saved after encoding unless you specify a custom destination for a particular file. Being able to set one default location saves time when you are processing many files and want them all to be saved in the same folder. • To set the default destination, choose Batch > Set Default Destination... and specify a location. Note: cleaner continues to place your encoded files into the same default destination specified in a batch until you change that destination by using Batch > Set Default Destination. Even if you delete all the projects in a batch and add new ones, cleaner puts the encoded files from these new sources in the same place as the previous files until you specify a new destination. Custom Destinations In addition to setting one default location to which all files encoded in a batch are saved, you can also specify custom destinations for specific files within the batch. These custom destinations need not be local. cleaner can upload encoded files directly to your streaming server or hosting service. You can also save your favorite locations for files, which lets you easily assign these destinations to other files in the future. 33 34 Chapter 3: Batches The Destinations dialog box allows you to specify custom destinations and names for output files. This is useful if you do not want to name a file using the cleaner standard naming convention. For more details on naming, see “Customizing Output File Names” on page 35. To save one or more files to a custom destination: 1. In the Batch window, double-click on the Destination column next to the project source(s) or the files in the batch and choose Batch > Set Custom Destination. The Destination dialog box appears. 2. In the Destinations dialog box, click the radio button next to the Folder or Server option. 3. If you have already defined a location, choose it from the lists presented. 4. To add a new location, click Add. The Choose a Folder dialog appears. 5. Navigate to the new destination. 6. Click Choose. 7. Type a short descripive name for the destination. You can use the Select button to designate a different destination folder at this point, if you wish. It will be added to the list. 8. Click OK to return to the Batch window. You can also edit or remove a location with the buttons in the Destinations dialog. Selecting Destinations Customizing Output File Names You can specify a custom file name for each encoded file that you process in the Destinations dialog. The custom name appears after the file is encoded. To assign a custom file name: 1. At the bottom of the Destination dialog box, click the check box to enable the Use Custom File Name option. 2. Type a custom file name in the field. Note: If the destination directory already has a file with the same name, it will be overwritten. You can append the setting name used to each file. See “Appending Settings to File Names” on page 228. 35 36 Chapter 3: Batches Processing a Batch Pause Start Stop To start processing a batch: • Click Start in the Batch window, choose Batch > Encode or press aE. Pausing You can temporarily pause while processing a batch. If cleaner is in the middle of encoding a file, it pauses and returns control of your computer to you while allowing you to later resume encoding. This is useful if you need to use your computer for something else while processing, but do not want to permanently stop the batch. To pause processing: When paused, you can use your computer for other activities. You cannot do anything within cleaner other than resume processing. Do not quit cleaner or shut down your machine while in the pause mode. Doing so requires that you restart encoding from the beginning of the currently paused movie. Before pausing, cleaner must complete some actions during processing, such as flattening a movie. You are warned of this in the Batch window while it performs these actions and ignores requests to pause until it completes these operations. To resume processing after a pause, click the Start button to continue encoding from the point at which you paused. Stopping To stop encoding: 1. Click the Stop button, or 2. Choose Batch > Stop. You can also press a. (period). Processing a Batch Unlike the Pause button, clicking Stop cancels the encoding of the current file and ceases the processing of the other files in the batch. This is useful to quit cleaner or shut down your computer. It is also helpful to change the settings or items in a batch or if you are experiencing processing errors. Unlike Pause, when you click the Stop button, you cannot later resume the encoding of the last file processed, even if stopped midway through the file. If you click the Start button again for a batch that you stopped, cleaner processes all the remaining files in the batch that have a status of Ready. The file that was stopped is listed as Stopped in the Status column. To process it again, choose Batch > Clear Project Status ( aL) to return its status to Ready before processing the batch. See “Clearing Project Status” on page 38 for more details. Changing and Restarting You may decide to change the setting being used to encode a file after you start processing. For example, after you click Start, you might notice that you forgot to set a video filter or properly crop the movie. To change the setting of a movie that has begun processing, you must stop encoding, change the setting and restart encoding the file from the beginning. To change settings and restart processing: 1. Click Stop. This changes the status of the file to Stopped. 2. Modify the existing setting or assign a new setting to the project as desired. See “Modifying Settings” on page 60 for details on modifying settings. 3. Clear the project status by highlighting it in the Batch window and pressing aL or choosing Batch > Clear Project Status. This changes the status of the project file back to Ready. 4. Click Start. Note: Stopping encoding produces temporary files whose names are appended with •work. To prevent screen clutter, you may want to delete this file before reprocessing the batch. Status The Status column of the Batch window shows the status of each item in the batch. This allows you to easily find out what files have been processed, what files still need to be processed, and what errors (if any) occurred during processing. 37 38 Chapter 3: Batches Clearing Project Status If you restart processing on a batch after it was stopped, completed files remain in the batch list but will not be reprocessed. cleaner skips any file that has a status of Done or Flattened. To process a previously encoded file: 1. Select the file(s). 2. Choose Batch > Clear Project Status or press aL. This resets the files status to Ready. The file is encoded again the next time you process a batch. Getting Project Status Details You may want more information about a project status than the single word listed in the Status column, especially when an error occurs. For more details, double-click on the Status column next to an item to see a dialog box containing details from the batch log file on the last process completed. If the Status column reports an error, the detailed entry report provides information that may be helpful in diagnosing the problem. The Batch Log While cleaner is processing a batch, it does not show any dialogs or errors it might encounter so that it can attempt to encode all the files in the list. Information on the results of batch processing, including details on any errors that occurred during encoding, is continuously saved to the batch file itself. To view this information, you can extract it from the batch by creating a batch log file. To extract the encoding batch file: 1. Open the batch file if it is not currently open. 2. Choose Batch > Save Batch Log. 3. Select where to save the log. Note: If you process a batch multiple times, you must create a new log each time you want to see the results of the most recently processed batch. Projects Double-click on a Project in the Batch window or press aR to open the Project window for the selected Project. You can inspect and modify parameters specific to the project, and play the source file using the controller underneath the movie. If the source is larger than the space available, the window scales the preview to the largest size that will fit on screen. •Crop the movie to get rid of edge noise by clicking and dragging on the movie. See “Manual Cropping” on page 46. •Correct the aspect ratio of the source file. See “Aspect Correction” on page 42. •Trim the movie, if necessary, by setting In/Out points. See “Trimming Files” on page 49. •Assign a setting to the file by pressing the Edit button in the Setting panel. See “Using Settings” on page 54. •Apply any settings modifiers such as increasing contrast, changing frame size or changing metadata by pressing the Edit button in the Modifiers panel. See “Settings Modifiers” on page 61. •Add EventStream interactivity and actions, such as URL links, chapter lists, etc., by pressing the Edit button in the EventStream panel. See “EventStream Authoring” on page 202. 40 Chapter 4: Projects The Project Window Movie Controller Tabs Video Info Audio Info Data Rate graph Edit Destination button cleaner automatically resizes the window to a smaller size if the source video is too large to fit on your screen. The Project Window You can manually change the size at which the video or image is displayed in the Project window by dragging the lower right corner or with commands found in the Windows menu: •Half Size — Press a0 (zero) to display movies and images at half their normal size. This option is useful if you have a large movie or image and a small monitor. •Full Size — Press a1 to display movies or images at their normal size. •Double Size — Press a2 to display movies or images at double their normal size. This is helpful for accurate cropping or to see what a movie looks like if played at double size. •Fit to Window — Press a3 to display movies or images at the maximum size allowed by your monitor. The display size of the image in the Project window does not affect the final size of the image or movie. To control the size of the final image or video, use the parameters in the Image tab in the Settings window. The Movie Controller The Movie Controller shows duration and current time of the source and has standard controls for movie playback. Depending on the speed of your computer and the format of the source file, the file may not play smoothly. Even if playback is not smooth within the Project window, the final encoded file will still play properly. If a source file does not play smoothly, use the movie controller to move to any spot in the movie or step through it frame by frame. In Point Out Point Immediately underneath the movie controller is a yellow line with a green dot on the left side and a red dot on the right side. This is the In/Out indicator. It shows the portion of the source file that will be processed. To set the In Point at the current time press a[. To set the Out Point at the current time press a]. See “Trimming Files” on page 49 for more on setting In/Out points. You can move the time controller to the in point by pressing T and to the out point by pressing Y. Below the In/Out indicator the duration of the source movie and the current frame time are shown. The time format is: hours:minutes:seconds:milliseconds This differs from normal SMPTE time code, which specifies the frame, not milliseconds of the current time. See “The cleaner Time System” on page 50. 41 42 Chapter 4: Projects The Source File Tab The first tab in the Project window displays source file video information, the Display aspect ratio pull down menu, the Crop aspect ratio pull down menu, the Frame Format pull down menu and source file audio information. The name of the tab indicates the method used to read the source file. Aspect Correction Some formats, such as DV, do not have square pixels and must be corrected to look normal on a computer screen. cleaner automatically does this by default for DV and other common sources, but you can manually change the aspect correction applied to the source file by using the Display aspect ratio pop-up menu in the Project window. Changing the display aspect ratio does not alter the final file in any way, merely how it is displayed within cleaner. Manual Aspect Correction Sometimes you may want to manually set a specific aspect ratio correction to compensate for unusual source material. The Display aspect ratio pop-up menu in the Project window lets you adjust how cleaner displays the file and can help you see how the image will look when displayed on a television screen or monitor. This makes cropping easier by allowing you to accurately determine which parts of the image you want cropped. To manually control aspect ratio correction: • Choose an option from the Display aspect ratio pull-down menu. The Display aspect ratio options are: •Raw Pixels — 1:1 square pixel aspect ratio. •4:3 — Standard NTSC/PAL aspect ratio. •16:9 — Standard HDTV aspect ratio. •2.21:1 — Wide aspect ratio used for some theatrical movies. •Custom — Opens the Aspect window to manually input any aspect ratio. The Project Window When you make a selection, the Project window displays the source movie at the new ratio. Note: The raw pixels option lets you view the video in its “unmodified” state and is used in cases where the video does not fit one of the other aspect ratio choices or if the aspect ratio is unknown. When you view a previously corrected and cropped movie in the raw pixels aspect ratio, the manual cropping rectangle is automatically adjusted so that the cropping matches what you originally specified on the corrected display. Frame Format Progressive Top Field Bottom Field The Frame Format pull down menu controls how the source video will be assembled into frames for processing. Always use Progressive source material when you can. Computers and many newer cameras generate progressive scan video. Each NTSC or PAL video frame consists of alternating top and bottom fields. A television draws one field every 1/59.94 of a second for NTSC and every 1/50 of a second for PAL. Our eyes put the two alternating fields together to create 29.97 whole NTSC frames per second or 25 whole PAL frames. If you have interlaced source material, be sure to set the Frame Format to match the source. Fields are recorded sequentially and must be combined into frames in the proper order or the resulting movie will have horizontal “jitter” on moving edges. You can set the default in cleaner > Preferences > Processing. See “Source Frame Format:” on page 228. 43 44 Chapter 4: Projects The Data rate graph The data rate graph displays the data rate of the source file, the file keyframes, and manual keyframe markers. •Gray vertical bars represent delta or “difference” frames in the source movie. •Blue bars show keyframes in the source movie. •The height of the bars represents the instantaneous data rate of the frame. •The green line shows the one-second trailing average of the data rate at any given point. •Light gray horizontal lines are a reference to assist in reading the graph. All units in this graph are measured in Megabytes per second (MB/s), Kilobytes per second (KB/s) or kilobits per second (kb/s) depending on the source data rate. The output Destination is shown at the bottom of the Project window. Click the Edit button to change it. The Project Window The Settings, Modifiers, and EventStream Tabs These tabs allow you to quickly inspect and edit parameters assigned to the Project. The Settings tab shows the settings for the selected Project. Click the Edit button to go to the Settings window. See “Settings” on page 53. The Modifiers tab shows the Settings Modifiers applied to the selected Project. Click the Edit button to go to the Settings Modifiers window. See “Settings Modifiers” on page 61. 45 46 Chapter 4: Projects The EventStream tab shows the number of events assigned to the selected Project. Click the Edit button to go to the EventStream window. See “Eventstream” on page 201. Cropping Cropping allows you to specify which part of the image you want to keep in the final file and is useful for eliminating the black edges and garbled edge pixels of some captured video and for excluding areas that are not interesting. Manual Cropping You can set a unique cropping rectangle for each project in the batch using the file’s aspect ratio as a guide or by choosing from several popular ratios, such as 4:3, 16:9 and 2.21:1 in the Crop aspect ratio drop-down menu. You can also use the Custom or Unconstrained options to crop the files using any aspect ratio. Cropping To manually crop a movie 1. Choose an aspect ratio from the Crop aspect ratio menu. If you select the Custom option, you can enter your own aspect ratio in the dialog box that appears. Unconstrained lets you select an aspect ratio that is not bound by a set ratio. 2. Click and drag on the image to define the cropping rectangle. While you are cropping, the dimensions of the cropping rectangle are displayed in the information panel at the bottom of the Batch window (not the Project window). Green corner handles appear on the cropping rectangle after you draw it. Drag these handles to resize the cropping rectangle. To move the whole rectangle around the image, click inside the cropping rectangle and drag it to the new position. You can remove the cropping rectangle by clicking outside of it. Numeric Cropping Numeric cropping and scaling can be done in the Settings > Image Tab. See “Cropping” on page 66. Preventing distortion When producing movies with aspect ratios that are different from the source movie, you must crop the source to prevent distortion. If you look at the source movies of the project at their full 720x480 pixel resolution, displayed with Raw(square) pixels, they will look distorted. Objects in the 4:3 aspect ratio version will look too wide, and those in the 16:9 will look too narrow. However, when displayed at their correct aspect ratio, they both look normal. 47 48 Chapter 4: Projects For example, if the source is shot in 4:3 aspect ratio and you want to make a 16:9 version, you must crop off some of the top and bottom to make the final movie match the widescreen format. If you do not crop, the 4:3 image stretches to the 16:9 aspect ratio, and the subject becomes very wide. Similarly, if the source is shot in 16:9 aspect ratio and you want to display it at 4:3, you must crop the sides to make it appear undistorted. If you do not, the subject appears too narrow. Calculating the correct way to crop movies can be very difficult when converting from one aspect ratio to another. cleaner compensates for non-square pixels when displaying the source movie and also automatically calculates the correct manual cropping proportion so that what you see when you draw the cropping rectangle is the final, undistorted image. To prevent image distortion: 1. Verify that the video looks normal in the Project window. 2. If the video appears distorted, use the display aspect menu to correct it. 3. Choose a crop aspect ratio in the menu and draw a cropping rectangle. Note: When processing movies, cleaner always displays the final video in the Output window in square pixels. This allows you to accurately see the actual pixels of the final movie so that you can watch for compression artifacts. If the output has a non-square ratio, it looks distorted in the Output window. This is normal. Open the movie on the target playback machine to make sure that it is correctly displayed. Trimming Files Trimming Files You can specify what portion of the file to process by setting the In/Out points.The starting point is called the In point. The spot at which you want the file to end is called the Out point. Being able to easily set the In/Out points is helpful when you need to trim off extra material from files, and it is also a good way to run tests on short segments of the files prior to encoding them entirely. Like cropping, In/Out points can be set manually in the Project window, or specified numerically in a setting. You can also play only the portion of the movie between the In and Out points in the Project window. To do this, choose Edit > Preferences and check the Only Play Selection Between In & Out checkbox in the Preferences dialog. This is good for comparing the differences between the original file in the Project window to the final file in the Output window after the project has been encoded. Manually Setting In/Out Points To manually trim a movie or audio file: 1. In the Batch window, double-click the Project column or press aR to open the Project window. 2. Move the movie controller to the point where you want to begin processing and choose Edit > Set In Point or press a[ . This sets the In point. You can also control-click anywhere in the Project window and choose Set In Point from the contextual menu. 3. Move the movie controller to the point where you want to end processing and choose Edit > Set Out Point or press a]. This sets the Out point. You can also control-click anywhere in the Project window and choose Set Out Point from the contextual menu. To clear In/Out points: Choose Edit > Clear In/Out Points or Control-click the Project window and Choose Clear In/ Out Points from the contextual menu. To move the controller to the In/Out points: • You can move the time controller to the In point by pressing T and to the Out point by pressing Y. 49 50 Chapter 4: Projects Numerically Setting In/Out Points You can numerically specify In and Out points in the Begin/End tab of the Settings window. See “Begin/End Tab” on page 88. Note: If you set In/Out points in the Project window, they will override the In/Out points set in Begin/End tab of the Settings window. The cleaner Time System cleaner uses a time system defined in milliseconds, which is more flexible and has a wider range of uses than the SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Experts) timecode used by many video editing systems. Using milliseconds is more accurate and more flexible than SMPTE, which is especially helpful when creating interactive streaming video. Conversion between formats is also more difficult with SMPTE because the same time is written differently in NTSC and PAL. When authoring EventStreams, this time system allows multiple, sequenced events to be assigned within a given frame, which SMPTE does not support. SMPTE only works with broadcast-quality frame rates — 29.97 (NTSC), 25 (PAL) and 24 (film) — so it does not work with streaming settings that use smaller frame rates, such as 15 fps, 10 fps and 7 fps. Go to Frame/Go to Time If you know the exact frame or time at which you want to set the In or Out point, you can use Edit > Go to Frame or Edit > Go to Time to access these points. To go directly to a frame to set In/Out points: 1. Open the Project window. 2. Choose Edit > Go to Frame. 3. Enter the In Point frame number in the field and click OK. 4. The Project window displays the frame specified, for example, frame 300, which is 10 seconds into a 30-fps source. 5. Choose Edit > Set In Point or Control-click anywhere in the Project menu and choose Set In Point from the contextual menu. Trimming Files 6. Choose Edit > Go to Frame. 7. Type the Out Point frame number in the field and click OK. 8. The Project window displays the frame you specified. 9. Choose Edit > Set Out Point or Control-click anywhere in the Project menu and choose Set Out Point from the contextual menu. To go directly to a time to set In/Out points: 1. Click anywhere on the Project window and choose Go to Time. Or, Choose Edit > Go to Time. 2. Type the In Point time in the field and click OK. For example, 00:00:10.000, which is 10 seconds into the source. 3. Choose Edit > Set In Point or Control-click anywhere in the Project menu and choose Set In Point from the contextual menu. 4. Choose Edit > Go to Time. 5. Type the Out Point time in the field and click OK. 6. Choose Edit > Set Out Point or Control-click anywhere in the Project menu and choose Set Out Point from the contextual menu. 51 52 Chapter 4: Projects Enhanced Movie Playback QuickTime and certain other types of source movies can be loaded into RAM for better playback within cleaner. This lets you preview uncompressed source movies.Without this feature, uncompressed renders frequently have data rates that are too high to play smoothly. Developers must often run a temporary compression in order to watch these sequences in full motion. Check the Load source movie into memory option in the Preferences dialog. When you play movies in the Project window, these movies are loaded into RAM as much as possible. Note: The Load source movie into memory preference does not speed up encoding. Depending on the amount of RAM available and the size of the movie, you may be able to smoothly play some or all of a high-data rate movie in the Project window. Opening a movie that is being preloaded to RAM can take a long time. The watch cursor should be visible during this time, but the hands do not move. This is normal. Settings All of the processing parameters and encoding options you can configure with the Settings window are collectively called a setting. By allowing you to easily modify, save, and assign settings, cleaner makes it simple to quickly use all these parameters on many projects. This saves time and ensures consistency. To get you started, there are several preconfigured settings. You can create new settings, as well as modify, rename, and delete existing settings. You can drag and drop folders and settings within the Settings window and between the Settings window and the Finder. Each setting is a separate, portable XML file. These files are stored in the Settings folder in the cleaner application folder. You can organize the settings in the Settings window. Because settings are XML-based, you can also use the same settings on both Macintosh and Windows computers. The Settings window gives you full control over all setting parameters. See “Using Settings” on page 54 for more details. Because you may frequently want to encode many files with the same setting, but may need to change specific parameters for each file, such as brightness, data rate, etc. You can apply Settings Modifiers to each of your projects. See “Settings Modifiers” on page 61 for more details. You can set up multiple folders that cleaner 6“watches”. When you drop media into a watch folder, it is processed using the setting assigned to the folder. The Dynamic Preview feature helps you fine tune parameters while you create settings. See “Previewing Settings” on page 63 for more details. 54 Chapter 5: Settings Using Settings It is not necessary to have any source files open or present in the Batch window to create new settings or modify existing settings with the Settings window. Use one of these methods to open the Settings window: •Choose Windows > Settings or press aT. •Control-click a project in the Batch window and select Settings from the menu. •Double-click the Project column to open the Project window and click the Edit button in the Setting tab. Tabs Settings browser Buttons Using Settings Choosing a Setting If you are a new user, the settings that are installed with cleaner are an excellent way to get started with encoding. By using these settings, you don’t need to know technical details such as keyframe frequency or codec choice to get great results. All of the settings in cleaner 6 have been designed by industry professionals to provide maximum output quality and encoding efficiency. The sound and video parameters have been balanced and tuned for optimum results for each data rate and delivery method. Most of the time, you can simply pick the proper setting, apply it to the project and press Start. For more experienced users, the Settings window provides total control over every setting parameter. Choosing the appropriate setting is a simple process: 1. Determine your delivery method. There are settings for Web, CD, and DVD delivery. The delivery methods and their associated formats are: Web Formats •Quicktime, RealSystems, or Windows Media — streaming or progressive download. •MPEG-4 •Images •MP3 CD Formats •AVI •Audio •QuickTime •MPEG-1 DVD Formats •MPEG -1 and 2 See Chapters 7 and 8 for details of each format. 55 56 Chapter 5: Settings The Settings browser Closed format folders Triangle points to right Open QuickTime format folder Triangle points down Open QuickTime-NTSC input format sub-folder 384k DSL streaming setting selected Settings browser 2. Open the chosen delivery format folder by clicking on the disclosure triangle next to the folder. In this example, Quicktime is chosen as the delivery format. 3. Open the appropriate sub-folder within the delivery format folder. In this example, the NTSC sub-folder is opened because we have NTSC source that we want to encode to QuickTime. For the complete list of format folders, their sub-folders and definitons, see “Setting hierarchy” on page 57. 4. From the list of settings, select a setting with your target data rate and delivery method. The settings are grouped in their folders by target data rate, delivery method and download size. Using Settings •For Web delivery, choose a data rate (streaming) or size (download) according to the connection speed typical for your audience. •For CD or DVD delivery, choose the setting based on how much space you have on your CD or DVD, the size of the video frame, and the quality of the video image. See “Choosing the Data Rate” on page 179 and “Disc Space” on page 181. 5. Press the Apply button to return to the Batch window. 6. When you are familiar with the way settings are organized and how they work, you can start to make modifications and save your own custom settings. See “Modifying Settings” on page 60. The Dynamic Preview window allows you to preview the effects of your setting by choosing Windows > Dynamic Preview or pressing aD. See “Dynamic Preview” on page 193. Setting hierarchy Settings are arranged in folders according to output format. Some folders contain sub-folders that contain groups of settings. The output format folders and their sub-folders are: • AVI — Video for Windows at 2X and 4X data rates. • Audio — AIFF and WAV files. • Images — Six still image formats. • MP3 — MP3 files. • MPEG •MPEG-1 — CD&DVD-ROM. •MPEG-2 — Video DVD. •MPEG-4 — Web. • QuickTime •Archive setting— Lossless archive files. •Audio — MP3, PureVoice and QDesign Music for streaming, download or CD&DVD. •Film — Telecined film source to streaming, download or CD&DVD. •Flatten only setting — Flattens the source for cross-platform delivery. •NTSC — NTSC source to streaming, download or CD&DVD. •PAL — PAL source to streaming, download or CD&DVD. 57 58 Chapter 5: Settings • Real •Audio — RealAudio for streaming and download delivery. •Film — Telecined film source to RealSystems streaming or download. •NTSC — NTSC source to RealSystems streaming or download. •PAL — PAL to RealSystems streaming or download. • Windows Media •Audio — Windows Media Audio for streaming or download. •Film — Telecined film source to Windows Media streaming or download. •NTSC — NTSC source to Windows Media streaming or download. •PAL — PAL source to Windows Media streaming or download. Organizing Settings Each setting is a separate XML file stored in the Settings folder. The left panel shows all the settings in the Settings folder. You can drag and drop folders and settings within the Settings window and between the Settings window and the Finder. Note: You cannot drag a setting or folder to the top level. Within each folder, settings are sorted alphabetically. If you want a setting at the top of the list, you can put a number in front of it. Lower numbers come first. Buttons The buttons allow you to create new settings, save settings, and perform other functions. • New Folder — Creates a new untitled folder in the selected folder. The name field will be ready to type into. • New Setting — Creates a new untitled setting in the selected folder based on the Default setting. The name field will be ready to type into. • Duplicate — Duplicates a selected setting or folder and adds a number to the duplicated name. • Save — Saves the selected setting or folder. • Rename — Allows renaming of the selected setting or folder. Begin typing to rename. • Revert — Reverts to the saved state. • Delete — Deletes the selected setting or folder. Using Settings Tabs The right panel displays the details of the selected settings. The panel is organized into several Settings tabs. These tabs contain the processing and encoding options that constitute a setting. The tabs give you an overview of the setting parameters. As a shortcut, clicking on a parameter in the Summary tab switches to the tab containing that parameter. Only the tabs that are appropriate to the format selected in the Output tab are displayed. For example, if you are working on a still image setting, the Audio tab is not visible. This reduces on-screen clutter and ensures that you only modify meaningful parameters. Creating a New Setting To create a new setting based on an existing setting: 1. In the Settings window, highlight a setting that is similar to the new setting you want to create. Basing the new setting on the currently selected setting saves time, because you do not have to reset every parameter from scratch. Be sure to select a setting that is close to the desired final result. For example, to create a new Web movie setting, select an existing Web movie setting. 2. Click the Duplicate button. This creates a new setting with the same parameters as the selected setting. 3. Type a name for new setting and drag and drop it into the desired folder. 4. Change the parameters as needed. 5. Click Save. To create a new setting based on the Default setting: 1. In the Settings window, click the New Setting button. This creates a new setting with the same parameters as the Default setting. 2. Type a name for new setting and drag and drop it into the desired folder. 3. Change the parameters as needed. 4. Click Save. 59 60 Chapter 5: Settings Modifying Settings To change a setting: You cannot modify the installed settings. If you attempt to, a dialog will appear which allows you to duplicate the selected setting. 1. In the Settings window, highlight the setting to change. 2. Click the Duplicate button. This creates a new setting with the same parameters as the selected setting. The original setting name is duplicated and a numeral 1 is appended to it. 3. Accept the new name by clicking in a blank area or type a name for the new setting and drag and drop it into the desired folder. 4. Use the tabs in the description panel to access and change parameters. When you change the setting, •mod is appended to the end of the setting name in the Settings window title bar. 5. Click Save to make the changes in the setting permanent. This removes the •mod from the setting name. 6. To change the modified setting back to its last-saved state, click Revert. The •mod appended to the setting name is only visible in the Settings window title bar. It does not appear in the settings list or in the Batch window Setting column. Assigning a Setting to a Project Before a setting is assigned to a project in the batch, the Setting column shows a dash (—) in it. To assign a setting to a file with the Settings window: 1. Select the setting to assign from the list on the left side of the Settings window. 2. Click Apply to assign the setting to the project and close the Settings window. Note: As a shortcut, double-click the desired setting in the list. The assigned setting is displayed next to the project in the Batch window > Setting column. Assigning a Setting to Multiple Projects To assign the same setting to multiple files: 1. Use one of the following methods to select more than one project in the Batch window: •Press a and click each project. •Hold down the shift key to select a range of projects. •To select all projects in the batch, click aA or choose Edit > Select All. Using Settings 2. Open the Settings window. 3. Select the desired setting from the list. 4. Click Apply. The Settings window closes and the selected setting is assigned to all the highlighted files in the batch. You can automate processing with a Watch Folder. See “Watch Folders” on page 222. Assigning Multiple Settings to Multiple Projects You can easily assign multiple settings to the same project in a batch to create multiple versions. For example, you can create a RealSystem, QuickTime and Windows Media version from the same source file. Or, encode the same movie with multiple settings to see which parameters you prefer. You can specify different cropping, In/Out points, EventStreams, Settings Modifiers, and Metadata for each project based on the same original file in the batch. This is helpful for running tests on different sections of the movie or checking the results of different Settings Modifiers. To save time, settings are copied to each new occurrence of the project in the batch. For example, you may set unique project options like cropping the original file, specifying In/Out points, or authoring EventStreams before you assign multiple settings. This feature prevents the need to manually specify the same parameters many times. Important: A maximum of 100 settings may be applied to a project. To assign multiple settings to one or more projects: 1. Select the project(s) in the Batch window. 2. Open the Settings window. 3. Press shift or a and click multiple settings. 4. Click Apply to assign the selected settings to the project(s). The original project(s) are duplicated in the batch, and the selected settings are assigned to the new versions. Settings Modifiers Settings contain all the general processing and encoding parameters for a project, and any change to a setting is applied to all the projects to which the setting is assigned. There are often small changes you need to make in a setting to compensate for unique aspects of a source movie, such as increasing brightness if the original is too dark. 61 62 Chapter 5: Settings The Settings Modifiers feature lets you assign a single base setting to many projects and then apply unique modifiers to specific projects to change certain aspects of the processing. Settings Modifiers are applied in the Project window and let you override the base setting parameters without affecting other projects in the batch. For example, you might have three source files to encode for streaming delivery. You can apply a common setting to all three projects by highlighting them in the Batch window and assigning the desired setting with the Settings window. If one source movie is too dark, you can apply a modifier to just that project to increase the brightness, without having to create a new base setting for this project. Settings Modifiers are also used to set project-specific metadata. This allows you to specify common metadata in the base setting, such as the copyright date, and then specify moviespecific metadata, such as the name of the movie, on a project by project basis. To use Settings Modifiers: 1. Assign a setting to the project as normal. See “Assigning a Setting to a Project” on page 60 for details. 2. Double-click the project in the Batch window to open the Project window. Using Settings 3. In the Settings Modifiers panel, click Edit to open the Settings Modifiers dialog. 4. Change the desired options in the Settings Modifiers dialog. 5. Click Apply. To verify your changes: In the Project window, click the Modifiers tab. Changes specified by the Settings Modifiers take precedence over parameters specified in the base setting. In the Batch window, a mod indicator appears below the project name in the Project column to indicate that a Settings Modifier was applied. For more information on indicators, see “Project Modification Icons” on page 27. You can further check your settings by applying different settings to several copies of the same project. See “Testing” on page 185 for more information. Previewing Settings While modifying or choosing settings, use the Dynamic Preview window to see how the settings affect your project. To use the Dynamic Preview window 1. Choose Windows > Dynamic Preview or press aD. 2. If the window is already open, click Update to see the current settings assigned to the project. See “Dynamic Preview” on page 193 for more details. Sharing Settings Because settings are self-contained XML files, you can easily move them between computers. You can also keep the settings for a project in that project’s folder, instead of the Settings folder, for easier portability. When you need to use these settings, you must move their folder into the Settings folder located in the cleaner application folder. When you are done with the job, move the folder with the settings specific to the job back out of the Settings folder to reduce setting clutter. To share settings with other cleaner 6 owners, you can attach settings to E-mail, put them on disks and even post settings on a Website. Using Aliases You can replace the Settings folder with an alias to a centralized setting folder on a different computer or server. This is helpful when using cleaner in a large lab environment because it ensures consistency while minimizing setup time of individual work stations. 63 64 Chapter 5: Settings Note: If you change a setting on the server, any machine currently processing a file with the changed setting continues to use the original version until it is done processing the current movie. cleaner does not check settings while processing. Additionally, if two people attempt to change the same setting simultaneously, one or both users may receive an error message. Protecting Settings You may want to lock settings to prevent them from being modified. This is particularly useful in a large lab environment with several machines that access the same Settings folder on a server. To lock a setting: 1. Find the setting in your Settings folder. 2. Highlight the setting by clicking it once. 3. In the Finder, choose File > Show Info. 4. Check the Locked option in the setting Info window. To unlock a setting, uncheck the Locked option. 5. Close the Info window. Automating Setting Creation Because cleaner settings are XML text files, you can create AppleScripts, CGIs, or databases that create new settings for you. This is often helpful for creating automated encoding systems. Pre-processing The best way to get high-quality results is to carefully analyze the source media and apply the appropriate pre-processing and encoding filters based on the specifics of the material. This chapter addresses the pre-processing steps you can use to improve your material. See “Encoding” on page 145 for suggestions on choosing frame rate, frame size, data rate and other important encoding parameters. It is important to keep in mind when processing video for desktop delivery that a computer screen is not a television set or movie theater. Create and process the video with the characteristics of your delivery medium in mind. For details on shooting video for streaming that encodes well, see “Shooting Video for Streaming” on page 21. Use cleaner filters and adjustments, such as Adaptive Noise Reduction and contrast adjustments, to optimize the video for encoding. Working with DV and other non-square pixel material requires special handling to prevent distortion. Fortunately, cleaner has features that automatically help you work with DV material. See “Aspect Correction” on page 42 for details. If the source media is captured from tape, you also need to compensate for differences between television video and computer video, such as deinterlacing and adjusting black levels. If originally shot on film, cleaner can remove the 3:2 pulldown to correct the final movie. See “Using Intelecine” on page 69 for details. For the best final results, crop any black edges or garbled pixels surrounding the image if they are present. Trim the beginning or end of the video capture by setting In/Out points. See “Cropping” on page 46 and “Trimming Files” on page 49 for more details. Click the check box next to the filters to activate them. Choosing Custom from pull-down menus will expose more controls. 66 Chapter 6: Pre-processing The Image Tab Cropping Cropping removes edges from the source material. It is used for eliminating the black edges and garbled edge pixels of some captured video. You can manually crop in the Project window. See “Cropping” on page 46. Numeric Cropping You can choose Numeric from the Crop pull-down menu and crop each side an exact number of pixels. You can also numerically crop in the Settings Modifiers window. See “Settings Modifiers” on page 61. The Image Tab Image Size Control the final size of output with this feature. The first Image Size pop-up menu controls the dimensions of the final movie. •Source — Allows you to scale the image or video to the same size as your source file. This is very useful if you are cropping to remove edge noise from your video but want the final movie to be the same size as the original. •Numeric — Allows you to set the size of your video numerically by entering dimensions in the fields provided. You can constrain the fields to a specific ratio with one of the choices in the constrain pop-up menu below the Image Size fields. See the section that follows for more information on the constrain pop-up menu. Note: You may introduce distortion into the video or image if you select a ratio that is not the same ratio as the original and you do not crop your movie to compensate. To avoid distorting the image, you should first set the numeric output size in conjunction with the constrain pop-up menu in the Image Size panel. Next, manually crop the video or image to the same ratio you selected in the constrain pop-up. The resulting cropping rectangle will have the same proportions as the specified output size. See the next section for information on using the constrain pop-up menu. The constrain pop-up menu controls the aspect ratio at which you want to store the movie. If you choose any of the options in the constrain pop-up menu other than Unconstrained, entering a number in either Numeric field automatically calculates the dimensions for the other field. The output file conforms to the aspect ratio of the manual crop if you choose Same as cropped source. If you do not set a manual crop, the proportions remain the same as the original source file. You can choose one of the preselected options or choose Custom or Unconstrained and use your own dimensions. •Same as source — constrains the file’s dimensions to the same aspect ratio as the original source file. •Same as cropped source — constrains the file’s dimensions to the aspect ratio of the cropped source file. •4:3 — constrains the file’s dimensions to the standard NTSC/PAL aspect ratio. •16:9 — constrains the file’s dimensions to the standard HDTV aspect ratio. •Custom... — Displays the Aspect allows you to specify your own aspect ratio for the file. •Unconstrained — allows you to ignore the source file’s aspect ratio and enter any dimensions you desire. You will distort your file if you choose dimensions that are a different ratio than the file’s original aspect ratio. 67 68 Chapter 6: Pre-processing Aspect Correction Some formats do not have square pixels and must be corrected to look normal on a computer screen. See “Aspect Correction” on page 42. If you are producing a QuickTime movie, you can choose the video’s display size, which can be larger than the size of the actual video. Deinterlacing Video Each NTSC or PAL video frame consists of alternating bottom and top fields. A television draws one field every 1/59.94 of a second for NTSC and every 1/50 of a second for PAL. Our eyes put the two alternating fields together to create 29.97 whole NTSC frames per second or 25 whole PAL frames. Most people can not perceive the interlaced nature of the image on a television screen. Because interlacing creates two unique fields for each final frame, quickly moving areas in the video often become separated into alternating lines that look like the teeth on a comb when displayed on a computer monitor. To obtain the best results for desktop playback, you should deinterlace full-screen video prior to encoding. This removes the interlacing effect which makes it look and encode better. Note: If you are capturing video at half-screen resolution, you do not need to deinterlace the video. The capture card deinterlaces the video as it is captured. Deinterlacing Options cleaner offers three methods of deinterlacing video, plus an option for handling movies originally shot on film. For best results when deinterlacing, you should always capture your source at full-screen resolution. Blend — blurs together the top and bottom fields to produce a smooth, combined image. Using the Blend option with movies containing fast motion may produce smoother apparent motion because this option preserves the motion blur effect of interlacing. However, this option may degrade encoding, because it has the effect of adding more change to the image. Eliminate Top, Bottom— removes every other line of the original source and interpolates extra lines if needed. Selecting either option generally produces sharp images because it eliminates the motion blur effect of interlacing and produces similar final results. Intelecine — Intelecine is the exclusive cleaner “intelligent” inverse telecine 3:2 pulldown removal option that removes the extra pulldown frames added to movies when they are transferred from 24 fps film to 29.97 fps NTSC video. Unlike other forms of inverse telecine, the cleaner Intelecine feature can detect and automatically adjust to edits in the video. The Image Tab To quickly check if your source file contains 3:2 pulldown frames, find a sequence without any edits and step through it frame by frame. You should see a repeating pattern of three progressive frames followed by two interlaced frames. Note: If you use the Top or Bottom deinterlacing options and get a slight stutter in the video, you may be seeing frame duplication resulting from source material that was shot on film and transferred to video. In these cases, capture the source video at full-frame size and rate and use the Intelecine option. See the next section for more details. Processing NTSC Movies shot on Film The frame rate of film is 24 fps; the frame rate of NTSC video is 29.97 fps. When movies are translated between film and NTSC video, extra frames are added to compensate for this difference. These new frames are created by a machine called a telecine, and the process is often referred to as introducing a 3:2 pulldown into the material. There are four important reasons to return your material to its original frame rate before encoding it: •Leaving the pulldown frames in your material looks bad. These extra frames have strong interlace lines in areas of rapid movement. This effect is similar to normal interlacing, except it is more pronounced and displays poorly on a computer screen. •Blended frames encode poorly because of the strong interlacing artifacts present in them. Removing these frames improves the encoding of your final movie. •Extra frames do not have unique information in them. They are simply blends of two other frames in the source. These frames are important for NTSC television, which requires 29.97 fps, but are totally useless in desktop video, which does not have this constraint. A frame rate of 24 fps is 20% less frames — and therefore data — than 29.97 fps. Encoding the original 24 fps source produces smaller and/or higher quality files. Using Intelecine To use the Intelecine process with material that was originally shot on film and then transferred to NTSC video: 1. From the Settings window>Image tab menu, choose Intelecine. 2. In the Encode tab, select the desired frame rate. For the smoothest playback, specify the original 24 fps. If you are producing lower frame rate movies from film source, use 12 fps, which is every other frame of your source. Using frame rates that divide evenly into your original frame rate with no remainder generally produces the smoothest motion in the final movie. Using odd rates, such as 15 fps from 24 fps source, causes uneven motion. See “Frame Rate” on page 176 for more details. 69 70 Chapter 6: Pre-processing To use Intelecine, you must start with interlaced, full frame rate source. Because of this, you should capture the source at full frame size (640x480 or 720x486) and full frame rate (29.97 fps). If you capture at half frame (320x240), your capture card already deinterlaced the fields of the video, and the Intelecine feature will not work. If you capture at less than 29.97 fps, Intelecine does not have all the needed frames and does not work. Note: Intelecine is not required when encoding for PAL video because transfers between film and PAL video do not add pulldown frames. Instead, film-to-PAL video transfers speed up the 24 fps source by 4%, which makes the final encoded PAL video 25 fps progressive. Adaptive — analyzes the video and selectively deinterlaces only the parts of the image that are moving while leaving static portions unaltered. This eliminates the interlacing effect while preserving greater detail in still areas, resulting in a higher-quality image. Click the check box to activate the Adaptive Deinterlace option whenever your output resolution is 320x240 or greater or if your source has a lot of noise. The Adaptive Deinterlace option offers higher resolution that helps average out some source noise. The main reason not to use Adaptive Deinterlace is that it is significantly slower than other options. •The motion of the video appears smoother at a frame rate that is an even multiple/divisor of the original frame rate. Film source encoded at 24 fps (its original frame rate) seem smoother than when encoded at 30 fps. Shift Fields You can change the dominant field for interlaced output formats using the Shift Fields pulldown menu. Shift Up — Shifts both interlaced fields up one line. Shift Down — Shifts both interlaced fields down one line. Both choices will change the field dominance of the interlaced output. Telecine for NTSC If you have material that is 24 fps, such as that shot on film, and want to change the frame rate up to 29.97 fps for NTSC video output, the telecine filter can perform this conversion by adding pulldown frames. To change to 29.97 frame rate 1. In the Image tab, click the Telecine check box to activate it. 2. In the Encode tab, select 29.97 fps. This filter uses the standard 3:2 pulldown sequence. The Image Tab Blur Applying a mild blur to a noisy source video used to be a common practice in digital video production to remove the noise and enhance encoding. However, the cleaner Adaptive Noise Reduction filter generally produces superior results to those achieved with the Blur filter. Avoid using the Blur filter except in special cases. The Blur filter offers three preset blur settings and a Custom option. The Custom option allows you to control the radius and amount of the blur. The higher the Radius slider is set, the more extreme the blur. The Amount slider controls how much of the blurred image is overlaid onto the original image. Setting this slider to 100% produces an image that is entirely the result of the blur, while 50% blends the original sharp image with the blurred image at half opacity. Using these two controls together gives you a fine level of control over the blurring, as well as offering some interesting soft-focus effects. Note: The preset blurs are specially optimized and faster than the Custom option. Sharpen Sharpening the video does not usually improve encoding per se, but sometimes improves the subjective image quality of video that has been scaled up by making it look more in focus. However, excessive sharpening of a noisy video source that is being scaled up from the original degrades encoding, so use this filter sparingly. Sharpen is an edge-sharpening filter that uses an Unsharp Mask algorithm. The algorithm name comes from the physical way this effect used to be accomplished in the darkroom with film masks. Because it mostly affects edges, this filter does not enhance noise as much as a standard sharpen algorithm and therefore is less detrimental to encoding than a conventional sharpening filter. There are two controls to the Sharpen feature: •The Radius slider affects how far the sharpening effect extends from each pixel. Higher numbers usually give more pronounced results. •The Amount slider controls what percentage of the sharpened image is overlaid on top of the original image. The higher the setting, the stronger the effect. As with the other filters and adjustments, use the Dynamic Preview to get immediate feedback as you experiment with the settings. 71 72 Chapter 6: Pre-processing Adaptive Noise Reduction The Adaptive Noise Reduction filter often improves the encoding of video. This filter reduces the fine detail and noise of an image while leaving the edges of objects in the picture sharp, so that the resulting file encodes better but does not look blurry. Use this filter with most video sources to improve encoding. To optimize video and images, the Adaptive Noise Reduction filter identifies areas of fairly flat color or gradients and blurs only these areas to improve compression. For most video, the Mild preset is best. If you have low-quality video due to a poor source or a very inexpensive capture card, you may get better results with the Moderate or Extreme setting. To customize the Adaptive Noise Reduction filter, choose the Custom option and manually set the filter parameters using the Threshold and Amount sliders. •The Threshold slider controls which parts of the image get processed. Lower settings apply to only flat areas of the image and higher settings affect the entire image. •The Amount slider controls the strength of the noise reduction by increasing the amount of blurring that is performed. Higher settings produce stronger noise reduction. However, very high settings may introduce unusual artifacts into the video. Temporal Processing The Temporal Processing option, which is available when you choose the Custom option, smooths pixels over time to remove even more video noise to further improve encoding quality in the Adaptive Noise Reduction filter. In addition to general video noise, this filter can eliminate one-frame-duration artifacts, such as lines resulting from dirty video heads or worn tape. Static Mask The Static Mask filter uses a mask to define static zones in the video and then composites the first frame of the movie into every frame of the movie in these areas. This eliminates video noise in areas that should not change and improves encoding. This filter is very specialized and is generally only used in special cases — generally you should use the Noise Reduction filters with most material. The best reason to use a static mask on an area that is not changing is that static parts of the video still have some video noise. Depending on how noisy the signal is, the changes in these static areas can be significant. The static mask prevents all pixels in the defined areas from changing, which will improve the ability of the codec to encode the overall image. This filter can also be useful for removing distracting motion in the video, such as a movement outside a window during an interview. The Image Tab Note: Unless you want unusual effects, only use the Static Mask with movies that contain areas that are unchanging throughout the entire clip and have no edits, no video fades to/ from black and no camera movement. To use the Static Mask filter, you must create a grayscale mask image with an image editing application. The Static Mask filter composites the first frame of the movie into every frame of the movie using a mask image. Areas that are 100% white are entirely composited from the first frame; 100% black areas are not composited at all. Use shades of gray and feathered edges to blend between the first frame and the rest of the movie. To create a static mask: 1. Copy the first frame from the movie. 2. Paste it into a new file in your image editing software. 3. In a graphics application that supports layers, create a new layer above the frame. 4. Paint the areas that are not static with a black brush. Do not make mask edges too close to a changing subject. A subject that moves into the defined zone is cut off. 5. Turn off the layer that contains the frame from the movie and use Save As to create the mask image. Save the mask image as an uncompressed PICT file at 72 ppi. 6. Click the check box next to the Static Mask filter to activate it. 7. Click Set. 8. Find the static mask file and click OK. 9. Process as normal. Note: The Static Mask filter preprocesses the image prior to encoding; the selected codec does the actual encoding of your image. Many codecs generate new keyframes in such a way that even areas that are identical throughout the whole movie may change slightly during keyframes. When using these codecs, some pixel movement in the static areas during keyframes is normal. Watermarking Video and Images It is sometimes important to watermark your video or still images to ensure that viewers know who owns or created the files. The watermarking filter applies a watermark to movies or still images by compositing the watermarking graphic directly onto the image or video track. It supports up to 24-bit color watermarks, as well as opacity control of the watermark via the alpha channel of the watermark image. 73 74 Chapter 6: Pre-processing To create a watermark: 1. Create the watermark image in a blank canvas that is the size of your movie with an image- editing application. 2. Add an alpha channel to define the transparency. Depending on the program, black areas are totally transparent and white are totally opaque. This is the standard, but you should experiment to determine how your image-editing application handles alpha channels. Gray areas are translucent. 3. Save the image as an uncompressed PICT file at 72 ppi. Make sure to include the alpha channel while saving the file. If you set the resolution of the watermark differently, you may get unusual results and/or poor watermark image quality. 4. In cleaner, select Watermark in the Image tab of the Settings window. 5. Click Set and select the PICT file you just created. You can use Dynamic Preview to see how the watermark appears in your video. 6. Process your file as normal. The Adjust Tab The Adjust Tab Gamma Changing the value of the gamma affects middle tones while leaving the white and black of the image unaltered. Gamma adjustment is commonly used to compensate for differences between Macintosh and Windows displays. Specifying a number on the Gamma slider changes the middle tones of the image: •Positive numbers lighten the image. •Negative numbers darken the image. 75 76 Chapter 6: Pre-processing If you are authoring cross-platform movies for the Web or CD-ROM and do not want different versions for Mac OS and Windows, select a gamma setting that looks acceptable on both machines. Usually, your movies end up looking a little light on a Mac monitor and a little dark on a Windows monitor. Although this is a compromise, it is better than having your Mac OS movies look perfect while your Windows movies are significantly darker, or having your Windows movies look perfect while your Mac OS movies are too bright. • Since you are processing your movies on Mac OS, set the gamma so it looks ideal on your Macintosh screen, then add 30 points to the gamma for a compromise. As with all settings, test your material on your target machines to determine the optimal setting. Note: There is currently no effective way to make the same video track play lighter on Windows and darker on Mac OS. However, you can create alternate versions of a QuickTime movie that have different gamma settings and are displayed according to the viewer’s platform. See “Using Alternates to Adjust for Gamma Differences” on page 111 for more information. Brightness The Brightness slider makes the image lighter or darker in a linear fashion. Unlike the gamma setting, increasing the lightness changes all the pixels the same amount. Thus, your light tones tend to become totally white when you raise the brightness and your dark tones totally black when you lower the brightness. Boosting Contrast NTSC and PAL video often appear low contrast and somewhat grey when shown on computer monitors. This is due to different black levels and gamma curves. Video to be played on a computer often looks better if you slightly increase the contrast to compensate for this. You may also want to change the black level. See “Black Restore and White Restore” below for details. A Contrast setting of +20 is a good starting point. Experiment with the Contrast settings in the Adjust tab while using the Dynamic Preview to find the best setting for your movie. Increasing the brightness and/or gamma, in addition to boosting the contrast, may help maintain a tonal range that is similar to that of the source material when displayed on a monitor. Black Restore and White Restore The Black Restore and White Restore filters in the Adjust tab let you set the level at which all pixels become completely black or white, as well as control the smoothness of transition between the restored and unmodified areas. Using this adjustment may improve encoding, but generally this feature is used to improve the subjective quality of NTSC and PAL video to be displayed on a computer monitor. The Adjust Tab The maximum black value of NTSC and PAL video formats looks black on a television screen, but computer monitors display these pixels as dark grey. Similarly, pixels that look white on a television screen are displayed as light grey on computer monitors.Using the restore feature can make these values truly black and white without altering the rest of the image. This is particularly useful for credits and titles on black or white backgrounds. Note: The full white produced by White Restore may be too bright in some cases, so avoid using it on white backgrounds unless you are trying to match the video with a pure white background. The Black Restore and White Restore filters have two controls — the Amount slider and the Smoothness slider. Adjust the Amount sliders first, then the Smoothness sliders. The Amount sliders control the point after which all pixels are forced to 100% black or white. The higher these values, the more pixels in the image that are restored to black or white. Experiment while using the Dynamic Preview to find the best value for your video. After you determine the optimal setting for the Amount sliders, experiment with the Smoothness sliders. For the best results, set the Amount sliders first, then the Smoothness sliders.These sliders control to what degree pixels near the transition between restored and unmodified areas are darkened or lightened. Altering these pixels helps smooth the transition. Higher Smoothness values produce a smoother transition, but affect more pixels in the image. As with the Amount slider, using the Dynamic Preview while experimenting is the best way to determine optimal settings for your material. Hue Changing the hue alters the overall color balance of the image and is often used to compensate for slight color shifts introduced during the capture process. Generally, this is only a problem with sub-professional analog formats; component analog and all digital formats don't have problems with color shifts. You can also use Hue to correct for source that is incorrectly white-balanced. Saturation This filter changes the intensity of the color in your image. The color intensity is increased by moving the slider to the right and decreased by moving it to the left. Moving it all the way to the left reduces the image to grayscale. 77 78 Chapter 6: Pre-processing QuickTime Effects cleaner supports QuickTime Effects, such as Emboss, General Convolution and Film Noise. These filters can be applied to any output format or architecture when they are used as simple video filters. For example, use the Colorize effect to produce a RealSystem or Windows Media movie. QuickTime Effects also have the special option of being rendered upon playback within QuickTime movies. cleaner allows up to three QuickTime Effects to be applied to the video track during processing. When QuickTime Effects are used in this fashion, they are identical to other video filters and adjustments in that they alter the final image pixels. If you are producing a QuickTime movie, you can also add one QuickTime Effect to be applied as a track for render at playback. See “Adding a QT FX track” on page 121 for more details. The standard QuickTime Effects are primarily aimed at special effects such as colorization, embossing and film noise. Because of this, they often are not particularly relevant to optimizing video for compression. However, in the hands of an experienced user, the General Convolution effect can be used to create various sharpening and/or blurring effects that may be useful for optimizing video. To process your video with one or more QuickTime Effects: 1. Select the Settings>Adjust tab. 2. Click the check box next to QuickTime Effects to activate it. 3. Three Process options and a QT FX Track option appear in this section. As you click each check box, a Select button appears next to it. 4. Click Select to choose the effect and settings via the standard QuickTime Select Effect dialog. If your movie is open in the Project window when you select the effect, a small preview of it appears in the Select Effect dialog. The name of the currently selected effect appears next to the Select button. The effects are applied in the order of their appearance, starting with the one at the top of the QuickTime Effects section. You can apply the same effect multiple times with different parameters if you desire. To turn off a specific effect, click the check box to deactivate the Process option next to the effect. To turn off all the effects, click the check box to deactivate the QuickTime Effects section. QuickTime FX Tracks If you are producing a QuickTime movie, cleaner can add a QuickTime FX Track that is rendered upon playback, instead of actually changing the pixels of the stored movie. See “Adding a QT FX track” on page 121 for details. The Adjust Tab Advanced QuickTime Effects Some QuickTime Effects allow you to change the effect over time. To implement QuickTime Effects that change over time: 1. In the Preferences dialog box, click the check box next to the Use advanced QuickTime Effects controls to activate it. 2. Choose a QuickTime Effect in the Adjust tab of your setting. 79 80 Chapter 6: Pre-processing The Audio Tab cleaner offers professional-quality resampling, as well as a wide range of clean-up filters, such as Noise Removal, Noise Gate and High/Low Pass, to optimize your audio. There are also filters such as Dynamic Range Compression and Reverb, that allow you to optimize your material for delivery and improve subjective quality. Having all the features you need to optimize audio helps streamline your workflow while improving the quality of all your movies and audio-only files. The filters work with all the supported output formats, including QuickTime, RealSystem (OS9), Windows Media and MP3, without using dedicated sound applications. See “Streaming Audio” on page 23 for details on recording audio that encodes well. The Audio Tab Using Audio Filters After you create and capture your audio, there are several things you can do to optimize your audio for streaming delivery. Noise in the audio track often degrades the final compression of the audio, which results in more artifacts and/or larger files. The primary goal of most of cleaner audio filters is to remove unwanted noise to improve the audio compression. There are also some audio processing features, such as the Dynamic Range filter and Reverb, to improve the subjective quality of the audio. The Noise Removal filter helps clean up hiss, noise and other unwanted sounds. Careful use of the Noise Gate, Low Pass, High Pass and Notch filters can also help improve a noisy signal prior to compression. Dynamic Range compression can increase the apparent volume of audio, as well as limit peaks, which often works well for Web audio. Likewise, many audio producers add a slight amount of reverb to make the audio sound richer and more pleasant. When making audio or movies for the Web, normalize the volume to about 90% if you do not use the Dynamic Range filter. This helps reduce the peak volume and prevent the audio from breaking up during loud passages when it is encoded. Using cleaner audio filters is often just a matter of choosing the most applicable presets with a few commonly used filters, such as Noise Removal. However, for difficult material, experimentation with the Custom controls of the audio filters may be helpful. Volume You can change the volume of your audio track with the Adjust slider. Numbers are percentages — greater than 100 increases the volume, less than 100 decreases the volume. Zero is silent. If you select the Normalize option instead of the Adjust option, cleaner scans the movie before compressing to find the loudest sound and then determines the correct volume adjustment to make this sound the maximum volume. This volume adjustment is applied to the entire movie. Normalizing to 90% is often helpful for highly compressed Web audio such as QDesign Music 2. Low Pass Filter The Low Pass filter removes all frequencies at or above the given value in kHz. Unlike other filters that are normally named for what they change, this filter is named for what it does not change. The Low Pass filter gets its name from the fact that low frequencies (below the given value) “pass” through the filter unaltered. 81 82 Chapter 6: Pre-processing Generally, the Low Pass filter is used to eliminate specific high frequencies, such as a very highpitched whine. To use this filter, specify the frequency (in kHz) above which you want the signal to be silent. Note: The Notch filter is often a better choice than Low Pass if you know the frequency at which the unwanted noise is occurring. The Notch filter lets you selectively target a specific frequency without removing all the frequencies above it. If set too low, the Low Pass filter can make the audio sound muddy as it removes too many of the high (treble) frequencies from a source. High Pass Filter The High Pass filter removes all frequencies at or below the given value in kHz. Like the Low Pass filter, this filter gets its name from the fact that high frequencies (above the given value) pass through the filter unaltered. This filter is generally used to eliminate specific low frequencies associated with background noise, such as the low rumble of ventilation systems. To use this filter, specify the frequency (in Hz) below which you want the signal to be silent. Note: The Notch filter is often a better choice than High Pass if you know the frequency at which the unwanted noise is occurring. The Notch filter lets you selectively target a specific frequency without removing all the frequencies below it. If set too high, the High Pass filter can make the audio sound tinny as it removes too many of the low (bass) frequencies from a source. Noise Removal Unwanted noise is common in recorded audio signals. Noise is often inadvertently added to the signal during the actual recording (camera noise, hard drive noise, fluorescent light hum) and during capture (line noise from low-quality capture hardware). You may not notice minor noise in your signal, but even minor audio noise degrades encoding and should be removed. To help remove common types of audio noise, cleaner provides an Adaptive Noise Removal filter. This filter removes random white noise, such as hiss and general static, as well as more structured colored noise, such as power line noise, ventilation system hum and hard drive noise. The Noise Removal filter works well for many types of noise, including line noise. However, if only line noise is present, try the Notch filter first because it removes only a specific frequency without altering any other parts of the audio. For most material, using one of the presets is a good solution. With very noisy or difficult source material, the Custom option may be helpful. More difficult material may also benefit from the additional use of the High Pass, Low Pass, Notch and Noise Gate filters. The Audio Tab Noise Removal Custom Setting The Noise Removal filter>Custom option lets you specify the threshold at which the filter operates. The higher the number chosen, the more pronounced the effect on the audio. Using high amounts of noise reduction can introduce warbling artifacts into the audio track. High noise-reduction levels may also reduce the overall volume of the signal, so you may want to boost the volume when using higher settings. Dynamic Range The Dynamic Range of an audio track is the difference in volume between the quiet and loud parts of the signal. For example, classical music often has a wide dynamic range. Quiet passages may be a single unaccompanied violin, but loud passages may be the entire orchestra playing at once. Rock music, on the other hand, often has a fairly limited dynamic range. Even though the music is loud, the bass, guitars and drums are usually played constantly, so there is not that much difference between the quiet and loud parts. The Dynamic Range filter lets you boost the volume of quiet parts of the audio, while limiting loud parts. This is similar to the Normalize feature, but the audio is adjusted on a section-bysection basis instead of by a single factor for the whole file. Narrowing the dynamic range of your material can make your audio effectively sound louder even if the highest points are still at the same level. This is because quieter passages are selectively boosted while the loud sections are not significantly altered. Changing the dynamic range is often useful for Web audio because some low bandwidth codecs do not handle material that is too loud or too soft. Compressing the dynamic range of the material allows you to keep the loudest sections within acceptable limits, which also effectively raises the volume of the quiet areas. Dynamic Range Presets cleaner has three Dynamic Range filter presets: •Limit to 90% — ensures the peak of the audio never exceeds 90%. This is important for compressed Web audio because many codecs do not work well with material above this level. •Hotter — increases the apparent volume of the audio without making the peaks any higher. It increases the volume of the quieter sections, which works well when you want to make your movies sound louder without distortion. However, because this option does not limit the peaks to 90%, you may have better results using the Narrow Range option for Web audio. 83 84 Chapter 6: Pre-processing •Narrow Range — limits the peak volume to 90% and brings the bottom up to 20%. This has the effect of slightly increasing the apparent volume, while still limiting the audio for compressed Web distribution. For the best results, use either the Narrow Range or Limit to 90% setting with Web audio. With these options, you do not need to normalize the audio to 90% because this filter already limits the peaks to this value. Start with a value of about 40, then increase or decrease this number as needed to minimize the obviousness of the transitions. Use the Dynamic Range filter in conjunction with the Volume adjustment. The Dynamic Range is applied first, then the volume is modified, which lets you encode both ends of the range of the audio, then increase or decrease its total volume. For example, you can limit the Minimum to 20% and the Maximum to 90% for a very narrow dynamic range to make sure the limited audio is as loud as possible without distortion. Experimentation is the key to finding the best settings given your material and preferences. Custom Dynamic Range Settings The Dynamic Range filter Custom option offers three sliders: •Minimum Amplitude — controls how the quiet portions of the signal are modified. Zero leaves the low volume sections unaltered. Higher settings increase the loudness of the previously quiet sections. •Maximum Amplitude — alters the volume of the loud parts of the audio. The numbers on this slider represent the percentage of maximum original volume, which is the same as the Adjust Volume slider. A setting of 100 leaves the loud portions unaltered, and settings below 100 reduce the volume of these portions. •Lookahead — controls how far in advance of the current sample the Dynamic Range filter analyzes to determine how to modify the current volume. Longer lookahead values create smoother transitions between altered and unaltered sections of the audio. Smaller values create shorter and potentially noticeable transitions between sections of the audio. Very small values may make the audio sound choppy. Noise Gate The cleaner Noise Gate filter completely silences sections of the audio that are very quiet (but not silent) for a period of time. This is useful for material like narration, which should be totally silent between sections, but may have background noise. In addition to Mild, Moderate, and Extreme presets, you can choose a custom setting. The Audio Tab Using the Noise Gate filter is especially helpful in conjunction with variable-bitrate audio codecs, such as Qualcomm PureVoice, when used for low-bandwidth streaming. This is because totally silent sections take less bandwidth with variable-bitrate audio codecs. Therefore, proper use of the Noise Gate with appropriate material can reduce the overall size of the audio file. Note: The Noise Gate filter is also sometimes referred to as a Clamp filter because it clamps down on the signal below a certain threshold. Unlike the Noise Removal, Notch, High Pass and Low Pass filters, which remove specific frequencies throughout the whole length of the source, the Noise Gate totally silences the entire signal when it goes below a certain volume (amplitude) for a specific amount of time, such as between words or sentences in speech. Generally, the Noise Reduction and/or Notch filters should be used first and the Noise Gate added if there is still noticeable noise in areas that should be silent. Note: You should not use the Noise Gate with material which has a background sound track, or other continuous sound. This filter is only useful with material that has sections that should be totally silent. Custom Noise Gate The Custom Noise Gate setting has two controls. The Threshold controls the level under which the Noise Gate totally silences the audio track. The higher the setting, the louder the sections the Noise Gate silences. If you set the Threshold too high, the Noise Gate can remove meaningful parts of the audio, which can sound very odd. For example, quieter parts of the narration may get silenced. If you set it too low, the Noise Gate may never activate, and the audio is not altered. The Minimum Duration controls how long a quiet section must last before the Noise Gate silences it. Setting this to a very short duration can cause narration to get choppy as the Noise Gate silences spaces between words or syllables. Notch Filter The Notch filter removes a group of frequencies centered on a specified frequency. Whereas the High and Low Pass filters eliminate frequencies at the ends of the audio spectrum, this filter removes a notch of frequencies in the middle. This is often useful for removing a specific offending frequency, such as AC power line noise. Line noise is generally 60 Hz in the U.S., 50 Hz in Europe. The preset options relate to common power line frequencies. If your source suffers from line noise, try one of these settings first. If you are unable to effectively remove the line noise with the preset, or if your source has different frequency noise, the Custom option may be helpful. 85 86 Chapter 6: Pre-processing Custom Notch Settings The Custom option lets you specify the center of the frequency notch you are removing and the total width of the frequencies removed. Ideally, use as narrow a width as possible, so that the Notch filter does not remove other parts of the audio. The Custom setting also allows you to specify how many overtones are removed. Overtones are frequencies that are multiples of the base frequency. For example, AC power line noise is 60 Hz in the US; in practice, its overtones (120 Hz, etc.) are significant, as well. Choosing two overtones when removing a 60 Hz hum may be more effective than simply removing the base frequency. Experiment to determine the best settings when using the Notch filter. Start with no overtones and a low-width setting while targeting the main noise frequency. After you find the frequency of the main noise, expand the width until you eliminate the noise. If higher-pitched noise is audible, try adding overtones to eliminate it. Reverb The Reverb filter produces the effect of sound reverberating through a room. This can make the audio sound as if it were recorded in a large room or auditorium. Many producers add slight amounts of reverb to their mixes in order to make the audio sound richer and more pleasant. Unlike the other audio filters in cleaner, reverb actually adds frequencies to the audio track, instead of removing them. Using the Reverb filter may improve the subjective quality of the audio but make your material harder to encode. For the best results, experiment to determine what you like best with your material. Reverb Custom Controls Use the Reverb filter to sweeten the sound. •Decay — controls how fast the reverberations fade out, which alters the apparent size of the room. Higher values equate to a larger room, which generates a longer delay between reverberations and a slower reverb decay time. Values in the 50–70 range are often good starting points. •Mix — controls how much the original signal is mixed with the reverb signal to make the final output. Higher values add more of the reverb signal and make the reverb effect more pronounced. Often this slider has a greater effect on the total reverb than the Decay slider. Values from 10–30 are often good starting points. At high values, this filter can become more of a special effect rather than a subtle enhancement. The Audio Tab Experimenting with Audio Filters When applying audio filters to your material, it is often necessary to experiment to find the right mix of filters and settings. In order to really hear subtle noise and compression artifacts in the audio, you should invest in a pair of high-quality headphones or audio monitors. It is often difficult to determine the best audio-processing parameters if the only reference you have is low-fidelity speakers, which often mask audio flaws. Listen to your final audio on your target machine speakers to understand how it sounds to your listeners. First, test your settings without audio compression, so that you hear only the actual results of the filters without compression artifacts masking the changes. An easy way to do this is to create an audio setting that creates the same kHz and bit-depth audio as the final piece but has the codec set to None. Experiment on a short section of the audio, instead of on the entire file. This speeds up processing while you try different filters and parameters. To experiment on a short section of audio: 1. Set your In and Out points to a representative short section of material (5 to 10 seconds is usually a good length). 2. Select an audio codec and compression parameters for the file. 3. Click Start to make a short test segment. 4. Play the segment in the Output window to hear how the selected filters affect the audio quality. 5. For comparison, play the audio in the Project window to hear the original audio quality. 6. In the Preferences dialog box, click the check box to activate the Only play selection between in & out option. This plays the same portion of the movie displayed in the Output window. 7. Adjust the compression parameters until you are satisfied with the sound quality and click Apply. 8. In the Project window, choose Edit>Clear In/Out Points to encode the entire file. Control- click the Project window to choose Clear In/Out Points using contextual menus. 9. Process the file. 10.Double-check the same short section of the material to make sure it still sounds acceptable after compression. If you hear any objectionable artifacts, you may want to modify your filters to try to help mask or reduce these artifacts. 87 88 Chapter 6: Pre-processing Begin/End Tab The Begin/End tab has pre-processing options including: Video Fade To create a video fade, check the box next to the fade option you want, then enter a time in the seconds field. You can specify decimal times as well as whole numbers. Fade colors are set using the pop-up menu. Your options are Black, White, Gray and Color. If you choose Color, cleaner brings up the standard Mac OS color palette and lets you select a color. Audio Fade The Audio Fade In option causes the audio to start at silence and smoothly increase until it is the normal volume for your movie. The Audio Fade Out option does the reverse at the end of a movie. It is often best to have audio fades accompany video fades. As with video fades, you can use decimal times. Even if your video doesn’t fade, a very short audio fade will help avoid pops at the beginning and end of the movie. Usually .1–.5 seconds works well. In Point Allows you to set a source time to begin encoding. Out Point Allows you to set a source time to End encoding. Formats Video Audio Read Read DV AIFF MPEG-1 AU MPEG-2 Audio-CD QuickTime DV Video for Windows (AVI) MP3 Write DV MPEG-1 QuickTime Sound Designer II WAV MPEG-2 Write MPEG-4 AIFF QuickTime AAC RealSystem DV Video for Windows (AVI) MP3 Windows Media (WMV) QuickTime Kinoma (PDB) RealSystem System 7 Sound WAV Windows Media (WMA) 90 Chapter 7: Formats Still Image Animation and 3-D Read Read BMP Animated GIF GIF Flash JPEG/JFIF FLC/FLI MacPaint PICS Photoshop Series of stills PICT PNG QuickDraw GX Picture QuickTime Image File (QTIF) Silicon Graphics Image File Targa Image File (TGA) TIFF Write BMP JPEG/JFIF PICT PNG QuickTime Image File (QTIF) Write FLC Image Sequence QuickTime QuickTime QuickTime is Apple's multimedia and streaming media architecture. It is widely used for both authoring and delivery. For example, many video editing systems use QuickTime as the base format, and the majority of title developers deliver CD-ROM content with QuickTime. QuickTime is also popular for streaming video. See“QuickTime Streaming” on page 97. QuickTime offers a wide range of media types, including synchronized graphics, sound, video, text, music, VR and 3-D media. It also offers a wide range of special features including interactivity, VR panoramas and objects, alternate versions with user-defined criteria, liverendered video effects, URL links and much more. QuickTime has a wide range of video and audio codecs appropriate for everything from streaming to DVD. The QuickTime architecture also addresses media handling of file formats other than QuickTime movies, such as DV, AVI files, Macromedia Flash, and so forth. The basic version of QuickTime is free, and you can also get a free license to distribute it with any multimedia titles you create. See the Software Licensing section of Apple’s Website at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/developers/ for details. Apple also offers a paid version called QuickTime Pro, which offers additional QuickTime Player and QuickTime Plug-in features not included in the free version, such as the ability to save movies from Web pages, and includes a number of useful tools for analyzing already-encoded movies. Preparing QuickTime One of the easiest ways to create a QuickTime movie is to apply one of the cleaner preconfigured QuickTime settings to the project files in the Batch window. You can also make your own QuickTime setting by selecting Format > QuickTime in the Output tab of the Settings window. Of all the supported formats in cleaner, QuickTime gives you the most options and features, which are detailed in the rest of this chapter. When creating QuickTime, you have a range of codecs from which to choose. See “QuickTime Codecs” on page 95. QuickTime movies should be flattened prior to delivery. Flattening enables playback on Windows machines. cleaner gives you several flattening features, including the ability to flatten batches of movies without re-encoding them. See “Flattening Movies” on page 94. QuickTime 3 (and later) supports Alternate Movies, that allow you to produce multiple versions of a file. Files are played according to criteria you set, such as the connection speed. See “Alternates and Streaming” on page 99. QuickTime 4 and later supports server-based realtime streaming. This allows viewers to watch long movies in realtime, as well as randomly access online movies without having to wait for the whole movie to download first. See “QuickTime Streaming” on page 97. 91 92 Chapter 7: Formats Placing files on a standard Web (HTTP) server for progressive streaming instead of realtime streaming is easily accomplished. See “Putting QuickTime online” on page 115. When creating QuickTime files, you have many special options, such as creating Web posters, URL links, high-quality frames, QuickTime Effects, and more. See “Special QuickTime Options” on page 118. QuickTime Scalability QuickTime offers bandwidth scalability through its alternate movies feature. This is generally used for online delivery of different data rate movies, but it can also be used on CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, etc. cleaner makes it easy to create alternate movies, along with the reference file, called a master movie, that points to them. When QuickTime plays the master movie, it chooses the best movie based on the settings the viewer has configured in their QuickTime Settings control panel. You can create as many alternates as you want when encoding the movie and specify the criteria for when particular versions are displayed. This allows for delivery of content based on factors in addition to data rate, such as language, platform and CPU speed. Alternates also allow you to use progressive streaming for some data rates and realtime streaming for others. QuickTime does not actually test the connection when it chooses the alternate movie, so if the viewer has not properly configured their settings they may be shown an inappropriate version. Additionally, QuickTime does not currently address changing network conditions (for example, QuickTime does not switch between alternates during playback). When doing realtime streaming, QuickTime servers can compensate for situations where the user does not have enough bandwidth to play the movie being streamed. For example, the Apple QuickTime Streaming Server first drops frames, then drops to keyframes only, then to audio only in bandwidth-limited situations. Progressive Streaming Unlike the other streaming formats, QuickTime offers scalability even when used with an HTTP server, using alternate movies. Even without a QuickTime Streaming Server, the QuickTime Plug-in can still choose an appropriate alternate version for progressive streaming, which makes QuickTime the strongest format for HTTP streaming use. QuickTime Backwards Compatibility The QuickTime Alternate Movies feature also allows for backwards compatibility. For example, you can create a series of progressive-streaming alternate movies, encoded with Cinepak for QuickTime 3 viewers and Sorenson Video for QuickTime 4 viewers, along with a set of realtime streaming movies for delivery from a Streaming Server for QuickTime 5 and 6 viewers. This allows you to take advantage of a wide range of new features and codecs while ensuring that all QuickTime viewers can watch at least one version. Other Scalability Factors QuickTime lets you use CPU speed as a display requirement. This enables you to deliver higher-quality streams to computers that have the power to display them properly, while also delivering less CPU-intensive versions to viewers with slower machines. Required Software This section provides information on the additional software necessary for QuickTime encoding. Playback To view QuickTime movies, you must have at least a minimal installation of QuickTime. If you are a Mac OS and Windows user, you probably already have QuickTime installed due to its popularity as both a delivery and authoring format for the Web, CD-ROMs, Enhanced CDs, and so forth. You must have QuickTime 4 or later in order to see streams delivered with QuickTime streaming servers. You can download the QuickTime software from Apple’s Website at http://www.apple.com/quicktime. Authoring To create QuickTime movies with cleaner, you need a full install of QuickTime. This is done automatically when you install cleaner, but you can also do a full QuickTime installation by running the QuickTime installer and choosing the Full install option. Delivery Use any standard Web (HTTP) or file (FTP) server to serve progressive-streaming QuickTime. A QuickTime Streaming Server is required for real-time streaming of QuickTime movies. QuickTime Version Compatibility One decision to consider when producing QuickTime movies is which version of QuickTime will be used for playback. 93 94 Chapter 7: Formats QuickTime 4 If you are producing QuickTime 4 files, you can add URL links, use compressed movie headers to reduce download times and use high-quality codecs, such as Sorenson Video and QDesign Music. Viewers can view alternate versions of your movie if you create them. You can add interactivity to your projects and a QuickTime Effects track to your movie that is rendered upon playback. QuickTime 4 (and later) supports a very broad range of media types on both Mac OS and Windows, so you can use text tracks, sprites, and more for cross-platform titles. The one exception to this is MPEG-1, which is only supported under QuickTime for Mac OS. QuickTime 5 If you require viewers to have QuickTime 5, you can use all the QuickTime features present in each of the Settings tabs. You can create realtime-streaming files and use more alternate movie criteria, such as language-based and CPU-based alternates. QuickTime 5 also enables use of alternates that work on the desktop, instead of only over the Web. QuickTime 6 QuickTime 6 includes new Sorenson 3, MPEG-4 and AAC codecs. When installed, these options will appear in the Settings window. Flattening Movies Flatten QuickTime movies before they are distributed. Flattening a movie does three things: •Makes the movie self-contained. •Makes the movie a single-fork file, so that it works on a Windows or Mac OS computer (Mac OS files have two forks where data is stored). •Optimizes the movie for playback by interleaving the media and putting the Table of Contents at the beginning of the file to make fast start work. You normally do not have to worry about flattening movies because all of cleaner’s built-in QuickTime settings do it by default. Sometimes you need to flatten an existing movie without processing it. If you edit a movie with QuickTime Player, for example, by replacing its audio track with a different one and saving the result, the movie is incorrectly interleaved and is not viewable online until it is entirely downloaded. Therefore, you should flatten any movies that were altered in any way after processing prior to distribution. To address this, cleaner makes it easy to flatten existing movies. You can make flattened copies of movies, or you can flatten the original movies in place. QuickTime Using the Flatten Only Setting To create a flattened copy of a movie, process the movie with the preconfigured Flatten Only setting in the QuickTime folder just as you would process any movie with any other setting. If you choose this option, cleaner flattens the movie without re-encoding it and puts a flattened copy in the destination for that item. To create your own setting to only flatten a movie, check the Flatten Only option in the Tracks tab. This allows you, for example, to assign alternate movie criteria to movies that are already encoded without having to re-encode them. For more details, please see “Making Alternates from Encoded Movies” on page 106. QuickTime Codecs QuickTime is an open standard with many built-in codecs. There are also additional codecs available from third parties, such as Sorenson Video codec Developer Edition. There are essentially two types of QuickTime codecs. Authoring codecs (M-JPEG, P-JPEG) — used during capturing and editing and not used for actually distributing content to viewers. Authoring codecs are used for “intermediate” production and storage. Delivery codecs (MPEG-4, AAC)— used for presenting movies to viewers. Do not reprocess files encoded with a delivery codec, because this decreases quality. Capture and Author Codecs When capturing video, use the codec specified in your capture system documentation. During editing and effects, use your specific capture system codec. For truly lossless production, such as rendering After Effects projects, use the Animation codec at 100% quality. If you do not have a dedicated capture system with its own codec, use the Photo-JPEG codec at a high-quality setting. This produces smaller files than the Animation codec and is close to lossless. You can also use M-JPEG (either A or B) for full-frame interlaced material. Web Codecs For progressive or realtime -streaming delivery over a network, use Sorenson Video 3 or MPEG-4. For Web audio, use MP3 or AAC for music and mixed audio. Note: MPEG-4 and AAC is compatible with QuickTime 6 only. 95 96 Chapter 7: Formats CD-ROM Codecs For delivery on CD-ROM, use Sorenson Video unless you’re targeting slow machines. For slow CPUs, Cinepak is a safe choice. For audio on CD-ROM, MP3 or IMA works well. DVD-ROM Codecs For DVD-ROM delivery, good choices are Sorenson Video or MPEG. For DVD-Video, you must use MPEG-2, which is not a QuickTime codec. See “MPEG” on page 135. MP3 Unlike consumer MP3 encoders/rippers, cleaner includes a professional MP3 encoder created by Fraunhofer, one of the inventors of the MP3 format. cleaner allows you to use MP3s in the audio tracks of QuickTime movies by selecting MP3 from the Audio tab > Codec. For more information on MP3 files, see “MP3” on page 139. AAC The QuickTime 6 AAC codec builds on new signal processing technology from Dolby Laboratories and includes true VBR audio encoding. The characteristics of AAC include: • Perceptual audio codec, similar to MP3 • Multichannel capability • “Indistinguishable”audio quality that is, you can take an encoded file and the source from the encoded file and you should not be able to tell the difference over a stereo system. AAC Low Complexity requires 96 kbps per channel. MP3 requires at least 128 kbps per channel. Audio-only movies QuickTime is often used to deliver audio-only streams. To create an audio-only QuickTime file: 1. In the Tracks tab of the Settings window, uncheck all options except Audio. All video-related tabs will be hidden. 2. Select the encoding and audio processing parameters in the Audio tab. 3. Process the file as normal. You can embed and serve this file exactly as you would any other QuickTime movie. For more details on audio processing, see “The Audio Tab” on page 80. QuickTime QuickTime movie suffix The standard QuickTime suffix is .mov — using this suffix is very important for online movies. To add this suffix to movies, use the Suffix option in the Output tab of the Settings dialog. Do not use .qt as the suffix. This is incorrect and may cause problems with online QuickTime movies. QuickTime Streaming In addition to progressive streaming (a.k.a. HTTP streaming), QuickTime 4 and later support realtime streaming with a QuickTime Streaming Server. You can use alternate movies with QuickTime Streaming. See “Alternates and Streaming” on page 99. Preparing Movies for Real-Time Streaming When processing files for real-time streaming, there are a few things you should do differently than when processing files for progressive streaming or CD-ROM use. To prepare a movie for real-time streaming, simply check the Prepare for Streaming Server option in the Output tab of the Settings window. This option automatically sets the “hinting” instructions that tell the QuickTime Streaming Server how and when to send packets of media over the Internet. cleaner hints any file that has the Prepare for Streaming Server option checked in the Output tab. Note: A file prepared for realtime streaming also works for progressive streaming from a Web server. But because QuickTime hint tracks make the movie larger, you should uncheck Prepare for Streaming Server when creating movies for progressive streaming. Force Block Refresh The Force Block Refresh rate determines how many seconds elapse before the entire image is reconstructed if previous image data is missing. Image loss frequently occurs when viewers randomly access a different portion of the movie, such as fast forwarding, or from data loss over the network. As sections of the video change over time, the codec automatically draws the temporally different parts of the image. The Force Block Refresh option makes the codec update parts of the video that are not changing on their own. The effect of image loss and block refresh is rather distinctive when you watch a streaming video. Often the image starts totally black. As the video is streamed in, areas of movement are rapidly drawn, while static sections are slowly drawn over time. This often looks like some sort of high-tech, blocky fade-in transition. 97 98 Chapter 7: Formats Note: As of this writing, only H.263 and the Developer Edition of the Sorenson Video codec support this streaming option. H.263 calls this option Cycle Intra Macroblocks, and it is available through its Options dialog in the Encode tab. Lower refresh values result in shorter delays between when the viewer starts to see the image and when the image is fully drawn. However, shorter refresh values generally produce lower overall image quality because more refresh data must be included in the stream. Generally, you should always use the Force Block Refresh option, especially on content that mixes high-action and static material. Since high-action content automatically refreshes, there is no wasted bandwidth on block refreshing. Static content, such as interviews or “talking head” videos, benefits most from a block refresh because parts of the image may not change for a long period of time. A value of 2–5 seconds is often a good starting point with static material. We suggest you experiment to determine the optimal settings for your material and personal preferences. Note: Force Block Refresh should never be used with local or progressive-streaming movies because it wastes bandwidth. Alternates Alternates Alternate movies are primarily used to optimize the viewing experience for a wide range of viewers. Alternates work with both progressive-streaming and realtime-streaming QuickTime, as well as on the desktop with CD-ROM and DVD-ROM projects. With alternates, you can create multiple versions of a movie and set criteria for which version is played. For example, you might make a movie that has a 28.8 modem version, an ISDN version and a T1 version. Depending on the viewer’s connection speed, they are automatically shown the version of the movie with the most appropriate data rate for their connection. This allows you to present high-quality versions of movies to viewers with high-speed connections while providing modem users with an acceptable experience at the same time. Fallbacks A fallback is the alternate movie or image displayed by the QuickTime Plug-in if it is not capable of displaying any versions of the movie. Alternates and Streaming QuickTime allows you to intermix real-time streaming and progressive-streaming alternates within the same alternate group to provide the optimal experience for a range of viewers. Often, it works well to make the modem alternates of a progressive-streaming movie and the higher-bandwidth alternates (ISDN and above) realtime streaming. With progressive-streaming files, cleaner instructs the QuickTime Plug-in to look for the alternates in the same folder as the master movie. As long as you keep the alternates in the same folder as the master movie, you do not need to do anything special with the alternates. See “Manually Specifying Paths to Alternate Movies” on page 108 if you don’t want them stored in the same folder as the master movie. With real-time streaming files, cleaner instructs the QuickTime Plug-in to look for the streaming alternates in the folder on the QuickTime Streaming Server that you specified in the dialog box that appears the first time encoding begins. If necessary, you can change this location in the Preferences dialog under the Edit menu. 99 100 Chapter 7: Formats All QuickTime movie and QuickTime image (QTIF) settings have an Alternate tab. You can use this tab to specify the criteria that the viewer’s QuickTime Plug-in uses to determine which version of the movie to display. Connection The connection you specify corresponds to the connection specified in the viewer’s QuickTime Settings control panel. This option allows you to create different versions of a movie that are displayed depending on viewers’ connections to the Internet. Language You can specify which language is required for displaying an alternate. This feature is useful if you have multilingual versions of a movie and want a specific version displayed depending on the language chosen in the OS. Platform You can choose whether the movies are played on Any Platform or on Mac OS Only. If you are creating streaming video for the Internet, you should choose the Any Platform option, since you will likely have users of both Mac and Windows platforms viewing your Website. There’s a little trick to creating movies that look good on both Mac and Windows. See “Using Alternates to Adjust for Gamma Differences” on page 111. Alternates Quality The Quality option lets you specify which movies within a group are more desirable if the user has met the other display requirements. The QuickTime Plug-in always displays the highestquality movie possible, so it picks the movie with a quality setting of 6 over one with a setting of 5 if it can play both versions. You should specify quality settings for all the alternates so the QuickTime Plug-in knows which version to display. For example, if you make three versions of a movie at different data rates, use the Quality panel to give preference to the version with the highest data rate. Thus, if a viewer has a high-speed connection and can view any version, the QuickTime Plug-in displays the alternate with the highest data rate. Computer Power The Computer Power option lets you specify the minimum CPU power (speed) required to play the movie. This is very helpful if you are creating higher-bandwidth, more demanding movies. Computer power is specified as a rating between 100 and 500. A given computer rating is determined by tests run by QuickTime during initialization and depends on the CPU speed, system bus and other factors affecting video playback. The higher the number, the faster the computer that is required to view the movie. You can enter a specific number in the field provided or choose from the list of common computer powers from the menu to the right of the field. QuickTime Version This option lets you specify which version of QuickTime is required to view the alternate. Server Path The Server Path option lets you manually specify the location of an alternate movie. See “Manually Specifying Paths to Alternate Movies” on page 108 for more details. 101 102 Chapter 7: Formats Creating Alternates Creating movie alternates with cleaner is easy. As cleaner creates the different versions of the original file, it organizes them in a new folder, creates the HTML for embedding the movies and makes a ReadMe file to explain what to do with the files. You can create alternates of one source or manually group more than one source movie in the Batch window to make alternates. You can even make alternates out of already-encoded movies without re-encoding them. When you create alternates, you can manually create a fallback or globally specify an image or text message that you want displayed to anyone without the required version of QuickTime. Creating Alternates of One Source Alternates are frequently used to make different versions of the same movie at different data rates. To make alternates from one source: 1. Select the project in the Batch window. 2. Double-click the project Settings column to open the Settings dialog box. Alternates 3. Specify alternate criteria in the Alternate tab for each setting you want to assign. In this example, the connection speed of each alternate is set to equal the connection speed of the setting. This will cause the viewer’s player to download and play the correct alternate. Note: The alternate connection speed will normally default to the setting speed. Use the Shift or a key to select more than one setting in the Setting list. 103 104 Chapter 7: Formats 4. Select the settings that you assigned alternate criteria to. 5. Press the Alternates button at the bottom of the Settings dialog box. 6. cleaner produces one alternate for each setting selected. Alternates Each of these settings is applied to the original source movie. cleaner then groups the versions together in the Batch window with a blue bar that signifies that the connected movies are all part of the same alternate movie group. When cleaner processes the batch, it encodes each version of the movie with the selected setting and creates a master movie to embed in your site. It places the master movie and the alternates in a folder with the same name as the source movie, minus any spaces, slashes or other nonstandard characters. Creating Alternates from Multiple Sources In addition to making alternate movies from one source file, you can use multiple sources to create alternates. Simply add all the source movies to the Batch window. Specify settings for each project separately, making sure that the criteria in the Alternate tab are appropriate for the different sources. Once all the projects have settings assigned, select all the projects in the Batch window and choose Batch > Group QuickTime Alternates or press aG. This links all the selected projects together with a blue bar on the left side of the Batch window. Once the movies are grouped, you can process them as usual. As with the other methods of creating alternates, cleaner produces a folder containing the master movie and the alternates. If you need to ungroup a source movie from an alternate group, choose Batch > Ungroup QuickTime Alternates or press aU. 105 106 Chapter 7: Formats You can remove a project entirely from the batch even if it is grouped. To remove a project from the Batch window, select it and press the Delete key or choose Batch > Remove Selected Projects. Making Alternates from Encoded Movies Sometimes you may want to create alternates out of movies that have already been encoded. You can change encoded movies into alternates without re-encoding them. To make a series of previously encoded movies into alternates: 1. Add all the encoded versions to the Batch window. 2. Create a new setting that has the Flatten Only option checked in the Tracks tab. 3. In the Alternate tab, set the criteria for playback. Repeat this process for each encoded movie. 4. Group the movies by choosing Batch > Group QuickTime Alternates. When you process the batch, the movies are flattened so that they are playable on Windows machines, but are not re-encoded. cleaner renames the flattened movies and places them in a folder along with the master movie. Organizing Alternates To help keep things organized when making alternate movies, cleaner creates a folder with the master movie name, minus any suffixes or characters that do not work on a Web server. A ReadMe file, HTML and up to two subfolders that contain your movies are placed in this folder. The Upload to HTTP Server folder contains the master movie and any progressive-streaming alternates. If you are making real-time streaming alternates, a folder labeled Upload to Streaming Server contains the alternates. You can have alternate movie file names up to 31 characters long. To help make it clear which alternate movie is which, an underscore is added to the end of the name, plus data rate criteria, and then the standard .mov suffix. _MSTR is added to the end of the master movie to make it clear which file should be embedded in your Web page. If you are making real-time streaming alternates, _S is added to the ends of their names. Alternates Readme File A text file is created with each alternate group. This file contains: •The name of each alternate •The criteria set for its display •The correct path to the alternate •Other useful information The text file is placed in the main alternate folder and is labeled with the name of your movie and _README.txt appended to the end of the file. Give this text file to your System Administrator or Webmaster along with your movies to aid them in putting the streaming versions in the correct location. Progressive streaming alternates If you are encoding a movie called Presentation.mov as a QuickTime progressive-streaming movie with the alternates Small, Medium, Large and Full Screen, cleaner creates the following items in a folder labeled Presentation: ReadMe.txt Folder titled Upload to HTTP Server The Upload to HTTP Server folder contains: Presentation.html Presentation_56k.mov Presentation_256k.mov Presentation_768.mov Presentation_T1.mov Presentation_MSTR.mov To include the progressive-streaming files on your site, embed the master movie, which ends in _MSTR, in your Web page. You can either use the Presentation.html created for you or use your own code with any QuickTime-compatible Web-page editor to embed the movie in your Web page. Then upload the master movie, the alternates and the Web page to the same folder on your HTTP server. 107 108 Chapter 7: Formats Real-time streaming alternates If you are making a set of QuickTime Streaming files for Presentation.mov with the same settings, cleaner creates the following items in the Presentation folder: ReadMe.txt Presentation.html Folder titled Upload to HTTP Server Folder titled Upload to Streaming Server The Upload to HTTP Server folder contains: Presentation_MSTR.mov The Upload to Streaming Server folder contains: Presentation_288_S.mov Presentation_56K_S. mov Presentation_ISDN_S.mov Presentation_T1_S.mov To include the streaming alternates on your site, embed Presentation_MSTR.mov in your Web page. Next, upload the four streaming alternates, which have the _S in their name, to the exact location on your QuickTime Streaming Server that you specified in the dialog box when you first processed the file or in the Preferences dialog under the Edit menu. You can refer to the ReadMe.txt file to double-check the correct location path to these files on the streaming server. It is important that you do not alter the names of the alternate movies after you create them. If you change the names, the master movie will not be able to locate the alternates and will only be able to display the fallback instead. You can, however, change the name of the master movie. Manually Specifying Paths to Alternate Movies By default, the program assumes progressive-streaming alternate movies are placed in the same folder as the master movie. cleaner automatically creates a relative path based on this assumption when creating progressive-streaming alternates. Alternates However, when you are creating realtime-streaming alternates, cleaner cannot make this assumption because streaming alternates must be placed on a separate QuickTime Streaming Server. Because these files are located in a different location from the master movie, you must specify the exact absolute path to these alternates. The Set Server Path option in the Output tab allows you to specify the absolute path to the alternate version. You can use this with progressive-streaming alternates, but generally this field is used with real-time streaming versions. This path is stored in the master movie and is used to locate the alternate movies. Note: If you start processing a batch which contains streaming alternates that do not have an entry in the Streaming Server Path field, cleaner stops the batch and warns you of this problem. Without an absolute path, a streaming alternate will not work. To specify the path for a real-time streaming alternate: 1. Check the Set Server Path option in the Output tab. 2. Check the Override Preferences option. 3. Enter the path to the location of that alternate version. QuickTime Streaming Servers use the RTSP protocol, so the path should start with rtsp:// when indicating a streaming alternate. cleaner adds the movie file name to the end of the path for you. If you have enabled the Add Alternate folder name to Custom Path option in the Preferences dialog box, cleaner also adds the subfolder name to the path. See “Organizing Streaming Alternates in Subfolders” on page 110. Note: Because cleaner adds the alternate movie file name to the end of the path, it is important that the last character of the path is a forward slash (/). Do not add the name of the movie to this path yourself. This also allows you to use this setting with other movies. If the path does not exactly match the actual location of the alternate, the QuickTime Plug-in is not able to locate the alternate and is forced to use another alternate instead. Therefore, it is critical that you do not rename files or move the alternates to a different location than the one you specify in the Custom Path field. You can refer to the Readme file to see the exact path specified in the master movie. 109 110 Chapter 7: Formats Organizing Streaming Alternates in Subfolders If you are managing a site with many movies, you may want to keep the various alternate groups organized within subfolders instead of keeping all the alternates of the different movies within one folder. This is easy with progressive-streaming alternates because the paths specified in the master movie are relative — as long as the master movie and its alternates are in the same folder, everything works fine. However, when creating realtime-streaming alternates, you must specify the absolute path to each streaming alternate location when creating them. Because this absolute path is built into the master movie, you cannot move them to a different subfolder — they must be in the exact location specified in the Streaming Server Path section of the Preferences dialog or they will not work. To make subfolder organization easier to implement, you can create subfolders for the streaming alternates and automatically include their unique subfolder names in the absolute paths to the alternates. Because the subfolder name is derived from the project file name, you can use the same setting with different projects, and cleaner properly creates paths to the correct subfolders. To organize the streaming alternates in subfolders: Check the Add Alternate folder name to Custom Path option in the Preferences dialog. This will put the streaming alternates in their own subfolder within the Upload to Streaming Server folder it creates when making streaming alternates. This subfolder is titled with the name of the source movie minus any nonstandard characters, and the name of this subfolder is added to the absolute path you specify in the Streaming Server Settings in the Preferences dialog. It is important that you do not rename this folder or the streaming alternates within it. You must upload this folder with all its streaming alternates to the correct location on the QuickTime Streaming Server — you can refer to the alternate Readme file to see where to place this folder on your Streaming Server. Alternates Embedding Alternates Embedding a movie means including it in the HTML so it is part of your Web page. You can use one of many HTML-editing programs that let you embed QuickTime movies to put the master movie on your Website. Just use an HTML editor to embed the master movie as you would any other QuickTime movie. You can also use the embed tag cleaner produces, or you can write your own HTML. Configuring QuickTime Plug-in settings The QuickTime Plug-in is the software that actually downloads the appropriate alternate. You can manually configure the QuickTime Plug-in to your connection speed. Press the rightmost button on the movie controller under a movie within your Web browser. Opening the disclosure triangle displays a pop-up menu with several options. Choose Plug-in Settings to configure the QuickTime settings. You can also set the connection speed by opening the QuickTime Settings control panel. Simply choose Connection Speed from the menu, and choose the type of connection your computer has to the Internet. Note: You do not have to set the connection of the Plug-in to your actual connection speed — you can set it higher or lower to test your movies. Using Alternates to Adjust for Gamma Differences Mac OS and Windows monitors have different gamma settings. In general, images look darker on PC monitors and lighter on Mac monitors. Because of this fact, it is common to process movies with an intermediate gamma setting so that they appear a little light on the Mac and a little dark on the PC. QuickTime alternate movies offer a solution to this problem — you can create alternates that have gamma settings tailored to the specific playback platform. The display requirements for these alternates are a little tricky because the logic in QuickTime only allows for an alternate to be shown on Mac OS Only or Any Platform — there currently is not a Windows Only option. To work around this, you can use the Quality setting to favor the Mac OS Only version over the Any Platform version when the movie is played on a Macintosh. For example, you can make two alternates of your Web movies. If you are authoring on Mac OS, the first alternate might have a gamma adjustment of +30 to compensate for the darker PC monitors and its Platform pop-up menu set to Any Platform. Leave the Quality at a middle value such as 5. For the Mac OS version, leave the gamma setting unadjusted, set the Platform menu to Mac OS Only and set the Quality to a higher value than the PC value, such as 9. 111 112 Chapter 7: Formats When QuickTime displays this movie, it checks the viewer platform. If the viewer is on a Windows machine, the Plug-in does not select the Mac OS Only version and defaults to the lighter version which compensates for the darker monitor of the PC. If the movie is played on a Mac, the Plug-in chooses the unadjusted version because even though it could play either, the quality of that version is higher, and the Plug-in always plays the highest-quality version possible. You can also use this approach to show different content to Mac OS and Windows users. For example, you can make an advertisement that displays different sale items to viewers depending on their platform. Alternate Movie Fallbacks A fallback is the alternate movie or image displayed by the QuickTime Plug-in if it is not capable of displaying the other versions of the movie. The fallback movie is contained in the master movie. There are three methods to designate or create a fallback: •Selecting the Use this movie as the fallback option in the Alternate tab Indicates which setting creates the fallback. If you have more than one setting marked as a fallback, cleaner warns you that there is only one fallback for an alternate group. •If a fallback is not selected, the movie with the least restrictive display requirements becomes the fallback. •You can use Preferences to create a fallback. See “Using Preferences to Ensure Fallbacks” on page 113. Using Still Images as Fallbacks You can designate a still image as the fallback by adding it to the Batch window and grouping it with the alternate movies. All alternates must be QuickTime movies or QuickTime Image Files (QTIF) — you cannot use other still-image formats, such as JPEG or PNG, as alternates. You can also set a still image as the automatic fallback for movies with the Preferences. See “Using Preferences to Ensure Fallbacks” on page 113. To use an existing still image as an alternate, assign a setting to it that has QuickTime Image File (QTIF) as the output format. Choose Photo-JPEG for the codec in the Encode tab. Make sure to group the image with the other movies that become the alternates. See “Creating Alternates from Multiple Sources” on page 105 to learn more about grouping alternates in the batch. Alternates Custom Still Fallbacks An even better still-image fallback can be produced by generating a custom still image from the movie itself and using the watermark feature to superimpose a text message on this fallback image. Create your own QTIF setting. Choose Photo-JPEG for the codec and use the watermark feature in the Image tab to composite a text message. For more details on using the watermark feature, see “Watermarking Video and Images” on page 73. To choose which frame becomes the image, open the Project window of the movie, drag the slider to the desired frame, then close the Project window. Using Text as a Fallback Sometimes you may simply want to have a text message displayed to viewers who do not have the needed software installed. You can manually create a still image containing the text message with your favorite image editor and use this still as the fallback as described in the previous section. On Windows, you cannot use a QuickTime text track as a fallback because text tracks are not fully supported under older versions of QuickTime for Windows. Using Preferences to Ensure Fallbacks To make sure you always have a fallback, you can set a global preference to set a text message or picture as the fallback. The Preferences dialog box has several different options for automatically generating fallbacks. the options are: •Use image as needed •Use text as needed •Always use image •Always use text •None Set this preference to Use image as needed or Use text as needed. If no alternate in a movie is compatible with QuickTime 2, then cleaner automatically adds a text message or image as the fallback. You can specify this text or image with the Set button in the Preferences dialog. By default, cleaner contains a simple text message as a global fallback. 113 114 Chapter 7: Formats If you choose Use image as needed or Use text as needed, cleaner checks each alternate movie to see if a QuickTime 2-compatible version is present. If so, it uses the least-restrictive version as the fallback instead of the text or image defined in the preferences. Thus, both options work well as a “safety net” in case you do not have a fallback, but these options do not override any fallbacks you manually create. If you always want a particular text message or still image to be used as the fallback, even if you have a QuickTime 2-compatible version in one of the alternates, you should choose Always use image or Always use text. These options always override the manual fallbacks, so every movie always has the text or image you specify in the Preferences dialog as the fallback. If you do not want cleaner automatically doing anything with the fallbacks, choose the None option in the Preferences dialog. Single version fallback Sometimes, you may want to make a single version of a streaming movie. This poses a problem for viewers with older versions of QuickTime installed. If only a streaming version is available, these viewers see a broken QuickTime Plug-in icon, and they won’t know that they need QuickTime 4 or later to view the movie. To avoid this problem, you can create a fallback movie — a single-frame movie that informs viewers that they must install a more recent version of QuickTime to view your movie. This is very similar to an alternate movie fallback, but it is referenced in the QuickTime embed command instead of in a reference movie. To produce this special fallback movie when using a single version of a realtime-streaming movie, turn on the Create HTML option in the Output tab of the Settings dialog. cleaner creates the embed HTML and also the single-frame fallback movie that is displayed for viewers without QuickTime 4 or later installed. The movie, QuickTime4_Required.mov, is only created once per destination folder. cleaner only creates this fallback movie in the single-version case when you enable the Create HTML option. See “Embedding Real-Time Streaming QuickTime” on page 116 for more details on how to embed the fallback and streaming movies on your site. Putting QuickTime online Putting QuickTime online Putting QuickTime online is relatively simple. Generally, we recommend that you have cleaner create the HTML embed tags which you use to include the movies in your Web page If you are working with progressive-streaming movies, you simply upload the modified Web page, the movie and its alternates (if any) to the same folder on your HTTP server. For more information, see “Embedding Progressive-Streaming QuickTime” on page 116. If you are making realtime-streaming movies or have streaming alternates, you’ll need to upload these to a special QuickTime Streaming Server. See “Embedding Real-Time Streaming QuickTime” on page 116. It’s also important that your HTTP server is properly configured to handle QuickTime. See “QuickTime MIME types” on page 117. Creating QuickTime Embed Tags You can create the embed tags needed to place QuickTime movies into your Web page. This HTML allows the QuickTime movies to be displayed within a page, just like any other graphic element. Note: This is different than the HTML link created for other streaming formats. With other formats, cleaner ’s HTML simply opens the appropriate player, instead of truly embedding the movies as an element within the page. To create the embed tag, check the Create HTML option in the Output tab of the Settings window. Selecting this feature creates a file during processing that contains the appropriate embed tag for the encoded movie. This file has the same name as the movie, except it ends with .html and is located in the same destination folder as the final movie. When you enable the Create HTML option in the Output tab of the Settings window, you automatically create the appropriate embed tag for realtime-streaming or progressivestreaming movies. When making single version real-time streaming movies, you must enter the exact path to the location of the files on your QuickTime Streaming Server in the Set Server Path field provided. This path points from the embed tag directly to your streaming version, but is ignored when you make alternates. The reason this path is not used with alternates is because the master movie is always located on your HTTP server, not the QuickTime Streaming Server. The master movie contains the absolute paths to the streaming alternates, so QuickTime uses the master movie, not the embed tag, to locate the Streaming Server. 115 116 Chapter 7: Formats cleaner adds the movie file name at the end of the path, so it is important that the last character of the path you specify be a forward slash (/). Do not add the name of the movie to this path yourself. If the path does not exactly match the actual location of the movie, QuickTime cannot locate the file. Therefore it is critical that you do not rename files or move the movies to a different location than the one you specify in the Streaming Server Address field. QuickTime Embed Options You have three different display options when creating QuickTime embed tags: •Add Movie Controller — Puts the standard QuickTime controller under the movie when it appears in your page. We generally recommend that you enable this feature. •Automatically Start Playing — Makes the movie start playing once a significant portion has downloaded. •Loop — Causes the movie to play over and over. Generally, you should only use this in special cases. Embedding Progressive-Streaming QuickTime You can place a QuickTime movie, including alternate versions, on a normal HTTP or FTP server. When the viewer accesses this movie, it plays as it downloads. This is often referred to as progressive or HTTP streaming. To place a QuickTime movie on an HTTP server, include the QuickTime embed tag in the HTML page where you want the movie to play. Upload the movie and your modified Web page to the same folder on your HTTP server. See “Creating QuickTime Embed Tags” on page 115 for more details on using cleaner to create the HTML embed tags. If you are making QuickTime alternate movies, embed the master movie (which ends with _MSTR) in your Web page, then upload the master, the alternates and the Web page to the same folder on your HTTP server. See “Embedding Alternates” on page 111. Embedding Real-Time Streaming QuickTime Once you have encoded the QuickTime movies with settings appropriate for realtime streaming, you must upload them to a properly configured QuickTime Server. You must not put your Streaming QuickTime movies on a regular HTTP or FTP server — doing so causes the movies to be delivered via progressive streaming. Putting QuickTime online Embedding Real-Time Streaming Single Versions To embed a single version of a realtime-streaming QuickTime movie on your site, use the embed tag cleaner creates or create your own with an HTML editor that supports QuickTime 4 or later. If you use the HTML code created by cleaner, this embed tag automatically references both the streaming version located on your QuickTime Streaming Server and a single-frame fallback located on your HTTP server for viewers with older versions of QuickTime installed. See “Backwards Compatibility” on page 93 for more details about this fallback file. To embed the single-version streaming QuickTime file, copy and paste the HTML cleaner created into your Web page and then upload the modified Web page and the fallback movie, named QuickTime4_Required.mov, to the same folder on your HTTP server — do not upload this single frame movie to the QuickTime Streaming Server. Once you have uploaded the Web page and fallback to your HTTP server, you should upload the streaming version to the location on your QuickTime Server that was specified in the Streaming Server Paths section of the Preferences dialog or the Set Server Path panel of the Output tab. If you checked the Create HTML option in the Output tab, you can also refer to the streaming server path in the embed tag of the HTML file to see the location. Embedding Real-Time Streaming Alternates If you are using real-time streaming alternate movies, you should embed the master movie in the HTML, then upload the master movie, any progressive-streaming versions and the modified Web page to the same folder on your HTTP server. After you have done this, upload all the real-time streaming alternates to your QuickTime Server in the locations you specified in the Custom Path field in the Alternate tab. You can refer to the Readme file to see the specified locations for each alternate. See your QuickTime Streaming Server’s documentation for more details of placing movies on a streaming server. QuickTime MIME types You should make sure that your HTTP or FTP server has its MIME types set properly to support QuickTime. Adding the following line to its MIME types file may help if it isn’t already properly configured: “video/quicktime qt mov” 117 118 Chapter 7: Formats Special QuickTime Options QuickTime is the most versatile of the major streaming architectures. To take advantage of this, you can access to several QuickTime-specific options, such as Web posters, QT FX tracks and End Frame URL links. Auto-Play in QuickTime Player QuickTime 4 and later allows movies to be marked so that they automatically play when opened in the QuickTime Player. Movies can also be displayed at normal or full size on a black screen when opened in the QuickTime Player. This is the same as using the Present Movie option in the QuickTime Player. On Mac OS, the Present Movie – Full screen option automatically switches the monitor’s display resolution to the lowest settings that can hold the entire image. On Windows, it leaves the resolution the same and scales the movie to fit the screen, which is very computer intensive and may affect the smoothness of the movie’s playback. If you are creating cross-platform movies, you should be careful when using the full-screen option unless you know that all the viewers of the movie have lower-resolution displays. To make a QuickTime movie for automatic playback within QuickTime Player, check the Autoplay when opened in QuickTime Player option in the Output tab of the Settings window and choose the desired option from the pop-up menu. Controlling QuickTime Tracks The Tracks tab allows you to specify which QuickTime tracks from the source movie are contained in the output movie. If you have other QuickTime tracks, such as sprite or text tracks, this tab allows you to specify whether these tracks are included in the movie or discarded. For example, checking the MPEG track option enables a QuickTime source file that contains MPEG-1 to be processed, copied or recompressed into a QuickTime track. The Tracks tab also allows you to copy an audio or video track from the source movie into the output movie without re-encoding it. You can remove various tracks entirely from the movie with this tab, as well as create settings that only flatten the movies instead of processing them. Please see “Tracks Tab” on page 173 for more details. Disable Saving for QuickTime You can disable the saving of movies from within a Web browser or other QuickTime applications. You can enable this option in the Output tab in the Settings window. Movies created with the Disable saving enabled will not work properly within cleaner when used as source material. These files may not display the data rate graph in the Input window and may exhibit other problems during processing. Putting QuickTime online QuickTime Web posters QuickTime Web posters are an EventStream event that allows you to embed a still image in a Web page, which is then replaced by the full-length movie when the viewer clicks on it. This is a good way to decrease the initial page load-time, while giving viewers the option of starting movies manually. Using Web posters is also helpful if you want to put multiple QuickTime movies on a single page. When you create a QuickTime Web poster, cleaner makes two versions of the movie. The first version is a single-frame movie that you embed in your page. The second movie is the fulllength encoded version. cleaner can also create the HTML to embed the single-frame movie in the page. It is important that you use this HTML because it instructs the QuickTime Plug-in to replace the single-frame movie with the full-length version “in place” instead of opening a new window. Be sure to check the Create HTML option when making Web posters if you are not sure how to write the HTML. The full-length movie is not loaded until the viewer actually clicks on the Web poster. This allows the pages to load very quickly, and only viewers that want to watch the movie will download the whole file. To embed a movie with a Web poster, you should embed the single-frame movie, which ends with _PSTR, using the HTML cleaner creates and then upload the full-length movie, the Web poster and the modified Web page to the same folder on your HTTP server. If you prefer to write the embed tag manually, please see Apple’s site for details of the HTML embed tag syntax. It is important that you use the correct syntax — the embed tag specifies that the single frame movie is a Web poster, and if you do not do this correctly, the Plug-in will not load the full-length movie when the user clicks on it. See “Web Poster” on page 212 QuickTime Poster Frames Poster frames are similar to Web posters, except they are used to create a thumbnail for the movie so that they can be easily differentiated in file dialogs and previews, such as in cleaner ’s Batch window. Whenever a poster frame is set, the QuickTime output file will contain a poster frame. High Quality Flag You can set the High Quality flag on a QuickTime movie using the Display High Quality option in the Tracks tab. 119 120 Chapter 7: Formats This flag is used to instruct certain codecs how to draw the image to the screen. For example, a codec might draw the video black line doubled when this flag is off and interpolated when it’s on. Also, QuickTime displays MPEG-1 with all the lines when it is pixel doubled, and the Apple DV codec may also provide a better quality image. The effect of this flag is totally dependent on the various codecs and many of the existing codecs do not currently support enhanced display. High-quality playback may seriously degrade the playback performance of movies depending on the codec and settings. You should test material marked for high-quality playback on the minimum target machine to ensure acceptable results. Compress Movie Headers You can compress the information stored at the beginning of a movie, called the “header.” Check the Compress Movie Header option in the Output tab. Compressing this information may slightly reduce the total size of the file and improve performance when viewed online. Very long files often benefit the most from header compression. Viewing movies encoded with the Compressed Movie Header option enabled requires QuickTime 3 or later. Compressing the header does not affect real-time streaming movies and should only be used for local or progressive-streaming movies. Display Size versus Stored Resolution QuickTime movies can be stored at one resolution and later displayed at a different size. For example, you can save a movie at 160x120 and play it back at 320x240. This is often useful for Web movies because at low data rates the image quality is often better if the image is stored with fewer pixels and interpolated to the larger size when played. This is especially true with Sorenson Video-encoded movies because this codec uses high-quality scaling when displaying movies larger than the stored size. Smaller resolutions generally produce less “blocky” artifacts but may result in “blurry” images. We suggest you experiment with this option to determine the optimal setting for the particular material and data rate. For details on using this QuickTime feature, see “Display Size” on page 184. High Quality First/Last Frames The High Quality Frames option lets you create a higher-quality frame at the beginning and/ or end of the QuickTime movie. This is particularly helpful for movies that begin or end with titles, logos or other detailed images. For more information, see “Begin/End Tab Options” on page 190. Putting QuickTime online End Frame URL Link This feature allows you to embed a URL at the end of the movie. Clicking on the last frame of the movie opens this URL in a Web browser. To use this feature, check the End Frame URL Link option and type in the complete path to the desired URL. See “Begin/End Tab Options” on page 190 You can also link to an FTP address, which initiates a file transfer when the movie is clicked. This is a good way to get viewers to download files, such as demo versions and updates, without going to a Website. Note: Adding an Open URL EventStream event to the end of the movie performs the same function, but the End Frame URL Link is easier to add if it is the only event you want to include in the file. Adding a QT FX track If the selected output format is a QuickTime movie, a QT FX Track option appears in addition to the three Process options in the QuickTime Effects panel of the Adjust tab. Unlike using the Process option to apply an effect, which merely alters the image just like any other filter, adding a QT FX track does not change the actual pixels in the movie. Instead, the effect is rendered by QuickTime Player during playback. This is usually how interactive effects, such as Ripple, are applied to movies. Using a QT FX track may also be a better method of applying filters, such as Film Noise, that substantially degrade image quality if applied to the actual video prior to encoding — experiment to determine the best way to process your projects. Rendering the effect during playback takes some processor time and may degrade playback of higher-data rate movies. You should certainly test the movie on the minimum target machine to determine if the playback is acceptable with a given effect. You can only apply one QT FX track to the movie. 121 122 Chapter 7: Formats Marking QuickTime Tracks for RAM Playback cleaner can mark QuickTime movies for RAM playback so that certain QuickTime-savvy programs, such as QuickTime Player or Macromedia Director, play them from RAM instead of playing them directly off the CD-ROM or hard drive. This feature can enhance playback of short, high-data rate clips, as well as allow you to present small movies in your Director projector while the CD-ROM head is seeking the next part of the presentation. To use this feature, check the Preload option in the Tracks tab next to the QuickTime track(s) you want to be preloaded into RAM. See “Tracks Tab” on page 173. Note: Do not mark streaming Web movies for RAM playback because it negates QuickTime's fast start feature and requires the movie to be completely downloaded prior to playing. RealSystem RealSystem RealSystem is a streaming-media architecture developed by RealNetworks. RealSystem offers realtime-streaming delivery from a RealServer. Users can view RealSystem files with a player application available from RealNetworks at http://www.real.com. Important: At this writing, the RealSystem format is not available on OS X. You must run cleaner under OS 9.x to use it. RealSystem is most appropriate for network delivery of audio, video and other media types, such as text and Flash animations. It is less suitable for CD-ROM or DVD delivery due to the more demanding CPU requirements at higher bandwidths. RealSystem files cannot be edited or recompressed once they are encoded into the RealSystem format. RealSystem supports SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language — pronounced “smile”). This language enables RealSystem to synchronize media and actions within a Web page in addition to video and audio. For example, SMIL can control the loading of multiple movies at given times, URL page flips, transitions, text tracks and more. For RealSystem files, cleaner’s EventStream uses SMIL to enable Display Text. RealSystem Scalability When used with a dedicated RealServer, RealSystem offers excellent scalability through its SureStream feature. This lets you create up to eight different audio and video tracks that are specifically encoded for the most common user connections. During playback, RealPlayer and RealServer continually communicate and can repeatedly switch between versions to deliver the highest-quality stream that the viewer connection can support at any given time. This real-time switching effectively handles changing network conditions, such as net congestion. Switching of audio and video is handled independently and you can indicate whether the video or audio should be given preference if the viewer’s throughput drops. In addition to SureStream, RealPlayer can also drop frames and/or degrade the image quality to maintain realtime playback over slower connections. In extreme cases, RealPlayer can omit the video track entirely and play only the audio track. To achieve scalability, RealSystem must be used with the RealServer software. 123 124 Chapter 7: Formats RealVideo 8 RealVideo 8 substantially improves video quality from previous versions of RealSystem. However, RealVideo 8 also encodes slower and is more CPU-intensive on playback than previous versions. cleaner’s default settings automatically choose this codec, so you can ensure the highest-quality video possible for viewers of your movies. Viewers may be prompted to upgrade to the latest version of RealPlayer in order to view RealSystem 8 files. For the latest information on RealVideo 8, visit RealNetworks’ Website at http://www.real.com. cleaner can still create files using older RealSystem codecs, which are compatible with the latest version of RealPlayer. Variable Bitrate Encoding cleaner supports 2-pass variable bitrate encoding for the creation of RealSystem 8 files. cleaner analyzes the entire movie in the first pass to locate “hard” and “easy” sections. In the second pass, cleaner encodes the project using lower average data rates in the easy sections and higher average data rates in the hard sections. This creates a RealSystem file that has the same total data rate as one created using constant bitrate encoding, but usually produces a higher-quality file. Two-pass VBR works best on files that contain both hard and easy sections. Because of the 2pass approach, VBR encoding will take longer than normal encoding. Creating RealSystem Files To create RealSystem files: 1. In the Settings window, choose a preconfigured RealSystem setting from the setting list or choose RealSystem from the Format pop-up menu in the Output tab. 2. In the Player Compatibility menu, select from: •Real 4 (RealAudio)— produces a file that is compatible with the original RealPlayer and later. •Real G2 with 5.0 fallback— produces a file that is compatible with RealPlayer 5 and later. •Real G2 — produces a file that is compatible with RealPlayer G2 and later. RealNetworks puts Real G2 in a higher “class” than the older Real 4 and Real 5 codecs. Selecting Real G2 in the Player Compatibility pop-up menu gives you access to all the codecs that are available for this level of RealSystem codecs — RealVideo, RealVideo G2, RealVideo G2 with SVT and RealVideo 8. If you want to change the codec, go to the Encode tab and select the codec from the Codec menu. Note: If you are encoding a file for RealVideo 8, the Real G2 option ensures that you have access to the RealVideo 8 codec. RealSystem 3. Set the other encoding parameters, such as data rate and frames per second, frame size and video processing filters. Press the Apply button when finished. 4. Press the Start button to process the files. 5. Embed the movies in your Web page. See “Metafiles (RAM file)” on page 127 and “Setting Streaming Server Paths” on page 216 for more information. Choosing RealSystem Codecs While cleaner can encode RealSystem files using the latest RealSystem codec, you can also encode files using the previous versions of RealSystem. We generally recommend that you use RealVideo 8 for all your RealSystem files and only use older codecs, such as RealVideo G2 with SVT, RealVideo G2 and RealVideo in cases where backwards compatibility is an issue. On the audio side, there is a wide range of codecs. These are clearly named according to their bitrate and the type of material for which they are optimized. For example, there is a 16 Kbps Music codec, an 8.5 Kbps Voice codec, a 96 KBps Stereo Music codec, etc. You should pick the appropriate codec according to the data rate of your target connection and the type of content (music or voice). RealVideo data rates Setting the data rate for RealVideo files is different than with other file types. When making a single-stream or SureStream file, you can set the data rate for the video streams in the Encode tab. The data rate specified in the Encode tab is only the video portion of the total data rate. You must add the audio data rate to this number to arrive at the total data rate. For single streams, cleaner calculates this number and displays the total data rate in the data rate panel at the bottom of the Audio tab. Making SureStreams RealSystem’s SureStream feature is used in conjunction with the RealServer and allows you to easily create multiple streams within a single file to handle changing network conditions and different user connections. All the versions of the movie are contained within one large file. You simply place this one file on your server, and the RealPlayer and RealServer communicate to choose the correct stream during playback. To create a multi-stream SureStream file: 1. Click the Encode tab and choose a RealVideo codec in the Codec menu. 2. To enable up to eight streams per SureStream file, check the Stream 1 option. 125 126 Chapter 7: Formats 3. Use the menus to choose a suggested data rate and the maximum frames per second for the stream. Repeat this process for all the streams you want to create. 4. Choose video preferences, such as Smoothest Video or Sharpest Image. These affect the frame rate and resulting image quality of the movie. You can also choose which track will be favored if the network becomes congested. 5. Click the Audio tab to choose audio options for each stream. The stream numbers in the Audio tab are directly linked to the streams you selected in the Encode tab. As with other network audio formats, RealSystem often benefits from dynamic range compression or normalization to limit the peaks to about 90% of total. See “Dynamic Range” on page 83. Downloadable RealSystem Files If you don’t have a RealServer, you can create RealSystem files that viewers can download to their computers and then view with RealPlayer from their hard drive. This is different from progressive streaming discussed in the QuickTime chapter because the entire file must be downloaded before it can be played. You should make sure that only one stream is enabled because multiple streams increase the file size and download time of the file. To create a downloadable RealSystem file: 1. Select a setting from the RealVideo - Downloadable folder in Settings. You can choose from big, medium and small. 2. Adjust the file’s parameters as desired and process the file. 3. Upload the file to your HTTP server. For more details, see “Adding downloadable RealSystem Files to a Web Page” on page 129. Making Audio-Only RealSystem Files RealSystem can easily create and deliver audio-only files. Although it is possible for you to make the original RealAudio files, this is an older format with inferior and limited codecs. For the highest-quality audio-only files, it is strongly recommended that you produce RealSystem files that omit the video stream. To produce audio-only RealSystem files, choose RealVideo in the Format menu and Audio Media from the Stream Media menu in the Output tab of the Settings window. The various video tabs disappear when you choose this option. Select the audio processing and encoding parameters from the remaining tabs and process the file as normal. You handle the resulting file exactly as you would a RealSystem file that contains a video track, so you can still stream it off a RealServer, play it with the RealPlayer, etc. RealSystem Viewing RealSystem Files cleaner cannot currently play RealSystem files. Likewise, cleaner cannot use RealSystem- encoded files as source movies — RealSystem is strictly a distribution format and cannot be recompressed. When you are finished encoding a RealSystem file, cleaner will not display it in the Output window. To view the final RealSystem files, you must use RealPlayer. You can put an alias to RealPlayer in the Helpers folder within the cleaner folder. After doing this, you can easily open the final RealSystem files by selecting them in the Batch window, holding down the Option key and selecting RealPlayer from the Helpers menu. This launches RealPlayer and opens the RealSystem file. For more details on using Helpers, see “Helpers” on page 225. Putting RealSystem Files on a RealServer Using a RealServer enables realtime streaming of RealSystem files. To do this, you must first install and properly configure the RealServer software on your video server hardware or use an Internet Service Provider that hosts RealSystem files. See the RealServer documentation for more details on setting up your video server. Once you have properly configured and tested your RealServer and HTTP server, you can link to the RealSystem files in your HTML pages using the HTML files and RAM files cleaner can create or by using an HTML editor that properly supports RealSystem. Metafiles (RAM file) When used with a RealServer, RealSystem requires the use of a metafile or RAM file. The RAM file is a small text file containing the complete path to the location of the movie on the RealServer. You must create a link to the RAM file in your Web page HTML file and upload it to your HTTP server. When the viewer clicks on the link, the RAM file then instructs RealPlayer to connect to your RealServer and stream the actual SureStream file. To generate the RAM file while processing movies, check the Create Metafile (RAM) option in the Output tab of the Settings window and enter the exact path to the final location of the movie on your RealServer in the field provided. The path to the RealServer always begins with rtsp:// because the server uses the RTSP protocol for media delivery. The path specified in the RAM file is an absolute path because it references media placed on a different server. Note: Don’t include the name of the movie at the end of the path. cleaner automatically adds the current movie’s name to the end of the file name when it creates the RAM file. Make sure the path ends with a forward slash (/). 127 128 Chapter 7: Formats When you check the Create Metafile (RAM) option, cleaner creates a small text file that is named identically to the output movie but ends with the .ram suffix. This file is created in the same destination folder as the output movie. Note: You can use the RealServer RAMGen feature to have it automatically create RAM files for you. See the RealServer documentation for details. SMIL Files cleaner creates SMIL files to enable Display Text EventStreams, such as subtitles and closed captions, in RealSystem files. When you add the RealSystem file to your Web page, you need to create a link to the SMIL file, not the RAM file. When the viewer clicks on the link, the browser downloads the SMIL file instead of the RAM file and then opens the RealSystem file in RealPlayer, making the display text visible. Note: When the SMIL file is created, a .RT file containing the display text is also made. This file must be uploaded to the same directory as the .RM file on the streaming server. Creating RealSystem HTML cleaner can create the HTML HREF that you can use to link to your RealSystem files from your Web page. To create RealSystem HTML: 1. Check the Create HTML option in the Output tab of the Settings window. 2. In the Label field, enter the text you want displayed in your Web page as the link to the movie. For example, you might enter “Click here to play this RealVideo file.” When the user clicks on this text in your Web page, RealPlayer launches and plays the RealSystem file. When creating this HTML, cleaner links the RAM file directly to the movie using a relative path. The RAM file must be placed in the same folder on your HTTP server as the Web page that references it. You can easily change the path within the link using a text editor if you want to place the movie elsewhere on your HTTP server. Note: If you don’t have a RealServer and are creating downloadable RealSystem files, the Create RAM option should remain unchecked to ensure that the HTML created by cleaner links to the actual RealSystem file and not a RAM file. 3. When you’re done processing the project, cleaner creates a text file that has the same name as the output movie but ends with the .html suffix. Note: Many users use a small still image from the movie to place in the Web page above the link to the RealSystem file. You can use cleaner’s still image features to quickly produce a still image for inclusion on your page. See “Making Still Images from Movies” on page 187. RealSystem Placing RealSystem SureStream Files on a Site To include the RealSystem file on a RealServer: 1. Create an HREF link to the RAM file in your Web page HTML. You can use the HTML that cleaner can create to do this. 2. Upload your Web page and the RAM file to the same folder on your HTTP server. 3. Upload the RealSystem file (which ends with .rm) to your RealServer (not your HTTP server) and place it in the exact location you specified in the Create Metafile (RAM) field. Note: If you place the movie in a different directory than the one referenced in the RAM file, or if you rename the movie, you must manually correct the path in the RAM file, which you can do with a text editor. If the path specified in the RAM file doesn’t match the actual location of the final movie, RealPlayer will be unable to find the final file. See the RealServer documentation for more details on including SureStream RealSystem files on your Website. Adding downloadable RealSystem Files to a Web Page To include RealSystem movies on an HTTP server: 1. Create an HREF link to the RealSystem file in your Web page’s HTML. You can use the link that cleaner can create to do this, or you can write your own HREF link. See “Creating RealSystem HTML” on page 128. 2. Upload the modified Web page and the RealSystem file to the same folder on your HTTP server. When the viewer clicks on the link, their Web browser will download the file to the computer. When the file is finished downloading, use RealPlayer to play the file. Note: Downloadable RealSystem files should have only one video track. Multiple video tracks enable the SureStream feature, which is not optimal for desktop playback of RealSystem files. Controlling RealSystem Content Selective Record RealSystem lets you control whether viewers can easily copy movies to their hard drive. This gives you some control over the distribution of your content. If you want to let users record the movies as they watch them, check the Allow Selective Record option in the Output tab of the Settings window. If you want to prevent users from recording your material, leave this option unselected. 129 130 Chapter 7: Formats PerfectPlay PerfectPlay is an option to deal with the potential loss of data that may occur when files are delivered over a network, such as the Internet. When you are encoding RealSystem files, you can specify whether viewers can view the files in PerfectPlay mode or not. RealSystem files encoded with PerfectPlay are compatible with both RealPlayer Basic and RealPlayer Plus, but the PerfectPlay feature only works with RealPlayer Plus. Allowing PerfectPlay during encoding lets the viewer decide if they want to force the file to be loaded in a lossless mode by RealPlayer Plus. This means that if there is a problem with the connection or if the connection is slow, RealPlayer Plus will keep requesting data until it receives it. Viewing a movie with PerfectPlay may take longer, but this option guarantees that the movie will look exactly as you intended it. If you don’t allow PerfectPlay, the user will not have a choice, and the file will always be loaded in a mode where errors are ignored instead of having RealPlayer try to reload problem data. This generally improves the download speed, but users may not see all the frames if there are problems with the transmission. We recommend that you always check the Allow PerfectPlay option and let the viewers make their own decision as to how they wish to view your movies. Allow Mobile Play This feature enables compatibility with certain hardware playback devices for audio-only files. You should generally leave this off unless you have a specific need for this feature. See RealSystem’s documentation for additional details. RealSystem File Suffix You can specify the suffix cleaner adds to RealSystem files with the File Suffix field in the Output tab of the Settings. RealVideo files must end with .rm as their suffix. The RAM file must end with the .ram suffix. Windows Media Windows Media Windows Media Technologies is the Microsoft streaming-media architecture. Windows Media only supports real-time streaming using a Windows Media Server, which is included as part of Windows 2000 Server and Windows XP Pro Server. Macintosh users can view Windows Media files with the Macintosh Windows Media Player, which is available for download at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/. Intelligent Streaming cannot be encoded on the Macintosh platform. You can encode only one video track and one audio track. At the time this manual was written, the current release of Windows Media for Macintosh is version 8. cleaner 6 encodes with Windows Media Video V7 and Windows Media MPEG-4 Video V3 for cross-platform viewers. Windows Media formats Previous versions of Windows Media Technologies used the Advanced Streaming Format (ASF) to encode streaming files for the Internet. Windows Media Technologies 8 contains numerous enhancements, including improved video and audio quality, as well as support for metadata, closed captions and URL links. Windows Media Video Windows Media Video (.wmv) is a subset of ASF that uses a specific set of parameters, including the latest codecs, for the delivery of video over a network. You can create Windows Media Video files by choosing one of the settings under Windows Media Video in the Settings window. Note: Windows Media Video files require an audio track. If you want to create a video-only file, you can set the volume for the audio track to zero. Windows Media Audio Windows Media Audio (.wma) is essentially a Windows Media Video file without the video tracks. Windows Media Audio is positioned by Microsoft as an alternative to MP3 for highquality Web music. The use of the WMA extension allows these audio-only files to be distinguished by audio players as audio files instead of Windows Media Video files. You can create Windows Media Audio files by selecting one of the settings under Windows Media Audio in the Settings window. If the source file contains both video and audio, the video track won’t be encoded. 131 132 Chapter 7: Formats Windows Media codecs Windows Media Video V7 Windows Media Video is a proprietary Microsoft codec that is similar to MPEG-4 and is generally recommended for Windows Media Video files. However, it is also a fairly CPUintensive codec, so larger frame sizes and frame rates may require very fast computers. Windows Media MPEG-4 Video V3 MPEG-4 produces good image quality at low bandwidths. Use this codec if your target machines have older players. Windows Media Audio Windows Media Audio is a proprietary Microsoft codec that is similar to MP3. Creating Windows Media files To create Windows Media files: 1. In the Settings window, choose a preconfigured Windows Media setting from the setting list, or choose Format>Windows Media in the Output tab. 2. Click the Encode tab and choose a video codec in the Codec pop-up menu. 3. Specify the frame rate for the file in the Frame Rate panel. 4. Specify Keyframes and the Video Data Rate. 5. Click the Audio tab and choose audio options for the file. 6. Click the Image tab and choose the frame size of the movie. Important: Data rates greater than 10Mbits/sec and frame sizes larger than 640 x 480 are not supported. Downloadable Windows Media Files You can create Windows Media files that viewers can download to their computers and then view with Windows Media Player. The entire file must be downloaded before it can be played. To create a downloadable Windows Media file: 1. Select a setting from the Windows Media - HTTP Download folder in Settings. 2. Adjust the file’s parameters as desired and process the file. 3. Upload the file to your HTTP server. Windows Media Uploading to a Windows Media Server Windows Media only supports realtime streaming using a Windows Media Server. However, you must also configure your HTTP server to properly deliver the Windows Media metafile. You must first install the Windows Media Server software on your video server hardware and properly configure it, or you can use an Internet Service Provider that hosts Windows Media files. See the Windows Media Server documentation for more details on setting up your video server. To put a realtime-streaming Windows Media movie on your site, you must create the metafile, place it on your HTTP server and upload the Windows Media file to your Windows Media Server. When the viewer clicks on the link to the metafile, the Web browser downloads the metafile, launches Windows Media Player and connects to the Windows Media Server to stream the actual Windows Media file. Metafiles (WVX, WAX) Windows Media uses a metafile, either WVX for video or WAX for audio, to direct Windows Media Player to the Windows Media file’s location on the Windows Media Server. The metafile is basically a small text file containing the path to the Windows Media file on the server. The Web page’s HTML links to the metafile, and you need to upload the metafile and the HTML files to the same folder on your HTTP server. To create the metafile: 1. Check the Create Metafile (WVX/WAX) option in the Output tab of the Settings window. 2. If you set a path to your Windows Media Server in the Preferences dialog, it appears when the Create Metafile panel opens. If you did not previously set a streaming server path, or want to override the default server path, check the Override Prefs option and enter the exact path to your Windows Media Server in the field. Note: Don’t include the name of the movie at the end of the path. cleaner automatically adds this to the end for you when it creates the metafile. However, you should make sure to end the path with a forward slash (/). The path to a Windows Media Server begins with mms:// because Windows Media Server uses a proprietary Microsoft protocol for streaming media delivery. The path specified in the metafile is an absolute path because it references media normally placed on a different server. When you select this option, cleaner creates a small text file that has the same name as the output movie, but ends with the WVX suffix for Windows Media Video or WAX suffix for Windows Media Audio. This file will be created in the same destination folder as the output movie. 133 134 Chapter 7: Formats Creating Windows Media HTML cleaner can create the HTML HREF that you can use to link to your Windows Media files from your Web page. To link to Windows Media files: 1. Check the Create HTML option in the Output tab of the Settings window. 2. In the Label field, enter the text you want displayed in your Web page as the link to the movie. For example, you might enter “Click here to view a Windows Media movie.” When the user clicks on this text in your Web page, Windows Media Player launches and plays the Windows Media file. When creating this HTML, cleaner links the metafile directly to the movie using a relative path. The metafile must be placed in the same folder on your HTTP server as the Web page that references it. You can easily change the path within the link using a text editor if you want to place your movie elsewhere on your HTTP server. Note: If you don’t have a Windows Media Server and are creating downloadable files, the Create Metafile option should remain unchecked to ensure that the HTML created by cleaner links to your actual Windows Media file and not the metafile. When you’re done processing your project, cleaner creates a text file that has the same name as the output movie, but ends with the .html suffix. 3. Many users use a small still image from the movie to place in the Web page above the link to the Windows Media file. You can use cleaner’s still image features to quickly produce a still image for inclusion on your page. See “Making Still Images from Movies” on page 187 for more details. Adding Downloadable Files to a Web Page To include your Windows Media movies using an HTTP server: 1. Create an HREF link to your Windows Media Video or Windows Media Audio file in your Web page’s HTML. You can use the link that cleaner can create to do this or you can write your own HREF link. See “Creating Windows Media HTML” on page 134 for more information. 2. Upload your modified Web page and the Windows Media file to the same folder on your HTTP server. MPEG MPEG MPEG is a standard file format and associated compression algorithms developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) to handle video and audio. Patents for the MPEG technologies are held by several different companies and research departments. MPEG video is similar to JPEG, but is extended to handle motion efficiently. The various forms of MPEG are used for a wide range of video and audio applications, from desktop computer presentations and games to consumer DVD-Video players and satellite video systems. MPEG-1 produces high-quality video and audio streams at approximately 2x CD-ROM data rates. Standard MPEG-1 is full frame rate (24–30 fps, depending on the source) with a quarter size image (352x240, NTSC) and is useful for playback on most new desktop computers. MPEG-1 hardware acceleration is fairly common on higher-end video cards and many new PCs ship with MPEG-1 acceleration built in. MPEG-2 produces high-data rate, full broadcast-quality files that require DVD, fast CD-ROM or hard drives for playback. MPEG-2 playback also requires a fast computer and video card or a hardware accelerator card. MPEG-2 is used for commercial DVDs (DVD-Video) and many home satellite dish systems. Standard MPEG-2 is full frame rate (24–30 fps) and full-screen resolution (720x480, NTSC). MPEG Playback MPEG-1 can be played via QuickTime on Mac OS and Windows Media Player on Windows. There are several other MPEG players that play MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 files. Most machines sold today support MPEG-1 playback. Older machines may do a good job if they are fast enough and/or have a good video card or if they have an MPEG hardware card. Doubling the video to full screen may increase the playback requirements. MPEG-2 is very demanding and generally requires a special hardware MPEG-2 card or a fast computer with a fast video card. Software-only MPEG-2 playback is available as an add-on to QuickTime 6. MPEG Aspect Ratios MPEG pixels, especially those encoded for video device playback, are often not square. Because of this, the aspect ratio must be defined in order to display MPEG video. There are two different ways to define aspect ratio: Pixel aspect ratio and image aspect ratio. 135 136 Chapter 7: Formats Pixel Aspect Ratio (MPEG-1) The pixel aspect ratio defines the proportions of the pixels in the image. Given this ratio and the number of pixels, the MPEG decoder figures out how large to display the final image onscreen. MPEG-1’s display aspect ratio is specified as the pixel aspect ratio, which is the ratio of a pixel’s height to its width. The standard pixel aspect ratio for NTSC MPEG-1 is 1.0950, which means that the pixels are slightly taller than they are wide. The standard pixel aspect ratio for PAL MPEG-1 is .9157, which means that the pixels are slightly wider than they are tall. A pixel aspect ratio of 1.0000 (1:1) is a square pixel aspect ratio and results in square pixels throughout the entire image. For example, if the dimensions of the MPEG source is 352x240 pixels and the pixel aspect ratio is 1.095:1, some MPEG players, including QuickTime, will generally display the image at about 320x240 on a normal square pixel computer monitor (352/1.095 = 321, evened off to 320; the 240 dimension is unaltered). QuickTime compensates for this non-square ratio properly during playback and displays MPEG-1 files undistorted. QuickTime plays standard 352x240 MPEG correctly as 320x240 square pixels. You have to take special care with Windows Media Player, however, because it displays MPEG pixels at 1:1 no matter what the pixel aspect ratio of the source. This makes standard NTSC MPEG-1 video appear wider than it should. Because QuickTime takes the pixel aspect ratio of MPEG-1 content into account, the safest solution for cross-platform desktop playback is to encode MPEG video with square pixels instead of the standard MPEG-1 pixel aspect ratio. QuickTime Player also correctly displays square-pixel MPEG-1 streams, so this works using both QuickTime Player and Windows Media Players. However, some MPEG devices, such as Video CD players, may not be able to handle square pixels properly. Image aspect ratio (MPEG-2) The other method of handling aspect ratio is to define the number of pixels in the image and the aspect ratio of the final image, then stretch or compress the pixels to the needed proportions to match the output size. This is generally how MPEG-2 works. MPEG-2 is usually displayed at 4:3 (NTSC/PAL), 16:9 (HDTV) and 2.21:1 (Cinemascope) ratios. Regardless of the aspect ratio, MPEG-2 is usually stored at a resolution of 720x480 pixels (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL). For example, you might want the viewers to be able to see both a 4:3 and 16:9 version of the movie on a DVD title you are developing. To accomplish this, you generally produce two different versions of the movie. Although each movie is normally stored at 720x480, each is displayed at a different size depending on the aspect ratio you specify. MPEG How the movie is displayed depends on the MPEG-2 player. Generally, players display the movie at the full width of your monitor and leave black letterbox bars on movies that aren’t 4:3. In our example, when the 4:3 version of the movie is displayed on a 640x480 resolution monitor, the image will occupy 640x480 of the monitor’s square pixels since 4:3 is the same aspect ratio as both the computer screen and the movie. Depending on your player, if you display a 16:9 version on the same screen, the image will occupy 640x360 of the monitor’s square pixels, and there will be black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. If you look at the source movies of the project at their full 720x480 pixel resolution, displayed with square pixels, they will look distorted. Objects in the 4:3 aspect ratio version will look too wide, and those in the 16:9 will look too narrow. However, when displayed at their correct aspect ratio, they both look normal. The one exception to MPEG-2’s use of image aspect ratio is a mode for pixel aspect ratios of 1:1. This special case is typically used for multimedia projects, where the video is intended to be displayed on a computer monitor with square pixels. See “Preventing distortion” on page 47 for more information on working with non-square pixel video. Group of Pictures The GOP (group of pictures) is a self-contained unit of MPEG frames, starting with an I-frame and typically ending on a B-frame. Altering the GOP size determines how frequently I-frames are added and is essentially the same as controlling the keyframe rate in a QuickTime movie. The standard MPEG GOP is 15 frames for NTSC (12 frames for PAL) with a P-frame distance of 3 and ending on a B-frame. This means a new I-frame is added every 1/2 second in 29.97 fps material (NTSC) or almost every 1/2 second in 25 fps (PAL). Increasing the I-frame rate by decreasing the size of the GOP has similar consequences to increasing the keyframe rate of a QuickTime movie. Depending on the material, an extremely small or large GOP may cause noticeable artifacting. I-frames, or intraframes, take the most bytes to encode because they contain the entire frame, and don’t contain differences as with P-frames and B-frames. P-frames, or predictive frames, contain the changes between the current frame and the I-frame or P-frame that precedes it. This is similar to difference frames in QuickTime. B-frames, or bidirectional frames, can contain changes from the preceding and/or upcoming I-frames or Pframes. B-frames compress more than P-frames, but they also take longer to encode. 137 138 Chapter 7: Formats The GOP can be either open or closed. An open GOP takes information from adjacent GOPs to improve quality and is best for MPEG-1 streams, but makes random access harder. A closed GOP only uses information from the frames within that GOP, which allows for random access throughout the stream and is required for encoding DVD-Video. Using closed GOPs may produce lower-quality streams at the same bitrate, but the difference may not be discernible at higher bitrates. MPEG Licensing Depending on your use of MPEG, there may be licensing fees due to the companies which control the patents behind MPEG. For MPEG-2 use, the licensing agreement and fees are usually handled by MPEG LA, a company that has secured the necessary rights from the various MPEG-2 patent holders to license MPEG-2 to developers. For more information on MPEG-2 licensing, visit MPEG LA site at http://www.mpegla.com. The fact that you have purchased a copy of cleaner does not grant a license to use MPEG-2 in a manner inconsistent with the MPEG LA Patent Portfolio License. MPEG-1 licensing is not as well organized and defined as MPEG-2 licensing, and it is somewhat unclear what your licensing responsibilities are when using it. You may find helpful information at http://www.mpeg.org or http://www.cselt.it/mpeg. MPEG Audio Layer-3 (MP3) audio also has licensing issues. See “MP3 Licensing” on page 141. MP3 MP3 MP3 is a highly compressed audio format that is very popular on the Internet for the distribution of music. MP3 is part of the MPEG family of compression standards. Technically, MP3 stands for MPEG Audio Layer 3, not MPEG-3 (there’s no such thing as MPEG-3). MP3 lets you store digital audio in much smaller files while still preserving the quality of the original file. MP3 is normally used for audio-only files, but it can also be combined with video. MP3 files are most commonly stored at 128 kbits/sec (approximately 16 KBytes/sec), at CDquality sampling rate (44.1 kHz), sample depth (16 bits), stereo. These settings provide approximately 11:1 compression, which means that a CD-ROM could hold more than 11 hours of MP3 music. cleaner comes with a professional MP3 encoder created by Fraunhofer IIS. Compared to consumer encoders typically found in “jukebox” and “CD ripper” utilities, the cleaner MP3 encoder often sounds substantially better. At 256 kbits/sec, cleaner encoding is considered archival-quality, but at only 1/5 of the size. There is a wide range of players available, both software and hardware. There is also a huge number of MP3 files available online through Websites. Creating MP3 Files Use cleaner with MP3 in the same fashion as you use cleaner with other audio-only formats, such as AIFF or WAV. To create an MP3: 1. Drag the source file onto the Batch window. See “Importing from Audio CDs” on page 29. 2. Double-click on the Settings column of the project to open the Settings dialog. 3. Select an MP3 setting from the list of settings on the left side of the dialog or create your own setting by pressing the New button. 4. Press the Apply button to assign the setting to the project and return to the Batch window. 5. Press the Start button to begin processing. Choosing Encoding Parameters When creating MP3 files with cleaner, you can control a number of parameters. Using the default settings generally produces good results, but you may wish to change certain parameters to make files smaller or larger than the defaults. 139 140 Chapter 7: Formats Sample Rate The Sample Rate is the number of audio samples per second that are contained in the final file. Higher sample rates produce better quality audio with correspondingly larger files. The MP3 default sample rate is 44.1 kHz, which is also the sample rate of audio CDs. Other common sample rates for MP3 are 22.050 kHz and 11.025 kHz for lower bitrate files (below 64 kbits/sec) and 44.1 kHz for higher bitrates (64 kbits/sec and above). Data Rate The main parameter controlling the quality of the MP3 file is the bitrate. The higher the data rate, the better the sound quality and the larger the final file. A bitrate of 128 kbits/sec is a widely used standard for high-quality MP3 files. Variable Bitrate (VBR) Variable bitrate encoding can decrease the size of MP3 files by using the requested data rate for the hardest sections of the file and lower data rates for easier sections. This maintains the sound quality of the final file, while making it smaller than its constant bitrate counterpart. However, the file size of VBR MP3s can vary greatly depending on the complexity of the original uncompressed file. Check the Variable Bitrate option to enable VBR MP3 encoding. Constant Bitrate Leaving the Variable Bitrate option unchecked creates constant bitrate MP3 files. Constant bitrate MP3s use the same amount of data per second throughout the entire file. Speed vs. Quality This menu controls the trade-off between faster encoding operations and the best sound quality. •Normal — with most material, you should get excellent results with this setting. •Highest — produces the best possible results, but takes longer to encode. This is only necessary with very difficult material. •Fastest — Encodes the fastest of all the options, but you may sacrifice overall sound quality. This is best used if time is a bigger consideration than quality. A few other factors besides the encoding speed pop-up menu also influence the speed of the encoder. Fewer channels encode faster, so a mono output will encode at twice the speed of a stereo output. Higher frequencies also take more time — 22.050 kHz output encodes faster than 44.1 kHz. MP3 MP3 and QuickTime If you are creating a QuickTime movie, you can encode the audio track as an MP3. For details, see “MP3” on page 96. Copyright Settings The MP3 format does not currently include rigorous content controls. There are, however, a few parameters that can be set to indicate the desired treatment of the material. Some applications and hardware respect these parameters, but in general, these settings are not real protection against copyright violation. The following parameters are available in cleaner’s Output tab. •Copyrighted — indicates that the file is copyright protected. •Original copy — indicates that this is the original copy of a file. •Private use — indicates that the file is intended for private, not public, use. MP3 Licensing MP3, like the other MPEG formats, has licensing fees for certain types of professional use. The inclusion of the MP3 encoder with cleaner does not grant you the right to create, generate, encode or otherwise modify data or bit streams: To be used, sold, reproduced, published, distributed, disposed of or otherwise marketed via any kind of network, if a user will have to pay a monetary or equivalent compensation for the access, copying etc. of such data or bit stream; For the purpose of broadcast and/or radio and/or multicast service transmission such as but not limited to “Internet Radio” and the like. Contact Fraunhofer IIS for licensing information regarding use of MP3 for these purposes or visit www.mp3licensing.com for more details. 141 142 Chapter 7: Formats DV DV (Digital Video) is a standard digital format commonly used in digital video cameras. DV is a high-quality format that integrates well with desktop systems. There are currently three formats of DV tape: MiniDV, DVCPro and DVCam. MiniDV is the most common and generally is the format used by consumer cameras. DVCPro and DVCam are professional formats. All three share the same or similar file formats. The DV format is far superior to Hi8, S-VHS and other consumer formats. DV is digital, so it does not suffer from generation loss when transferred digitally (via IEEE 1394, for example). A DV copy of a DV tape is identical to the original. Most MiniDV cameras can be connected to your computer via an IEEE 1394 port. IEEE 1394 is also known as FireWire and i.Link. For information on capturing DV to your computer, see “Capturing Video” on page 17. Working with DV Sources Generally developers use DV streams as a source to be encoded into a delivery format, such as QuickTime or MPEG. The DV format uses non-square pixels, which are different than the square pixels of some other source formats. For more information on working with non-square pixel material, see “Aspect Correction” on page 42. Some DV cameras support progressive-scan video. This records each frame as a single noninterlaced image, instead of two separate interlaced fields. Progressive-scan source material often doesn't play as smoothly on television as interlaced material, but is great for desktop and streaming delivery because it contains no interlacing artifacts. You should look for this feature when buying a DV camera and use it when filming for desktop delivery. Creating DV Streams cleaner allows you to export the source material into DV streams for output back to tape. Make your own DV setting by choosing DV Stream in the Format menu of the Output tab in the Settings window. This creates a DV Stream that is compatible with DV cameras. When exporting DV streams, use the Options button in the Output tab of cleaner’s Settings to open the DV Export Settings dialog. This dialog lets you specify the video format (NTSC or PAL), as well as the audio data rate and if the Audio format is locked. Check the Locked option only if your DV camera supports locked audio. Most consumer cameras only support unlocked audio, which costs less to support and offers good audio/video synchronization for most purposes. The DV format defines image size, frame rate, encoding and other parameters — you can’t alter these settings, so there are very few options when creating DV streams. DV Making QuickTime-wrapped DV movies Occasionally, you might want to create a QuickTime movie that has a DV video track contained within it. You can think of this as “wrapping” a DV stream with a QuickTime wrapper. Doing this may be helpful for certain editing purposes, such as combining DV video and/or audio with media types that can’t be stored in DV streams, such as Flash or MIDI. You can create a QuickTime-wrapped DV movie by selecting QuickTime Movie in the Format pop-up of the Output tab and choosing a DV codec in the Encode tab. If you do this, the movie will work on the desktop, but will not work on a DV tape or camera because it is not a true DV Stream. The QuickTime DV codec may not play smoothly except on very fast computers. DV quality The DV codec is very CPU-intensive. In order to reduce the CPU load, this codec has a lowerquality preview mode. This plays better on lower-end machines, but displays very pixelated video. By default, most DV files will be displayed in this lower-quality preview mode. However, when you place these files back onto a DV tape, they will be displayed at their full quality. To view a DV file at full quality: 1. Open it with QuickTime Player. 2. Choose Movie > Get Info to bring up the movie’s information dialog. 3. Choose Video Track in the left pop-up menu and High Quality from the right pop-up menu. 4. Check the High Quality Enabled option and close the information dialog. 5. Save and close the movie. 6. When the movie re-opened, it will be displayed in the high quality mode. When displayed in high-quality mode, DV files will not play smoothly on any but the fastest desktop computers. However, they will play fine when output back to DV tapes. cleaner automatically processes DV source material in its high-quality mode, so you don’t need to change the High Quality option in QuickTime Player except to see how the file looks. DV color The DV25 format (MiniDV, DVCAM) uses 4:1:1 color subsampling for NTSC material, and 4:2:0 color for PAL. The DVC Pro format, which includes DV25 and DV50, has two options: DVC Pro 50 (50 Mbits/sec) offers a higher color resolution of 4:2:2, and DVC Pro 25 (25 Mbits/sec) offers the standard 4:1:1. 143 144 Chapter 7: Formats Video for Windows Video for Windows was Microsoft’s first multimedia architecture and was designed for CDROM use. Although it can be used for professional video and progressive streaming, it has been discontinued by Microsoft and has been replaced by DirectShow and Windows Media. Video for Windows files are usually called AVI files after the .avi file suffix specified by the file format. AVI files are primarily used for audio and video. Technically, the AVI format supports MIDI and text tracks, but these features are rarely used and are not supported by any available players. The AVI file format is limited in many ways and is generally only used when backwards compatibility is required. Required Components for AVI The components required to author and play AVI files are built into Windows. QuickTime can also play many popular types of AVI files on Mac OS and Windows. Additional codecs may be required for certain applications and may be added to your system as needed. Creating AVI Files To create AVI files, apply one of cleaner’s default AVI settings to the source file in the Batch window. You can also make your own AVI setting by selecting AVI in the Format pop-up menu of the Output tab in cleaner’s Settings window and then choosing the desired codec and processing parameters in the other tabs. Codecs Apple Cinepak and Apple None are used for video delivery. If you’re creating an AVI file that will be used cross-platform, Cinepak is generally the best choice. On the audio side, IMA is the best choice. Interleaving AVI Files Video data is written to the disk in segments interleaved with audio data. You can specify the AVI interleave in the Output tab of the Settings window. cleaner gives you the following interleaving options: •1 frame — Also called formal interleaving, this option is used for CD-ROM movies and interleaves the audio between every video frame. This option also pads the sections to 2 KB boundaries. •1/2 second or 1 second — These options are best for network or uncompressed files. Encoding A common question new users ask when encoding movies is: “What setting will give me the best results?” This question implies that there is a fixed set of steps or settings that work for any movie, and that is not true. The settings included with cleaner 6 provide a good starting point, but the only way to get optimum results is to look carefully at your source media and apply the right preprocessing and encoding settings based on the specifics of the material and your delivery needs. This chapter addresses the major encoding parameters, such as data rate, frame rate (fps), keyframe frequency and image size. Producing the best results also involves carefully choosing the right video pre-processing parameters, such as noise reduction, gamma adjustment and deinterlacing. See “Pre-processing” on page 65 for details on choosing these settings. While choosing various movie parameters, make sure that these settings are correct for producing movies that play properly on the target machines. This chapter also discusses the basics of testing the output movie. This chapter gives a general overview of choosing movie parameters. Much of what is outlined here is applicable to the various architectures and formats cleaner supports. However, each architecture and codec may have slightly different options or requirements. See “Formats” on page 89 for details on architectures and codecs. 146 Chapter 8: Encoding Output Tab The Output tab specifies the format of the final file. It also specifies format-specific details, such as fast start for QuickTime. Naming suffixes are controlled with the Output tab, as well as HTML and metafile generation. The Format menu Technologies built in to cleaner Still Image types Contents depend on installed QuickTime components The Format menu is divided into three sections: • Technologies built in to cleaner. • Still Image types. • Installed QuickTime components. The list will change dynamically, depending on QuickTime version and Third Party plug-ins installed. The menu is shown with QuickTime 6 installed. When you choose one of the pre-configured settings in the Settings window, all of the processing parameters and encoding options are set. If you want to modify an existing setting or create a custom setting, you can change all parameters manually. See “Creating a New Setting” on page 59 and “Modifying Settings” on page 60. Some formats have an advanced dialog that expose more controls. Click the Options checkbox and press the Set button. Output Tab QuickTime File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default Windows suffix to the output file for crossplatform compatibility. You can select and change the suffix if needed. Flatten, Cross-Platform, Fast Start To flatten a movie and prepare it for cross-platform playback, check the Flatten, Cross-platform, Fast start option. When you flatten a QuickTime movie, all the movie data is moved into its correct order and edits and references to other movies are removed. Multiple video and audio tracks are flattened into single video and audio tracks for cross-platform playback under older versions of QuickTime. Flattening a movie places the information contained in the resource fork into the data fork so that Windows machines can read the movie. Note: If you just want to flatten a movie without recompressing it, check the Flatten Only option in the Tracks tab. When you flatten a movie, you also make the movie fast start. Files must be made fast start in order to allow the QuickTime Plug-in to play them as they download inside the viewer browser. To make a movie fast start, the data in the file is rearranged slightly, but it does not change the actual video or audio. 147 148 Chapter 8: Encoding Prepare (Hint) for Streaming Server If you are preparing a streaming QuickTime file, you must check the Hint for Streaming Server box. The Options button enables the Hint Exporter Settings dialog. •Make Movie Self-Contained — Always make streaming movies self-contained. •Optimize Hints for Server — Increases the number of viewers the server can support, but almost doubles the file size. •Video and Audio Track Hinter Settings — Click these buttons to access the Hint Track Settings dialogs. Do not change these settings unless you have specialized knowledge of the compressor used and your network parameters. Compress Movie Header QuickTime allows you to compress the information stored at the beginning of a movie, called the header. Compressing this information may slightly reduce the total size of the file and improve performance when viewed online. Very long files often benefit the most from header compression. Create HTML With the Create HTML feature enabled, cleaner creates a file containing the HTML needed to embed QuickTime movies into a Web page. The file will have the same name as the movie, except that it will end with the .html suffix. You have three different options when creating the embed tag: •Add Movie Controller — Puts the standard QuickTime controls under the movie when it appears in the page. Output Tab •Automatically Start Playing — Makes the movie start playing when a sufficient portion has downloaded. •Loop — Causes the movie to play over and over. Note: You can manually change how the movie is embedded by changing the embed tag in the HTML document. Set Server Path When making the HTML to embed QuickTime Streaming movies, you must specify the exact path to the QuickTime Streaming Server. See “Embedding Real-Time Streaming QuickTime” on page 116 for more details. Autoplay when opened in QuickTime Player •In Window — Player will begin playing normally when the file is opened. •Present Movie - Full screen — Player will begin playing in full screen mode when the file is opened. •Present Movie - Normal Size — Player will begin playing at normal size on a black background when the file is opened. RealSystem RealSystem is not supported on OS X at this time. To encode RealSystem files, run cleaner under OS 9. Player Compatibility You can to specify what version of the RealPlayer is required to view the files you create. The codecs that are available to you in the Encode tab depend on what you select in this menu. 149 150 Chapter 8: Encoding Stream Media You can choose whether the output contains video, audio or both. If you want to produce audio-only files, use this option to disable the video. File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default Windows suffix to the output file for crossplatform compatibility. You can select and change the suffix if needed. Allow PerfectPlay The PerfectPlay feature only works with RealPlayer Plus, but PerfectPlay-encoded files are playable with RealPlayer Basic, though this feature is deactivated. Allowing PerfectPlay lets the viewer decide if they want to force the RealSystem file to be loaded in a lossless mode by their player. Viewing a movie with PerfectPlay may take longer, but this option guarantees that the movie will look exactly the same as when you created it. If you don’t allow PerfectPlay, the user will not have a choice. The file will be loaded in a lossy mode, where errors are skipped over instead of the player trying to reload problem data. Allow Selective Record Allows users to record your movie to their hard drive while watching it. If you do not check this option, the user cannot easily record the movie from either RealPlayer or the RealVideo Plug-in. Allow Mobile Play Enables compatibility with certain hardware playback devices for audio-only files. See the RealSystems site for additional details. Create Metafile Creates the RAM file needed for use with a RealServer. See “RealSystem” on page 123. Create HTML Creates a file containing the HTML needed to link the RealSystem files in your Web page. This HTML launches RealPlayer to display the linked RealSystem file. Output Tab Windows Media Create HTML Creates a text file containing the HTML needed to link the Windows Media files in your Web page. This HTML launches Windows Media Player to display the linked Windows Media file. Create Metafile Windows Media uses a reference file to direct the Windows Media Player to the actual Windows Media movie file. This reference file is called a WVX or WAX file and is a small text file containing the location of the movie on the Windows Media Server. See “Metafiles (WVX, WAX)” on page 133 for more details. 151 152 Chapter 8: Encoding MPEG 1 & 2 File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default Windows suffix to the output file for crossplatform compatibility. You can select and change the suffix if needed. Options For most projects, the settings for MPEG-1 and 2 will produce the best output possible. To access the advanced options in the MPEG exporter, enable the Options checkbox and click Set. This tabbed dialog allows you to choose presets or to modify them to make custom MPEG settings. Output Tab General Tab The General Tab is divided into an Options section and a Summary. Pulldown Menu Options include: • An Encoding preset drop down menu that includes common presets. When you choose a preset, its parameters are immediately available in the Summary section. • An Encode audio as pulldown: MPEG-1 layer II. (default for MPEG-1 or 2). .WAV Uncompressed (MPEG-2 DVD authoring). • An Encode Video as drop down menu checkbox. Choices are MPEG 1 or 2. If you change the choice, the encoder will adjust parameters that have to be changed for the format. • A Multiplex checkbox. When enabled, the audio and video data are combined in a single MPEG output file. 153 154 Chapter 8: Encoding Audio Tab Audio Tab The Audio Tab options include: • A Sample rate pull-down menu. 32 kHz — For lower data rate audio 44.1 kHz — For “cd quality” audio 48 kHz — Required for DVD • A Bit rate pull-down menu with choices from 64 to 384 kbps. The higher the bitrate the higher the quality and the larger the output file. • A Format pull-down menu: Mono — Single channel audio. Stereo — Dual channel audio. Joint Stereo — Uses special tools to shrink the stereo file size. Dual Channel — High separation stereo for dissimilar channels, such as a different language on each channel. • An Emphasis pull-down menu. Emphasis is applied to improve the signal-to-noise ratio at high frequencies. Choices include: Output Tab Off — No emphasis applied. 50/15 usec curve — U.S. emphasis standard. CCITT J.17 curve — European emphasis standard. • A Checksum checkbox. Enable for internal error checking. • A Copyright checkbox. Some applications and hardware respect this parameter, but in general, this is not real protection against copyright violation. • An Original checkbox. Indicates that this is the original copy of a file. Video Tab Video Tab When encoding is set to MPEG - 1 The Video Tab options include: • Image size fields and button. You can enter a custom size in the fields or press the Video CD button to enter the standard Video CD size. • Quality/speed pulldown menu. This menu controls the trade-off between faster encoding operations and the best video quality. 155 156 Chapter 8: Encoding •Normal — With most material, you should get excellent results with this setting. •Highest — Produces the best possible results, but takes longer to encode. •Fastest — Encodes the fastest of all the options, but you may sacrifice overall quality. This is best used if time is a bigger consideration than quality. • Standard Radio buttons NTSC — North American broadcast standard. PAL — Used in Europe and other countries. • A Frame rate pull down menu with rates from 23.976 to 60 fps. • A Bit rate pull down menu with presets from 250 kbps to 3.5 Mbps. You can also enter a Bit rate directly in the Bit rate field. • A Bit rate control pulldown: Constant Bit rate — Constant bitrate MPEG’s use the same amount of data per second throughout the entire file. Variable bit rate, 2 pass — Analyzes the entire movie in the first pass to locate “hard” and “easy” sections. In the second pass, cleaner encodes the project using lower average data rates in the easy sections and higher average data rates in the hard sections. This creates a file that has the same total data rate as one created using constant bitrate encoding, but usually produces a higher-quality. Two-pass VBR works best on files that contain both hard and easy sections. Because of the 2-pass approach, VBR encoding will take longer than normal encoding. • An Aspect ratio pull down menu. Defines the pixel aspect ratio of the output file. Set to match the input image aspect ratio. Choices are: Square pixel (VGA) 4:3 (video) 16:9 • GOP pattern — Choose the GOP (group of pictures) format from the pull down. I frames only produces the highest quality, largest file and proceeding down the list of patterns, the file size and quality decrease. See “Group of Pictures” on page 137. I frames only I and P frames only IPBPBPB... IPBBPBB... IPBBBPBBB... Output Tab The Advanced button will open the MPEG - 1 Video Advanced Options window. The MPEG - 1 Video Advanced Options window parameters include: • A Force sequence headers for every GOP checkbox — Allows random access. Required for DVD. • A Create closed GOPs checkbox — An open GOP takes information from adjacent GOPs to improve quality and is best for MPEG-1 streams, but makes random access harder. A closed GOP only uses information from the frames within that GOP. Using closed GOPs may produce lower-quality streams at the same bitrate, but the difference may not be discernible at higher bitrates. Closed GOPs are needed if the stream is to be edited. Some authoring programs require closed GOPs. • A GOP size pull down menu with presets from 1 to 36, depending on selected GOP pattern. • A Search range slider. Sets the sensitivity of the motion prediction algorithm 157 158 Chapter 8: Encoding MPEG - 2 options When encoding is set to MPEG - 2, some Video Tab options change: • Image size fields and button — You can enter a custom size in the fields or press the DVD button to enter the standard size. • A Frame format pull down menu. Set to match the source media field dominance. Interlaced, top field first Interlaced, bottom field first. Progressive • A Bit rate pull down menu with presets from 2Mbps to 20Mbps. You can also enter a Bit rate directly in the Bit rate field. The Advanced button will open the MPEG - 2 Video Advanced Options window. Controls are identical to the MPEG-1 Video Advanced Options window. Output Tab Multiplex tab The Multiplex Tab options include: The Pack size field can be typed in to make a custom size and also has preset buttons for Video CD and DVD. AVI File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default Windows suffix to the output file for crossplatform compatibility. You can select and change the suffix if needed. Interleave Interleaving an AVI file is similar to flattening a QuickTime movie. Video data is written to the disk in intermixed (interleaved) segments with audio data. •1 second and 1/2 second — Use for Network and uncompressed movies. •1 frame — Use for CD-ROM movies. 159 160 Chapter 8: Encoding JPEG File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default .jpg suffix to the output file for crossplatform compatibility. You can select and change the suffix if needed. PNG File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default .png suffix to the output file for crossplatform compatibility. You can select and change the suffix if needed. PICT File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default .pict suffix to the output file for crossplatform compatibility. You can select and change the suffix if needed. QuickTime Image (QTIF) File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default QTIF suffix to the output file for crossplatform compatibility. You can select and change the suffix if needed. Hint Exporter Settings See “Prepare (Hint) for Streaming Server” on page 148. AIFF and WAV Sound formats widely used in professional programs. Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default suffix to the output file for cross-platform compatibility. You can select and change the suffix if needed. BMP File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default .bmp suffix to the output file for crossplatform compatibility. You can select and change the suffix if needed. Output Tab Depth Choose compression color depth. Usually left at Millions of Colors. Quality Choose compression quality. As quality increases, file size increases. FLC File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default .flc Windows suffix to the output file for cross-platform compatibility. You can select and change the suffix if needed. Options Enable the Options checkbox and click Set to open the FLC Export Settings dialog. Choose: •Color table — Mac or Windows system color table. •Motion — Click the Frames per second pull down menu to set FPS. Kinoma The Kinoma Exporter allows cleaner to convert digital audio and video into the Kinoma movie format for playback on any Palm handheld. The Kinoma Exporter goes beyond audio and video encoding, providing control over the presentation of the video including background image, background color, and layout of the elements. Note: The term “Palm handheld” is used to describe any handheld that runs the Palm Operating System. These devices are also known as “Palm-powered handhelds“. This includes handhelds from Palm, Sony, Handspring, Kyocera, Samsung, IBM, Acer, Handera, and others. Using Kinoma Player, files encoded into the Kinoma movie format using the Kinoma Exporter may be played back on devices from any of these manufacturers. To use the Kinoma Exporter: 1. Choose the Default setting in the Settings window. 2. Select Kinoma Player for Palm OS from the list of available encoding formats in the Output tab. 3. Check the Options box and press the Set button. The Kinoma Advanced Settings window appears. The exporter provides encoding settings for video compression, audio compression, frame rate, frame size, audio sample rate, audio bit rate, video bit rate, and audio boost. These settings are selected in the exporter's Advanced Settings window. 161 162 Chapter 8: Encoding The Advanced Settings window is divided into sections. The top level sections are Encoding settings on the left and Custom layout or presentation settings on the right. Encoding At the top of the Encoding settings is a pop-up menu to select the handheld device profile that the encoding is targeted for. These presets are the easiest way to get started. Select the preset that most closely matches the target device. After selecting an encoding preset, the values of the controls in the window will change to match the preset. When changes are made to the elements within the Encoding settings, the Encoding presets pop-up menu will change to Custom, indicating that the settings do no correspond to any of the presets. Within the Encoding settings are two sub-sections, one for video and one for audio. Each begins by presenting a pop-up menu to select the format of the encoded data. This format represents the algorithm that will be used to encode or compress the audio and video. Each encoding format is best suited to a particular device or type of content. Kinoma displays a short description of each format when it is selected. Within the audio and video sub-sections are options that will be applied to the selected encoding format. Not all options are available for each encoding format. Those options that do not apply to the currently selected encoding format are disabled. Output Tab Video Encoding Kinoma offers five video encoding formats in addition to a “none“option which will result in no video being included in the encoded file. Cinepak Mobile — The most advanced video encoding format included in Kinoma. It is designed to provide great quality, high frame rate color video on a wide range of Palm handhelds. Cinepak Mobile is the only encoding format that is appropriate for use in hiresolution display modes such as 240x180, 320x240 and 320x320. Black & White — Useful for content that consists entirely of black and white pixels. It can be displayed on any Palm handheld device. 4 Grays — Useful for content intended for playback only older Palm handhelds that cannot support more levels of gray, including the Visor Deluxe and Palm III. 16 Grays — Appropriate for most gray scale Palm handhelds. It provides good quality and performance. Color - Legacy — A format that is provided to enable color content to be encoded in a format that is compatible with the gMovie Player. Cinepak Mobile provides higher quality and better performance and should be used for all color encoding. Within the video format settings section there are a number of options for controlling how the video is encoded: Frame per second — Selects the number of frames per second of video in the encoded file. Typically this should be set to a value of 8, 10, or 12, which is the frame rate that most Palm handhelds can reliably play. However, at smaller frame sizes or on more recent devices frame rates as high as 30 are possible. Selecting the “best” frame rate option will cause Kinoma to encode each frame in the source movie. This is useful for content with a variable frame rate or at a frame rate not listed in the “Frames per second” pop-up menu. Size in pixels — Selects the size of the frame output to the encoded file. If the aspect ratio of the source content does not match the aspect ratio selected, the source video will be adjusted to fit. For full screen sizes (160x160 and 320x320) the source video's size is adjusted by removing (or cropping) the edges to make it square. For all other sizes, the source video's size is adjusted by scaling it proportionally to fit within the requested size. For example, if the source video size is 640x480 and the Kinoma size preset is 480x320, the image is scaled proportionally to fit and black bars appear on the right and left of the output. Bit rate — This option selects the target bit rate for the video portion of the encoded file. The “Bit rate” option is only available for the Cinepak Mobile video encoding format. Typically the “Bit rate” option should be set to 240, 320, or 400kbps. Larger values may not play back reliably from external storage devices, and smaller values may not provide adequate quality. 163 164 Chapter 8: Encoding Note: Note: Encoding video so that it looks as good as possible can be a difficult task. Because of this, Kinoma includes presets for most Palm handheld devices. The device presets provide good quality reliable results for most common situations and eliminate the need to directly change the encoding settings for most situations. However, it may be possible to achieve better results by making appropriate adjustments to the video encoding settings. Audio Encoding Kinoma offers four audio encoding formats in addition to a “none” option which will result in no audio being included in the encoded file. Uncompressed — Applies no audio compression algorithm to the audio placed into the output file. This format is used for audio played back using the limited audio capabilities of the Palm's Dragonball microprocessor. It is compatible with a wide range of Palm handhelds. ADPCM — Creates audio that is compatible with most Palm handhelds. It is compatible with the same Palm handhelds as the Uncompressed audio format. ADPCM provides good quality compression. Because the audio is compressed, it makes greater performance demands at playback than the Uncompress audio format. CLIÉ Audio — A very high quality audio compression algorithm developed by Sony. It is supported on some Sony CLIÉ handhelds. CLIÉ Audio is the only audio format supported in Kinoma that handles stereo audio. CLIÉ Audio is also supported by the Sony plug-in Audio Adapter. Yamaha ADPCM — Provides about the same compression ratio and quality as the ADPCM audio encoding format. However, the Yamaha ADPCM audio encoding format can only be played back on Palm handhelds that contain a Yamaha audio chip. This includes some Sony CLIÉ handhelds and Handspring handhelds with a Springboard module containing a Yamaha audio chip. Note: Unfortunately because of differences in Palm handheld hardware configurations, there is no single audio encoding format that works on all Palm handhelds. This means that it is important to know which devices the content will be viewed on before it is encoded. The most widely supported formats are ADPCM and Yamaha ADPCM. Note: The speaker on many Palm handhelds is designed to play back only alert tones, not digital audio. As a result, audio playback can be quiet or distorted. This issue is being resolved with many recent Palm handhelds providing better quality speakers and/or a dedicated audio chip. Within the audio format settings section there are a number of options for controlling how the audio is encoded: Output Tab Audio channels — The “Audio channels” pop-up menu controls the whether the encoded audio stream contains mono or stereo audio. CLIÉ Audio is the only audio encoding format that supports stereo. Sample rate — The “Sample rate” pop-up menu controls the same rate that the audio is encoded at. Higher sample rates generally provide increase quality with better reproduction of high frequency sounds. However, higher sample rates also have greater storage requirements and require more processor power at play back time. Bit rate — For the CLIÉ Audio encoding format only the “Sample rate” option is renamed “Bit rate”. CLIÉ Audio is always encoded at 44.1khz. The “Bit rate” pop-up menu selects the target bit rate of the audio in the encoded file. Larger values provide increased quality at the expense of increased storage requirements. Compression ratio — The “Compression ratio” pop-up menu selects how much compression should be applied when using the Yamaha ADPCM audio encoding format. Typically this should be set to 4:1 to give the smallest file size, but can also be set to 2:1 to provide greater quality. Audio boost — The “Audio boost” pop-up menu provides a way to increase the overall volume level of the encoded audio. This can be useful because the built-in speaker on many Palm handhelds is quite small. By increasing the audio level while encoding, it is possible to make the audio sound better during playback on these devices. However, boosting the audio level can also cause distortion of the audio so test carefully after applying this setting. Custom Layout The panel on the right side of the Advanced Settings dialog allows a custom layout to be created for the encoded movie's presentation. The location of the movie can be set, along with a custom background color and even a background image. To enable complete control of the presentation, the user interface of Kinoma Player can even be hidden. In the following sections, each element within the Custom Layout panel is described. Enable Custom Layout To use the custom layout capabilities of the Advanced Settings, the feature must first be enabled. To do this, check the Enable Custom Layout check box. The default setting is not to use a custom layout. When no custom layout is selected, only the movie will be included in the output file. To uses features such as background color and background image, first enable the custom layout feature. Size in Pixels The Size in Pixels pop-up menu specifies the overall area of the custom layout. Four choices are available. 165 166 Chapter 8: Encoding 160 x 160 — This setting works with all Palm handhelds. 320 x 320 — This setting works with all Palm handhelds that support hi-resolution display mode. At the time of this writing, this is only Sony CLIÉ handhelds. 320 x 480 — This setting works with all Palm handhelds with a 320x480 hi-resolution display mode. At the time of this writing, this is only Sony CLIÉ NR series handhelds. 480 x 320 — This setting works with all Palm handhelds with a 320x480 hi-resolution display mode. This setting rotates the layout 90 degrees for playback in “widescreen” mode. At the time of this writing, this is only Sony CLIÉ NR series handhelds. Layout Area The layout area is where the location and size of the movie and background image are set. To position the movie and background image, click on the object to move and drag to the desired position. To resize the movie or background image, click in any corner of the object and drag to the desired size. Show Controls The Show Controls check box controls whether the custom layout area leaves space for the normal Kinoma Player user interface. Uncheck Show Controls to provide a larger area for the custom layout. Note: Files encoded with Show Controls unchecked will be opened in Kinoma Player with no user interface visible. Background Color Click on the color box labeled “color” to set the background color for the custom layout. The background color will be used in any area not covered by user interface elements, the movie, and the background image. Output Tab Choose Image Click Choose Image to select a background image to use in the custom layout. Kinoma automatically scales the image to fit within the custom layout size selected. The size and position of the background image can be modified in the Layout Area. Most common image file formats can be used as background images. The Source File Formats section lists the supported still image formats supported in Kinoma Producer. Clear Image Click Clear Image to remove the background image currently in use in the custom layout. Hinted Movie File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default QuickTime suffix to the output file for crossplatform compatibility. You can select and change the suffix if needed. Options Enable the Options checkbox and click Set to open the Hint Exporter Settings dialog. See “Prepare (Hint) for Streaming Server” on page 148. MPEG Audio Layer-3 (MP3) Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default Windows suffix to the output file for crossplatform compatibility. You can select and change the suffix if needed. Copyright settings are: •Copyrighted — Indicates that the file is copyright protected. •Original copy — Indicates that this is the original copy of a file. •Private use — Indicates that the file is intended for private, not public, use. uLaw Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default suffix to the output file for cross-platform compatibility. You can select and change the suffix if needed. Enable the Options checkbox and click Set to open the Sound Settings dialog. Choose the compression method from the drop-down menu: •uLaw 2:1- A legacy codec used for speech. •ALaw 2:1 - Another legacy codec used for speech. 167 168 Chapter 8: Encoding •64 bit Floating Point - Audio is stored in a raw 64 bit format. •32 bit Floating Point - Audio is stored in a raw 32 bit format. •None - No compression or format change applied. You can also choose Sample Rate, Size, and Use (Mono/Stereo). With the Floating Point compressors, clicking the Options button opens the Float dialog. Endian order is the byte order used for storage. Choose from: •Big Endian - means that the high-order byte of the number is stored in memory at the lowest address, and the low-order byte at the highest address. (The big end comes first.) •Little Endian - means that the low-order byte of the number is stored in memory at the lowest address, and the high-order byte at the highest address. (The little end comes first.) Although readable on both platforms, choose Big for best Macintosh usage and Little for best Windows usage. DV Stream When exporting to the DV Stream format, you have very limited options because the DV format defines image size, frame rate, compression and other parameters. File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default .dv Windows suffix to the output file for cross-platform compatibility. You can select and change the suffix if needed. Options Enable the Options checkbox and click Set to open the DV Export Settings dialog. This dialog allows you to specify the video format (NTSC or PAL) and to choose audio Rate. Select the Locked audio option only if your camera supports locked audio. QuickTime Media Link File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default .qtl Windows suffix to the output file for cross-platform compatibility. You can select and change the suffix if needed. Options Enable the Options checkbox and click Set to open the QuickTime Media Link Settings dialog. Output Tab QuickTime Media Link Settings QuickTime Media Link creates a small XML file that contains the URL of a movie. The file may also contain additional user settings. When the file is opened by a QuickTime player, QuickTime opens the movie specified in the URL field and then plays it using the specified settings. • URL field — Shows the current URL. You can change the URL if you plan to put the movie on a different server or if you want the XML file to specify a different movie. • Type field — Should be left blank unless you are writing your own XML importer. It allows you to override the XML type. • Name and ID fields — Allows you to specify a movie name and movie ID. The movie name is not the filename of the movie. • Volume slider — Allows you to set the movie sound volume, from 0 to 100%. • Fullscreen — The pop-up menu lets you set any of the full-screen modes: half, normal, double, current, and full. • Loop — The pop-up menu sets the looping mode. There are checkboxes for Autoplay, Play every frame, Kiosk mode (disallow save), Controller, and Quit when done. You can enter URLs in the text fields provided for QT Next (the movie to play after this one) and HREF (the URL to load if a user clicks the movie). URLs are relative to the movie URL field. 169 170 Chapter 8: Encoding The Output Defaults checkbox writes the values of all settings to the XML file, even if they are the same as the system defaults. In most cases, however, this has no effect, because not specifying a setting results in the system default. Image Sequence Output as numbered still images by choosing Image Sequence. Enable the Options checkbox and click Set to open the Export Image Sequence Settings dialog. Choose: •Format — Choose the still image format from the pull-down menu. Click the Options button for choices in each format. •Frames per second — Choose FPS from the pull-down menu. MPEG-4 QuickTime 6 provides a new video codec for MPEG-4 video compression. The new codec is ISMA compliant and conforms to the Profile 0 standard of the ISMA specification. It can provide an extremely low data rate of 64 kbits/ second. The advantage that this new codec offers is interoperability with other systems. Interoperability is the primary goal of the new codec. Conforms to the MPEG-4 Video Simple Profile, which supports: • Video at 50 kbps to 4 Mbps • Streaming • Delivery to wireless handheld devices • Stored content • Set-top boxes File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default Windows suffix to the output file for crossplatform compatibility. You can select and change the suffix if needed. Output Tab Options Enable the Options checkbox and click Set to open the MPEG-4 Settings dialog. This tabbed, interactive dialog allows you to change variables and immediately see an explanation of the new setting in the feedback panel. Setting Panel Feedback Panel General tab — You can set the basic video track, the physical size of current movie, and the audio track as necessary. If Basic is selected, the video will make use of the basic settings for MPEG-4 and ensure the widest possible range of playback on MPEG-4 compatible devices. Note that the lower portion of the dialog contains additional description and explanation about the choices that are available to the user. Audio can be optimized for music––in this case, AAC. (Note AAC can handle a full range of music and other audio.) Video tab — You can adjust specific settings for video, such as the number of kbits per second, or the frame rate––for example, 15 frames per second, if that is the rate desired. Audio tab — For stereo or mono encoding. If the user selects music in the basic panel, it automatically selects a high data rate and selects stereo. Streaming tab — Select the type of hinting required, as well as maximum packet size and maximum packet duration. 171 172 Chapter 8: Encoding Compatibility tab — By default, QuickTime produces a generic MPEG-4 stream. QuickTime does not check for any specific layer compatibility features that might be required by ISMA or other organizations. Nor does QuickTime check if the overall data rate of the MPEG-4 you’re producing is any particular data rate. The user can select ISMA compliance, and also select the speed at which you want to stream the file––for example, at a medium data rate. System 7 Sound Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default suffix to the output file for cross-platform compatibility. You can select and change the suffix if needed. Choose the compression method from the drop-down menu: •uLaw 2:1- A legacy speech codec. •MACE 6:1 - A general purpose audio codec built into the Macintosh OS. •MACE 3:1 - A higher quality MACE. •IMA 4:1 - Good for playback on low performance target machines. •ALaw 2:1 - Another legacy speech codec. •None - No compression applied. You can also choose Rate, Size, and Use. Tracks Tab Tracks Tab The Tracks tab allows you to specify which tracks from the source file will be contained in the output file. You can also remove various tracks entirely from the movie. When working with QuickTime source movies containing tracks in addition to video and audio, such as sprite or text, this tab is used to specify whether these tracks are included in the final movie or discarded. You can also create settings that only flatten QuickTime movies instead of processing them. Flatten Only Option (Quicktime) The Flatten Only option is a QuickTime feature that allows you to flatten a QuickTime movie without processing any of its tracks. Process The Process option causes the selected track to be processed and compressed when added to the final output movie. This is normally how you handle video and audio tracks. It’s possible to not process certain track types, such as QuickTime music, so Process is not always an option. 173 174 Chapter 8: Encoding Copy The Copy option lets you designate tracks that should be copied into the final output movie without processing and encoding. This option is also useful for movies where you need to encode (or re-encode) only one track and simply copy the other into the final file. For example, if you have a movie that already has a finished audio track but still need to encode the video track, you can select Copy for the audio and Process for the video. The Copy option is also useful for QuickTime movies that have tracks, such as sprites or text, that should be copied to the final file without processing. Copying these files preserves their unique qualities instead of turning them into pixels in the video track. Preload Forces the player to preload the track in RAM before it can be played. Useful for automatically playing high bitrate movies that would otherwise cause skipping. See “Enhanced Movie Playback” on page 52. Omitting Tracks To omit a track entirely from the final output movie, simply uncheck the option next to that track. For example, if you want to create an audio-only QuickTime movie from a normal audio and video source, uncheck the Video track option in the Tracks tab. Specifying Unusual Quicktime Tracks Space is provided to allow for two unusual QuickTime tracks not specifically listed in the Tracks tab. If you have a movie with a track type not listed, you must type in the four-letter track code in the Other field. Encode Tab Encode Tab The Encode tab lets you specify video or image encoding parameters. Codec The video codec you select determines how the video will be encoded. Choosing the right codec depends heavily on what format and data rate you are producing. Generally, codecs are optimized for Web, CD-ROM or DVD. However, some may work across a range of data rates. Setting Codec-Specific Features cleaner supports most codecs’ unique features within the Encode tab sections. However, to allow flexibility, you can directly access a codec’s control panel — if one exists — via the Options panel of the Encode tab. Check the Options panel and press the Set button. This opens the codec’s control panel. If a codec doesn’t have a unique control panel, the Options section will not appear. Bit Depth The Bit Depth pop-up lets you select the number of colors in the final movie. The options available depend on the codec you select, but most streaming codecs only support millions of colors. Quality Sliders Depending on which codec you select, there may be one or two sliders available, which vary in function. For example, if you select the QuickTime Photo-JPEG codec, a Spatial slider appears. If you select the Apple Animation codec, both a Spatial and a Temporal slider will appear. Only sliders appropriate to the selected codec are displayed. Note: Quality sliders may not be available if you are using data rate control. Spatial Quality and Temporal Quality Sliders The Spatial and Temporal sliders are somewhat confusing. In the standard QuickTime compression dialog, the Quality slider is really the Spatial slider. The Temporal slider is available by pressing Control+option and holding the cursor over the Quality slider. In cleaner 6, both sliders appear in the Encode tab. The higher the setting of the Spatial slider, the higher the quality of the keyframes. But because movies have a fixed bandwidth, these higher-quality keyframes are achieved by lowering the quality of the delta frames. 175 176 Chapter 8: Encoding For some codecs, the Temporal slider controls the quality of the temporal encoding. Higher values produce better-looking delta frames and produce higher bitrates. Many people set both sliders to 100%, but this is usually not the best setting. The only time you should alter these sliders is if the keyframes look significantly better or worse than the delta frames. On the other hand, some codecs completely ignore these two sliders. Experiment to see which slider works best for your source files. Frame Rate Frame rate is the number of frames per second of the final, encoded movie. Choosing an appropriate frame rate for your movie has a dramatic effect on video quality. Higher frame rates at a given data rate produce smoother motion with lower image quality. Lower frame rates produce sharper images with jerkier motion. Finding the right trade-off depends on your material, data rate, and personal preferences. Also, higher frame rate material requires faster CPUs to play properly. For the best results, experiment to determine the optimal settings for your movie. Always use a frame rate that is an even divisor of the source frame rate; doing so produces much smoother motion. For example, if you have a 24 fps source file, only use frame rates of 6, 8 and 12 fps. cleaner also supports decimal frame rates. Ideal NTSC-Derived Frame Rates 30 fps (all frames) 15 fps (every other frame) 10 fps (every third frame) 7.5 fps (every fourth frame) 6 fps (every fifth frame) 5 fps (every sixth frame) Technically, NTSC is 29.97 fps, not 30 fps. However, for movies displayed on the Web or in CDROM projects, you may not notice a difference between 30 fps and 29.97 fps. If you are creating video for broadcast, cleaner properly supports 29.97 fps. Ideal PAL-Derived Frame Rates 25 fps (all frames) 12.5 fps (every other frame) 8.67 fps (every third frame) Encode Tab 6.25 fps (every fourth frame) 5 fps (every fifth frame) Ideal Film-Derived Frame Rates The following frame rates are derived for film projects: 24 fps (all frames) 12 fps (every other frame) 8 fps (every third frame) 6 fps (every fourth frame) Same as source Enable the Same as source checkbox to match the source media frame rate. Keyframe Frequency Like frame rate, the keyframe frequency affects the image quality of the final encoded movie. How frequently you should set keyframes depends on the codec used, the content of the movie and how the movie is to be viewed. Set keyframes often for high-bitrate movies, about once every second. For example, if you have a high-bitrate movie with a frame rate of 15 fps, set a keyframe every 15 frames. Set keyframes for low-bitrate movies less often — once every five seconds to start. With modern codecs, having more automatic keyframes gives the viewer more random access at the expense of quality at a given data rate. The “keyframe strobing” effect that can occur when adding more keyframes may result in lower image quality for your movie. When using streaming codecs, such as the Sorenson Video codec, a keyframe every five to ten seconds is usually a better starting point because these codecs depend heavily on temporal encoding to achieve high quality at low data rates and do not need very many keyframes. In fact, increasing the keyframe rate often degrades the final image quality of movies made with these codecs. For example, if the source is 15 fps, start at a keyframe frequency of 150. 177 178 Chapter 8: Encoding The number you enter in the keyframes field with the Every pop-up menu selected is like a “timer” that counts the number of frames between keyframes. Every time there is a keyframe, automatic or natural, the timer is reset. For example, a keyframe rate of 15 does not mean a user should expect keyframes on frames 15, 30 and 45, but rather every 15 frames after the “timer” resets. Additional keyframes may be inserted by the codec as needed for scene changes and other “high-change” segments. Also, if the natural keyframe rate is higher than the automatic keyframe rate, there are no automatic keyframes. Higher keyframe frequency is important for movies that viewers randomly access because each time a movie is accessed, the current frame must be calculated from the nearest keyframe. If the nearest keyframe is many frames away, it can take a substantial amount of time to generate the current frame.This applies to progressive-streaming or CD-ROM content, but generally not to realtime-streaming content. You can manually specify points at which you want a keyframe using the EventStream editor. This is useful if you know a movie is to be accessed at a particular point. For information on setting manual keyframes, see “Keyframe” on page 212. Some codecs let you specify different options for keyframes. The possible keyframe options are: •None (Natural Only) — This turns off all keyframes other than the first frame and naturally occurring keyframes. •Every — The number you enter in the Every field with this option is like a “timer” that counts the number of frames between keyframes. Every time there is a keyframe, automatic or natural, the timer resets. Natural keyframes may also occur depending on the codec. •All — This option makes every frame in the movie a keyframe. This feature is highly specialized and is not used for normal movies. Compare Uncompressed Frames The Compare Uncompressed Frames option determines whether or not the codec looks at the previous compressed or previous uncompressed frame to generate each new delta frame. If you are working with computer-generated images, such as 3-D animations, turning on the Compare Uncompressed Frames option may give you better results in certain cases. You may also get better results using this option with bluescreen movies that have still images as the background. For live-action video, leave this feature turned off. Note: This feature may significantly degrade the movie’s image quality depending on the source material and other variables. If you want to use the Compare Uncompressed Frames option, always run tests with it on and with it off to determine the optimal setting for the material. Never assume it will produce better results. Encode Tab Choosing the Data Rate One of the most important decisions you must make when preparing movies is choosing the data rate. More than any other factor, the data rate affects the final image and sound quality of your movie. It also affects the size of the final file, as well as the playback method for effectively delivering the movie. Data Rate Units Two similar units are used for measuring data rates. Most multimedia developers are familiar with KiloBytes per second (KBps or KBytes/sec) whereas many people working with Internet/ network video specify files in kilobits per second (kbps or kbits/sec). A byte is eight times as large as a bit, so it is important to understand in which unit a data rate is being specified. The cleaner default setting displays the data rate in bits per second (bps). You can change this setting in the Preferences dialog. In data rate (either bits or bytes), uppercase K denotes 1024, which is normally used for multimedia applications. Lowercase k represents exactly 1000, which is often used in the telecommunications industry. Uppercase B represents a Byte; lowercase b a bit. Many people assume the rating of a modem is specified in kilobytes per second (KBytes/sec), which is incorrect. For example, a 28.8 modem transfers data at 28.8 kilobits per second (kbits/ sec), not 28.8 KBytes/sec. A data rate of 28.8 kbits/sec is about 3.5 KBytes/sec — a major difference from 28.8 KBytes/sec. To change between units of measure, choose cleaner > Preferences to open the Preferences dialog and select the desired data rate units. If you switch units, cleaner automatically changes the display units in the interface and converts the current data rate into the equivalent data rate using the new units. The final file size is not affected by changing how the data rate is displayed. Factors that Limit Data Rate Usually there are three factors that dictate the data rate you can use on a movie: •The media or connection speed. •The amount of video you need to fit into your disc or file. •The speed of the minimum target machine. 179 180 Chapter 8: Encoding Media or Connection Speed There are many different vehicles for desktop video delivery. The most common are networks, such as the Web or a company intranet, CD and DVD. Some rough guidelines for data rates follow. We strongly recommend that you test your movies on the minimum target machine to determine its actual throughput. Networks A wide range of network connections (Web, LAN, and WAN) exist over which streaming media may be delivered. The volume of network traffic substantially affects the possible throughput, and network congestion can dramatically reduce the actual bandwidth available compared to the theoretical maximum. Because of this, there is no way to guarantee the data rate the viewer can see in real time, even if you know what connection they are using. This makes it difficult to choose a “safe” data rate. However, if you want viewers to be able to watch your video in real time, the following numbers are reasonable starting points: 28.8 Modem — 20 kbits/sec (2.5 KBytes/sec) 56.6 Modem — 32 kbits/sec (4 KBytes/sec) Dual ISDN — 96 kbits/sec (12 KBytes/sec) T1/DSL/Cable Modem — 300 kbits/sec (40 KBytes/sec) WAN/LAN — 160 to 800 kbits/sec (20 to 100 KBytes/sec) Note: The bandwidth available on a private local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN) can vary widely and can possibly be much higher than indicated here. Contact your network system administrator for specifications of your system. If you do not mind the viewer experiencing some delays for progressive streaming movies, you can double or quadruple these data rates. As with everything, testing can help you determine what the actual user experience will be. CD-ROMs For CDs, a total data rate of 170 to 200 KBytes/sec is safe for cross-platform, 2x speed titles. A Macintosh-only product can usually be set somewhat higher, to 220 to 250 KBytes/sec. Safe cross-platform 4x CD-ROM data rates are often around 250 to 300 KBytes/sec. Mac OS-only products can push this data rate up to about 400 to 450 KBytes/sec. Encode Tab CD-ROM drives faster than 4x often have widely varying transfer rates. Sometimes the manufacturers’ specifications are “burst speeds” and are not sustainable for use with movies. Test a CD-ROM drive before assuming it actually gives the transfer rate specified on the box. Also, with very fast CD-ROM drives, the limiting factor often becomes the amount of video you want to place on a disc instead of the transfer speed of the drive. DVDs DVD-ROMs are essentially very big, very fast CD-ROMs. Transfer speeds are in the 1 MByte/ sec range for 1x, and DVD-ROMs can hold from between 4.7 to 17 GB (gigabytes) of data. However, the higher-capacity DVD-ROM discs are substantially more expensive to press, so many developers keep their production costs lower by using the lower-capacity discs. Even with “only” 4 GB of space, a DVD-ROM could hold about 6 1/2 hours of a 200 KBytes/sec movie. cleaner encodes MPEG-2, which is the format used for DVD-Video. DVD-Video is another form of DVD that is used for the commercial distribution of prerecorded movies. The discs can be played back on standard set-top and portable DVD players or on computers with DVD-ROM drives. Disc Space If you have a fixed amount of content you need to fit onto a disc, the length of the movie and the size of the disc may become the determining factors of the data rate instead of the speed of the media. If you know the space available on the disc and the length of the movie, use the following formula to determine the data rate for a movie: Disc space (KBytes) ÷ movie length (in seconds) = KBytes/sec final movie To determine disc size in KB, take the MB of the disc and multiply by 1024. For example, a CDROM is 665,600 KB. To determine the length of the movie in seconds, multiply the number of minutes by 60. If the movie length is in hours, multiply the hours by 3600 (the number of seconds in an hour). When performing these calculations, do not forget to reserve enough space for the other components of your project. For example, a Director projector, ReadMe and installers might take 50 MB of the CD, leaving you only 600 MB for video. If you want to put two hours of video on a 4x CD, and your other project files are 50 MB, the data rate you must use is about 85 KBytes/sec or less (the CD 614,400 KB divided by 7,200 seconds equals 85.3 KBytes/sec). This data rate is substantially lower than the 300 KBytes/sec data rate a 4x CD can safely handle, but it is what you must use to put the two hours onto one CD. 181 182 Chapter 8: Encoding Minimum Target CPU Speed Most streaming codecs, such as the QuickTime Sorenson Video and Windows Media Video, are very CPU intensive. When using these codecs the limiting factor for the data rate may be the minimum system on which you want the video to play and not the connection speed or amount of video you need to fit on a disk. For example, the Sorenson Video codec can produce very high-quality video at CD-ROM data rates. But, as the data rate increases, the playback requirement also increases, so it is possible to produce higher-data rate movies that do not play smoothly on the minimum target CPU. For example, a 30 KBytes/sec Sorenson Video-encoded QuickTime movie plays well on any PowerMac or Pentium computer, but a 300 KBytes/sec Sorenson Video movie requires a fast computer to play smoothly. The latest Windows Media Video codec has similar playback requirements. Testing your material on the minimum target machine is important when using these newer, more CPU-intensive technologies. Setting the Video Data Rate Video Data Rate options let you specify how cleaner constrains the movie to the data rate you choose. Depending on the selected architecture and codec, there are up to four options to control the data rate. Only a limited number of new codecs work with the more advanced options. cleaner disables data rate control options that do not work with the selected codec. Basic — cleaner uses the built-in data rate controls of the codec, if any. Basic control is the behavior you get with most QuickTime programs via the standard QuickTime compression dialog. With Sorenson Video Pro installed, three more options become available: Suppress Spikes —The Suppress Spikes option encodes a movie at a fixed quality setting, but does not allow the data rate to peak over the entered value. The Suppress Spikes option is a single-pass approach that eliminates problematic data rate spikes with supported codecs. Because it is a single-pass approach, the Suppress Spikes option is faster than 2-pass VBR, but generally does not produce results that look as nice. However, this option may produce better results than the Flat or Basic options with some material. The Suppress Spikes option often produces a lower average data rate than the number entered in the Limit to field because this value is the peak, not average, data rate. If average data rate control is a major concern, use the 2-pass VBR option. Flat — cleaner attempts to control frame size to keep the data rate uniform throughout the movie. The flat data rate is an average of one second. To maximize image quality, the keyframes are larger and the delta frames smaller. Generally, this is not the optimal way to Encode Tab encode a movie. The Suppress Spikes or 2-pass VBR options generally provide superior results. 2-pass VBR — The 2-pass VBR (variable bitrate) option is available for both RealSystem files (under OS 9.x) and QuickTime movies encoded with the Pro version of the Sorenson 2 or 3 Video codec. Two passes are used to intelligently control the data rate of a movie. In the first pass, cleaner analyzes the entire movie to locate “hard” and “easy” sections. After it understands the movie, cleaner starts its second pass to encode the movie. In this encoding pass, cleaner uses lower average data rates in the easy sections and higher average data rates in the hard sections. Although the total data rate of the final output is identical to the same movie encoded using a constant bitrate technique, the final results generally look substantially better. Two-pass VBR produces the most notable gains in quality in movies that have intermixed hard and easy sections. Because the movie is first analyzed and then encoded, 2-pass VBR files take longer to encode than constant bitrate encoding. To set the video data rate: 1. Determine the data rate for your movie. 2. In the Settings window, click the Encode tab. 3. On the Encode tab, click the Video Data Rate check box and choose the method of data rate control from the video data rate menu. 4. Type the desired data rate in the Limit to field. 5. Set the unit of measure menu to: •The units you set in preferences, such as kBytes/sec. •Total KBytes or Total MBytes. The value you enter in the Limit to field is the total size of the file, not the data rate. Frame Rate and Frame Size A few different factors can limit the frame rate and frame size you can effectively use on a project. The most common limitation is the image quality. Larger frame sizes and higher frame rates require more data to maintain acceptable image quality. If the data rate of the movie is not high enough to accommodate the frame size and rate, the image quality suffers. 183 184 Chapter 8: Encoding The other common limitation of frame size and rate is the codec you are using and the CPU of the target machine. Some CPU-intensive codecs can produce high-quality images at larger frame sizes and higher frame rates with reasonable data rates. However, these movies may require very high-end machines to play properly, so testing is critical. Frame Size Like frame rate, choosing an appropriate frame size for the movie has an important effect on video quality. The larger the image size is at a given data rate, the lower the resulting image quality. The best size for the video depends on your data rate, frame rate, codec, source material and personal preferences. All of these factors are interrelated, so experimentation is the best way to find the optimal setting for your project. Use the following list as a rough guideline. Experiment to find the best setting for your project and make sure to test your final movies to ensure they play on the minimum target machine. Modem — 160x120 Dual ISDN — 192x144 T1/DSL/Cable — 320x240 CD-ROM — 480x360 DVD-ROM — 640x480 Display Size Some formats, such as QuickTime, allow you to create movies at one image size and display them at a different size. For example, you can create a movie at 160x120 pixels, but display the movie at 320x240 pixels. Because fewer pixels are stored, the codec can concentrate its limited bitrate on fewer pixels, which results in a better-quality compression and may improve the final image quality of low-bitrate movies. Doubling is commonly used to display full-screen video from 320x240 sources. However, when used on movies displayed larger than 320x240, a faster computer or hardware acceleration may be required to play the video properly. Run tests to determine if this feature meets the requirements for your minimum target machine. When preparing QuickTime files, the Image Size option in the Image tab contains a Display size pop-up menu. This controls the final size of the movie as it appears in the viewer’s browser or QuickTime Player. There are four Display size options: Encode Tab Normal — Plays the movie at full size. 150% — Plays the movie at 150% of its normal size. Double — Plays the movie at 200% of its normal size. Custom — Allows you to enter custom dimensions for the movie playback size. Testing A wise developer once said, “Test early, test often and test on all of the target machines.” Before you fill a dozen hard drives with footage, test your production process from start to finish on a few sample files. You may find things later in the process that can be easily fixed by changing steps earlier in the process. For example, you may realize that the interview video you are shooting looks great when displayed on a video monitor, but the subjects are too small when the video is scaled down to the final size for the project. Filming the same video closer to the subject might address this issue. Figuring this out before you shoot all your material is preferable to reshooting. To test a Web movie, upload it to the server and access it with the same connection for which you are optimizing. If the Web server is on the same local area network as the test machine, disconnect the test machine from the LAN and access the video via the target connection, such as a modem, to simulate the target user’s experience. Make sure to view the movie with a range of browsers. For a CD-ROM project, the best way to test your movies is to play them within the title interface (or a mock-up of it) on the minimum target machine with the minimum CD-ROM drive on the project specifications. Play the movie all the way through and watch for dropped frames and skipping audio or loss of sync. Playing the movie in a different application may not give you an accurate representation of how the movie plays in your final project. For example, your Director projector may take some extra CPU overhead while running. Thus, testing the movie only with QuickTime Player may not warn you of the lower performance you might see in the final project. Similarly, playing the movie from a hard drive when the final is to be played from a 2x CD-ROM may not tell you if the data rate is a problem. Note: Some CD-ROM drives do not work well with some CD-R/CD-RW media. If your movies do not play well in some machines, but play fine in others, try using a different CDROM drive and/or experiment with different color CD-Rs. 185 186 Chapter 8: Encoding Variations for Testing When testing movies, it is helpful to make several different versions with slightly different parameters, then compare these versions to determine what you like best. The easiest way to do this is to apply the same setting to all of your files and then use the Settings Modifiers feature to make adjustments to the individual files. For more details, see “Settings Modifiers” on page 61. When doing variations on a movie, limit the number of parameters you change at once. If you change many options at the same time, it is more difficult to determine which change is the controlling factor in producing better or worse results. For example, if you are trying to determine how to make the best-looking low-bandwidth version of a difficult movie, first, make some versions that are different sizes at the same frame and data rates. If you change the size, frame rate and data rate all at once, it may be hard to figure out what parameter is making the video look good or bad. To make different variations: 1. Add the same source file multiple times to a batch and assign the same base setting to all versions. See “Assigning a Setting to Multiple Projects” on page 60. 2. Apply different settings modifiers to the projects in the Batch window to experiment with different parameters. See “Settings Modifiers” on page 61. 3. Specify custom names for the variations so you can later determine which final file was made with which modifier. See “File Naming” on page 31. 4. Process the batch and proceed as follows: 5. When the batch is done processing, open the final output movies with the appropriate player (QuickTime Player, RealPlayer or Windows Media Player) using the Helpers menu. 6. When you find the file you like best, make a new setting that incorporates the changes you made with the Settings Modifiers. Processing Still Images cleaner supports various still image formats and lets you perform common still image tasks such as cropping, scaling, filtering and color depth reduction. You can create a still image from a movie and can produce enhanced still images by averaging multiple video frames together. See You can also import a series of still images as if it were a movie and then process these stills to produce a final movie for delivery. This is particularly useful if you are using a rendering program that creates sequential still images instead of movie files. Encode Tab To pre-process a still image source: 1. Choose a still image setting for the project. 2. Create or modify still image settings in the Settings window by choosing the desired format, such as JPEG, in the Output tab of the Settings window. 3. Use the Image and Adjust tabs to choose the image processing options, such as image size and filters. 4. If you are using a still-image format which supports compression, such as JPEG, use the Encode tab to select compression parameters. 5. See “Dynamic Preview” on page 193 for details on choosing the best compression setting. Making Still Images from Movies 1. Apply a still image setting to the project. 2. In the Project window, move the movie controller to select the frame to convert to a still image. 3. Process the project. Enhancing Still Images To generate a still image from a movie that has a segment of identical footage, cleaner offers an Enhance from multiple frames option. This feature takes several frames from the source movie and averages them together to improve the apparent resolution and reduce the noise in the resulting image. To enhance still images: 1. Choose a still image format in the Output tab menu. 2. From the When Making Still from Movie panel in the Image tab, choose Enhance from Multiple Frames. 3. Use the slider to select the number of frames to use to generate the final image. These frames begin with the frame that is currently visible in the Output window. Move the controller in the Output window to choose a different section of the movie. Note: Use frames from the source that are almost identical. If there are substantial differences between frames, the resulting image may be blurry or exhibit ghosts. 187 188 Chapter 8: Encoding Making Movies Out of Still Images You can open a series of images as if it were a single movie. To create a movie from a series of images: 1. Choose Batch > Add Image Sequence. 2. At the prompt, locate a file in the image sequence. 3. Select the file. After you select a file, cleaner automatically finds all the other similarly named, sequentially numbered files in the same folder and prompts you for the desired frame rate (in frames per second) for your final movie. Note: To import a series of still images as a movie, the image file names must end with sequential numbers, such as 01, 02, 03, etc. There should be no other numbers in the file name. The images are displayed in ascending order. 4. Select the frame rate and click OK. A QuickTime movie is created in the folder that contains the imported images. This is a very small movie that references the original files; it does not contain the stills. You can open this movie with other QuickTime applications such as QuickTime Player, but it may not play smoothly. Do not distribute the reference movie. Use this movie as an intermediate file to process with cleaner prior to distribution. Use the same settings on this movie as you would on any other source movie. Note: To distribute the reference file, you can save it as a self-contained movie using QuickTime Player. Optimizing Stills for Encoding Optimizing still images for compression is similar to optimizing video. Using Adaptive Noise Reduction, contrast adjustment and Black and White Restore may improve the encoding and/ or appearance of a photographic still image. For details on using filters and adjustments to optimize video, see “Pre-processing” on page 65. If you scale an image up significantly, you may find that applying the Sharpen filter improves its clarity. As with video, sharpening an image may not improve the encoding, but it may produce more visually appealing results. Experienced users may want to use the General Convolution QuickTime Effect to customize sharpening and other image enhancement effects. Using Dynamic Preview is also useful to determine the effect of your settings on the image’s compression. See“Dynamic Preview” on page 193. Audio Tab Audio Tab The Audio tab allows you to select the audio compression settings for the final movie. The audio codecs and options available will depend on the video codec selected in the Output tab. QuickTime Audio Codecs Mace A general purpose audio codec built into the Macintosh OS. QDesign Music 2 A high quality, low data rate audio compressor. Qualcomm PureVoice Qualcomm’s PureVoice audio codec is optimized for speech. It has two options: •Full Rate — Produces larger, higher-quality files and delivers approximately 9:1 compression. •Half Rate — Produces smaller files with its approximately 19:1 compression, but the quality is correspondingly lower. If you are producing audio files that are intended to be delivered via a streaming server, we also recommend that you check the Optimize compression for streaming option. This option removes all the zeros off the end of each audio packet, reducing the data rate for both Full Rate and Half Rate options. The amount of reduction varies significantly with the complexity of the audio. Note: You must use a sample rate of 8 kHz for good results when doing realtime streaming with a QuickTime Streaming Server. Any rate can be used for progressive-streaming files. ALaw A legacy codec used for speech. IMA Interactive Multimedia Association standard compressor. Good for playback on low performance target machines. MPEG-4 Audio •AAC — Wideband audio encoding that compresses more efficiently than older formats. Always in VBR mode. QuickTime 6 required. 189 190 Chapter 8: Encoding uLaw Another legacy codec used for speech. MP3 Uses perceptual coding techniques based on the way the human ear perceives sound. You can compress at 12:1 without losing sound quality. Begin/End Tab Options High Quality First/Last Frames Viewers often see the first and/or last frames of a movie for a much longer time than the other frames. For example, the first frame of the movie is displayed on a Website while the movie is buffering, and the last frame is usually left on the screen when the movie is finished playing. Because of this, it is helpful to create high-quality first and last frames, particularly for movies with titles or credits. You have two options when using the High Quality Frames feature. •Basic option — Increases the data rate of the selected frame and ensures that the last frame is a keyframe. •JPEG Track — Creates a JPEG-compressed still image that is overlaid on top of the video track at the beginning and/or end of the movie. JPEG tracks may not work properly with some codecs. End Frame URL Link This QuickTime feature allows you to define a URL that directs viewers to a Web page when they click on the last frame of a QuickTime movie. To use this feature, check the End Frame URL Link option and type in the complete path to the desired URL. Adding an Open URL EventStream event to the end of your movie performs the same function, but the End Frame URL Link may be easier to add if it is the only event you want to include in your file. See “Open URL” on page 208. Metadata Tab Metadata Tab Adding Metadata The Metadata tab lets you attach additional information to the movie you are creating, such as the title, author and copyright. If you are creating QuickTime files, you can choose up to 20 additional types of information to add to your files. How the data is displayed to the viewer depends on the format and the player used to display the final file. Depending on the output format you choose, you may have access to all, some, or none of the metadata categories available. QuickTime supports more metadata options than RealSystem and Windows Media. MPEG does not support metadata. cleaner lets you input metadata for these categories: •Title •Author •Copyright •Album (QuickTime only) •Software (QuickTime only) •Other 191 192 Chapter 8: Encoding To add more file information to a QuickTime movie, there are five additional options available. Check the Other option, choose one of the 20 additional categories in the menu, and enter the desired information in the field. cleaner can also read metadata from source material created on certain video editing systems, such as Discreet’s cinestream. Note: Because fonts on Mac OS and Windows vary, symbols, such as copyright (©), may not display properly for viewers on both platforms. To avoid conflicts, reproduce these symbols using standard keyboard characters, such as (c) for copyright. Summary Tab The Summary tab shows a text summary of all the setting parameters for the current setting. Click on the text of any panel to jump directly to the tab that controls the summarized settings. Preview Windows Preview Windows Being able to easily preview work is important. There are two primary times when you need to see what is going on: While creating and adjusting settings and during the actual encoding. There are two different preview functions to address both of these needs: •The Dynamic Preview window lets you preview settings as you modify them. •The Before/After slider in the Output window lets you preview during processing. Dynamic Preview The Dynamic Preview window lets you see what the final image looks like after it is processed. You can accurately control processing parameters such as the contrast, brightness and gamma. Dynamic Preview also gives you an approximation of the final encoding so you can adjust data rate, frame rate and other parameters that affect the final image quality. Note: With interframe codecs, such as Sorenson Video, the Dynamic Preview is not a good indicator of how the final output file will look. Use the Before/After slider in the output window while the file is being encoded to see how the movie actually appears. For more information see “Before/After Preview” on page 198. To access the Dynamic Preview window: Choose Windows > Dynamic Preview or press aD. 193 194 Chapter 8: Encoding The Dynamic Preview window appears. This floating window is always the topmost element, even when the Settings dialog is open. The image displayed in the Dynamic Preview is the current frame shown in the Project window. To change frames, move the movie controller in the Project window to the desired point in the movie. To generate a new preview, click the Update button or press aD. To enable the Dynamic Preview, the movie or image file must have a setting assigned to it and be highlighted in the Batch window or open in the Project window. To close the Dynamic Preview, click the close box in the title bar of the window. Preview Modes Left/Right — You can move the slider back and forth to see what any part of the image looks like with pre-processing and/or encoding parameters applied to it. This is the default setting. A/B — Selecting the A/B mode changes the slider into a button that toggles the image displayed between A and B. Preview Windows Display Options On either side are two sets of options. These options control how the image is processed prior to displaying in the Dynamic Preview window. The Process option controls whether the image displayed on a given side has the preprocessing specified in the setting applied to it. This includes image adjustments (Brightness, Hue, Gamma, etc.) and filters (Noise Reduction, Static Mask, etc.) The Encode option controls whether the result on a given side is encoded using the parameters set in the Encode tab. Because cleaner can not currently display certain encoded formats, such as RealSystem and Windows Media, the Encode option may be unavailable with certain settings. When you process a movie, the image displayed in the Dynamic Preview with the Encode option is a keyframe. It is a good indicator of how the final, encoded image will appear, but is not exactly the same as the final output. To see the final output, you must start the actual encoding and use the Before/After slider in the output window. See “Before/After Preview” on page 198 for more details. When processing a still image, the image displayed is an exact replica of the final image. To see the effects of the image adjustment: 1. Clear the check boxes for both options on the left. 2. Click the check box for only the Pre-Process option on the right. Checking only the Pre-Process option previews only the image adjustments, not the encoding. 3. Click the Update button or press aD. The left side of the window shows the original image; the right shows the image with all filters and processing applied. This lets you quickly see how the adjustments and filters affect the project. Some codecs slightly alter the color balance, contrast or brightness of the encoded image. To correct for a particular codec 1. Clear the check boxes for both options on the left. 2. Click the check boxes for both options on the right to enable them. 3. Click the Update button or press aD. The left side shows the original unmodified image; the right side shows the final output with both the codec changes and your own. Use the controls in the Adjust tab to make both sides match. When they look the same, you have compensated for the color, brightness, or contrast changes introduced by the codec. 195 196 Chapter 8: Encoding Note: With streaming codecs, especially Sorenson Video, Dynamic Preview usually displays lower-quality results than the actual encoding because it does not take advantage of temporal encoding. However, this technique does display any color shifts accurately. Using the proper filters and adjustments can vastly improve the final image quality of the project. To see how processing improves compression: 1. Click the check box next to Encode on the left to enable it. 2. Click the check boxes next to Process and Encode on the right to enable them. 3. Click Update or press aD. This lets you see how pre-processing the image prior to encoding improves the image quality compared to simply encoding the original source without processing it. To determine the trade-off between optimizing file size while impacting image quality, follow the instructions given next. To optimize file size and judge the resulting image quality: 1. Click the check boxes for Process and Encode on one side of the dialog box and leave both disabled on the other side. 2. In the Settings window > Encode tab, adjust the spatial quality slider. 3. Click Update or press aD to generate new previews and see the results. Dynamic Preview accurately renders still image previews. 4. Use the frame size indicator to check the frame size. (See the section that follows for more information on the frame size indicator.) 5. Use the A/B slider to see the image degradation between the original and compressed images. 6. Continue adjusting the quality slider and generating the preview until you find the optimal trade-off between file size and quality. Frame Size Indicator Under the window, two file sizes appear. The original size is on the left, and the encoded size with the settings applied is on the right. When working with movies, if the Encode option is enabled, the size indicated is an approximation of the final size of that particular movie frame when encoded. For still images, this number is the exact size of the final file. Preview Windows Because the frame displayed in the Dynamic Preview window is a keyframe, the size indicated might not be the exact size of that frame in the final movie. Use the frame size indicator as a guide. To determine the exact size of a frame, encode the movie and use the information in the data rate graph in the Output window. The Output Window Watching progress during Encoding lets you see how long processing will take and verify that no errors occur. You can monitor the encoding process by watching the Output window. Progress bars show overall progress and progress of the current operation. Three tabbed panels display: •Status — Estimated total and remaining times. •Data Rate — Data rate of the source media. •Statistics — Progress bars for all operations. 197 198 Chapter 8: Encoding There are a series of progress bars under the movie in the Output window to show the status of processing. Depending on whether or not you are using variable bitrate encoding, flattening or other options, the Output window normally displays one to three progress bars (certain complex operations may show more). When all the progress bars are full, processing is complete. While encoding is in progress, you cannot play the encoded file, but you can see the current frame. Before/After Preview While encoding movies, it helps to see the original image compared to the final encoded image. This allows you to determine if the final encoded version meets your quality standards before the processing is complete. The Before/After slider addresses this need during the encoding of formats cleaner can display, such as QuickTime and AVI. Preview Windows Note: To use the Before/After slider, disable the Minimize Preview (faster) option check box in the Preferences dialog. The Before/After slider appears underneath the movie in the Output window and displays the final image quality. The image on the left side of the slider is the pre-processed original source with filters and image adjustments applied to it. The image on the right of the slider is the actual encoded final movie. The Before/After slider can be moved back and forth to see how any particular area looks before and after encoding. Note: Poor image quality in fast motion scenes is much more noticeable when looking at a single frame in this window. The image looks fine in the final output during playback. If you push the slider all the way to the left, you see your final encoded movie. Push it all the way to the right to see your source movie with pre-processing applied to it. Note: The differences between the before and after sides may not be very noticeable at high bitrates. The Before/After preview lets you see exactly what the selected codec and your encoding and processing parameters are doing to the image quality of your movie in realtime. Being able to compare the source to the final movie on top of each other is much easier than trying to look at two movies side by side. It may take cleaner a little while to respond when you first move the Before/After slider because it must finish encoding the current frame before giving you control. While you are moving the Before/After slider, processing temporarily pauses. When you stop moving the mouse for a few seconds, processing resumes. Note: When you stop or finish encoding, you cannot use the Before/After slider. If you stop the encoding, you can play the partially encoded file in this window if the format is supported for playback within cleaner, such as QuickTime or AVI. If you are encoding to a format that cleaner cannot display, such as RealSystem, you can use the Helpers menu to launch your encoded file with the correct player application. See “Helpers” on page 225 for more details. 199 200 Chapter 8: Encoding Eventstream Traditionally, streaming media was created by simply repurposing media designed for broadcast television or radio. EventStream authoring changes that by enabling you to create interactive streaming media that goes beyond traditional video. All of the streaming formats (QuickTime, RealSystem, Windows Media) offer some level of interactivity. cleaner taps into these features to let you add stream navigation, synchronize HTML to streaming media, embed “Buy me!” links and interactive hotspots, and more — without requiring viewers to download special plug-ins or players. See “Supported Events” on page 206 for a list of supported events. Most importantly, you can author EventStreams in a format-neutral manner, so you can author once and encode to all the streaming formats. 202 Chapter 9: Eventstream EventStream Authoring Some video editing applications, such as Discreet’s cinestream, let you add EventStreams while editing your video and audio, then intelligently import the EventStream information along with the video for encoding within cleaner. With editing tools that do not author EventStreams, you can use cleaner to add EventStreams after you finish creating your project. Not all streaming formats support all EventStream events. Review the compatibility charts later in this chapter to make sure that the formats you are targeting support the events you want to use. Adding EventStreams To add an EventStream to your project: 1. From the Batch window, double-click the project to open the Project window. 2. Choose Windows > EventStream or click Edit in the Project window > EventStream tab to open the EventStream Editor. 3. In the Project window, move the movie controller to the appropriate time for the event. 4. Click Add at the bottom of the EventStream Editor. cleaner adds a Marker event to the list at the time specified by the movie controller position in the Project window. Initially, all events added to the EventStream Editor appear as markers. EventStream Authoring 5. To change the newly added marker event to an event type, use the Event pull down menu on the left. See “Supported Events” on page 206 for the available options. The EventStream list is updated automatically with the event that you choose. 6. If desired, add a descriptive label to the event in the Label field. Labels are visible only in the EventStream Editor and offer an easy way to identify each event. They do not appear in the final encoded file. All events are created at the time currently displayed in the Project window, but you can edit the time. The event list is updated in real time. For example, if you type a URL in the URL field, the URL appears in the event list while you type. Note: You can add EventStreams to a project at any time. You do not need to enable a setting for a project in order to add EventStreams. cleaner uses a time system defined in milliseconds, which is different than the SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Experts) timecode used by many video editing systems. For more information, see “The cleaner Time System” on page 50. Adding Markers in Real Time cleaner also lets you add Events in real time. This is the fastest way to add Events to your project. To use real-time marking: 1. Open the Project window and the EventStream Editor. 2. Play your source movie in the Project window. 203 204 Chapter 9: Eventstream 3. While the movie plays, press aM at the times where you want to add events to the file. The events you add initially appear as markers. If you have enough time between marking events, you can change the event information before the next event occurs. 4. All of the events you assign appear in the EventStream Editor. Click an event to adjust the times and assign actual events and actions. Saving The events defined in the EventStream Editor are automatically saved when you close the EventStream Editor window. You can also manually save the EventStream information by clicking the Save button, which is helpful while working on long and/or complicated projects. Exporting/Importing You can save the EventStream information from a project and export it for use with other projects or batches. Export You can export your EventStreams to use with other applications or reuse them with other projects. To export an EventStream file: 1. Click the Export button at the bottom of the EventStream window. 2. Assign a name to the file and click Save. This creates an XML-based file with the EventStream information. These files have the suffix .ties. You can edit these files with an XML editor or a text editor if you are familiar with XML. Import You can import previously saved EventStream data, EventStream files created by other applications and events imported from databases into the EventStream Editor for use with your project. To import an EventStream file: 1. Click the Import button at the bottom of the EventStream window. 2. Select the file to import and click Open. The EventStream information appears in the EventStream Editor. EventStream Authoring Importing EventStreams from Discreet’s cinestream cleaner can also read EventStream data created by Discreet’s cinestream editing system. When you export a project from cinestream to cleaner, EventStream data from the project can be viewed using the EventStream Editor. 205 206 Chapter 9: Eventstream Supported Events You can add two types of events to your project, play-back events and processing events. This section describes these event types and supported commands. Playback Events Playback events provide interactivity. Users viewing the final encoded file can view closed captions, skip chapters, and use hotspots to control the movie. You can also use playback events to open URLs in Web browsers, replace the currently playing movie with a new one in the same window, or jump to a different time in the movie. Not all media players support all types of events. The following table identifies which EventStream playback events are supported by which media player. Supported EventStream Events QuickTime Chapter x Display Text x Go to Time x Open URL x Pause x Replace Movie Hotspot Real Windows Media x x x x x x x x Chapter Add Chapter events (for QuickTime) to let users quickly jump to other sections of the movie. For long movies, such as lectures or presentations, chapters make it easy for viewers to access specific passages in the file. Supported Events To create a Chapter event: 1. In the Project window, step through the movie to the frame for the event. 2. Select a previously created marker, or click Add to add a new marker. 3. Choose Chapter from the Events menu. 4. Enter the chapter name in the Text field. 5. The current time of the movie appears in the Start field. Use this time or type a different one in the Start field. Or, step through the movie to find a different frame and choose In Point, Out Point or Current Time in the Start pop-up menu. Display Text The Display Text event lets you add text that appears at a specific time when the movie plays. This option offers a good way to add closed captions or subtitles to movie files. To create a Display Text event: 1. Select a previously created marker or click Add to add a new marker. 2. Choose Display Text in the Events menu. 3. Type the text to use in the Text field. 4. The current time of the file appears in the Start field. Use this time or type a different one in the Start field. Or, use the Start menu to select In Point, Out Point, or Current Time. 5. Use the pop-up menu next to the Duration field to select when the display text event ends. This can either be To Out Point or To Current Time. To use a specific time, step through the movie to the time when you want to end the event and choose To Current Time. For professional-looking closed captions or subtitles, synchronize your display text events with the audio on screen. If your movie has scene changes or cuts in it, synchronize the video and audio as follows. To synchronize audio and video 1. Set the start time to the beginning of the segment. 2. Step through the movie to find the frame that begins the next segment. 3. Choose To Current Time in the Duration menu. 4. For the last caption in a series or for single captions, set the Duration time one second before the segment ends. This ensures that your caption does not overlap the next frame. cleaner creates SMIL files to enable Display Text EventStreams, such as subtitles and closed captions, in RealSystem files. When you add the RealSystem file to your Web page, create a link to the SMIL file, not the RAM file. 207 208 Chapter 9: Eventstream When the viewer clicks the link, the browser downloads the SMIL file instead of the RAM file and then opens the RealSystem file in RealPlayer, making the display text visible. For more information, see “SMIL Files” on page 128. Go to Time Make your movie jump to another time (QuickTime) in the same movie by assigning a time with the Go to Time event. Use Go to Time with multiple hotspots in a movie that pauses on a frame to give viewers options on what to view next. Go to Time is also useful for looping back to the start of a movie after it finishes playing. For example, you want your movie to contain an interactive menu with three options containing hotspots. Use the Go to Time event to assign a different time to each hotspot to direct users to different points in the movie. At the end of each section, assign another Go to Time event to return the user to the menu to make another selection. To create a Go to Time event: 1. Select an existing marker, or click Add to create a new marker. 2. Choose Go to Time in the Events menu. 3. Step through the movie to find the destination frame and time for the event. 4. Choose Current Time from the Go To menu to set the target time for the event. 5. To jump to the In point or Out point of the file, choose To In Point or To Out Point. Note: Also set a keyframe at the destination frame of your Go to Time event to ensure that the frame is a high-quality image and also to improve random access speed. See “Keyframe” on page 212 for details. Open URL An Open URL event opens a Web page at a specified time. For example, if you have a movie about a product and you have information on a Web page that supplements the movie, you can have the movie open up the page in your default browser. If the movie is embedded in a Web page, you can target an adjacent frame or open a new browser window. To create an Open URL event: 1. Select an existing marker or click Add to create a new marker. 2. Choose Open URL in the Event menu. 3. Type the Web page URL in the URL field. 4. Use the Duration menu to choose a time for the event to end. This can be either To Out Point or To Current Time. To use a specific time, step through the movie to the time at which you want to end the event and choose To Current Time. This is not the duration of the URL in the Supported Events browser, it is the duration of the event in the timeline. This function determines how far past the event you can scrub the movie and still activate the Open URL event. For QuickTime files, you can use standard target attributes in the Target field to specify where the content appears in the Web page when the Open URL event occurs. Using the Target pulldown menu, you can produce four standard target values: New Window — In a new window. (_blank appears in the Target field.) Parent Frame — In the immediate parent frame of the document containing the link. ( _parent appears in the Target field.) Top Frame — To fill the current window. (_top appears in the Target field.) Current Frame — In the same frame. ( _self appears in the Target field.) If you have a specific frame that you want to specify in the URL, type it in the Target field. Do not preface it with an underscore. Note: RealSystem and Windows Media do not currently recognize targets in Open URL EventStreams. Pause Use the Pause event (in QuickTime) to pause a movie at a specific time. When used with hotspots and the Play event, you can create an interactive movie with its own controls. You can also pause the movie on the menu screen to give viewers options on which section of the movie they want to see. See “Hotspots” on page 210. To create a Pause event 1. Select an existing marker or click Add to create a new marker. 2. Choose Pause from the Events menu. If using the Pause event in conjunction with a hotspot, you must add a hotspot. Click Add Action and choose Hotspot from the Events menu. Replace Movie In all formats, you can replace the movie currently playing with another movie using the Replace Movie event. For example, if you have a long movie file that is broken into smaller segments, use Replace Movie at the end of each segment to load the next segment of the movie in the same window. 209 210 Chapter 9: Eventstream Replace Movie is also useful for inserting advertisements between movie segments or for using with hotspots on a menu screen to give users multiple viewing options. See “Hotspots” on page 210. Note: For RealSystem, the Replace Movie event only works as an action associated with hotspot events. To create a Replace Movie event: 1. Select an existing marker or click Add button to create a new marker. 2. Choose Replace Movie in the Events menu. 3. Enter the URL of the new movie in the URL field. 4. Preview using the Preview Button. Hotspots Hotspots (in QuickTime and Real System) add a new level of interactivity for viewers of your movie. With hotspots, you can have a movie that plays an introduction and then pauses on a frame that contains an interactive menu that contains different options. You can also use hotspots over any graphic overlays you may have in the video. Assign a different action to each hotspot, from playing and pausing, to jumping to another time, to opening a URL in a Web browser, or replacing the current movie with a different one. QuickTime RealSystem Go to Time x x Open URL x x Pause x Play x Replace Movie x x To create a Hotspot event: 1. Select an existing marker or click Add to create as many markers as needed. This lets you add multiple hotspots to a specific time. 2. Choose Hotspot from the Events menu. 3. Use the Duration menu to select when the hotspot event ends. 4. This can be either To Out Point or To Current Time. To use a specific time, step through the movie to the time you want to end the hotspot and choose To Current Time. Supported Events 5. Use the Shape menu to choose a rectangular or oval hotspot. cleaner can also read custom polygon hotspots imported from movies created in video editing systems, such as Discreet’s cinestream, but you cannot edit their shape in cleaner. 6. In the Project window, click and drag where you want the hotspot. Red handles similar to the cropping rectangle let you resize the hotspot. You can also click and drag inside the hotspot to move it around the frame. 7. Click Add Action to associate an action with the hotspot. If desired, you can add multiple actions to a hotspot. The hotspot action is added to the event list directly under the hotspot event. Initially, the hotspot action is not associated with a time. All hotspot actions have the same time and duration as the hotspot that they reference. 8. Choose an event type for the action using the Events menu. 9. Assign the necessary information for the action you choose. Play The Play event (QuickTime) can only be used as an action associated with a hotspot and only works with QuickTime files. Typically, use this option on a movie that contains an interactive menu or is using its own custom play and pause controls. For example, create a movie that uses custom play and pause buttons embedded into the movie instead of using the default QuickTime controls. To add a play button: 1. Add a hotspot event to the movie play button. 2. Click Add Action. 3. Choose Play from the Events menu. 4. Repeat steps 1 and 3 to add a hotspot and action to the pause button. 5. To keep the standard QuickTime controller from appearing when the movie is opened in a Web page, uncheck the Add movie controller option in the Create HTML panel of the Output tab. Processing Events Processing events let you specify certain settings without using the Settings dialog. These events do not directly affect how the user views the final encoded file but help streamline the production process. 211 212 Chapter 9: Eventstream QuickTime Keyframe x Web Poster x Real Windows Media x Keyframe The Keyframe event will force a keyframe at any time in a movie (QuickTime and RealSystem) if the codec being used allows forcing. When cleaner encodes the movie, it requests that the codec create a keyframe at the time specified. Use this feature when creating video to be accessed at specific points, such as a Go to Time event. Placing keyframes at these points may improve the viewer’s access speed. cleaner automatically places keyframes for most codecs, so this is not needed for noninteractive material. Generally, keyframe placement is a task best left to cleaner unless you have a specific reason to use it. Overuse of keyframes increases the file data rate and can negatively impact the file image quality and/or playback performance. For more information on keyframes, see “Keyframe Frequency” on page 177. Keyframes are set by time and are not tied to a specific frame. This is because frames may be removed from the movie as its frame rate is altered. For example, if you set a keyframe in a 30-fps source movie that is going to be encoded at a lower frame rate, such as 5 fps, cleaner sets the keyframe at the time specified in the EventStream Editor. However, the keyframe may not be the same frame on which you originally set the keyframe because when frames are removed to convert the file from 30 fps to 5 fps, the original frame may no longer be in the file. To create a Keyframe event: 1. Select an existing marker or click Add to create new markers. 2. Choose Keyframe from the Events menu. 3. The current time of the file appears in the Start field. Use this time or type a different time into the Start field. You can also use the Start menu to select In Point or Out Point. Web Poster You can select any frame from a QuickTime movie to be a Web poster. A Web Poster is a still image on a Web page that is replaced by the full-length movie when the viewer clicks it. Supported Events For example, if you have a 5-MB movie to embed on your Web page, you could use a Web poster as a placeholder for the whole movie. This helps your page load faster, especially if you have multiple QuickTime movies on a page, and lets the user start the movie by clicking on the Web poster. For more information, see “QuickTime Web posters” on page 119. The Web poster event also creates a poster frame that is used as a thumbnail for the rest of the movie. This is useful for previews, because QuickTime defaults to using the first frame of the movie for a thumbnail. Often, the first frame of the movie is either black or does not contain an image that conveys what the movie is about. For example, if you are making a music video, it may be more useful to use a frame that contains an image of the artist rather than the first frame of the movie. For more information, see “QuickTime Poster Frames” on page 119. To select a Web poster for your movie: 1. In the Project window, step through the movie to find the frame you want to use. 2. Click Add. 3. Choose Web Poster in the pop-up menu. 213 214 Chapter 9: Eventstream Publishing Realtime-streaming files require a streaming server. When streaming files are processed, cleaner embeds the player mount point either directly into the master movie file (QuickTime) or in a metafile, such as a RAM, WVX or WAX file. When a viewer downloads your Web page, these files direct the embedded player to the appropriate streaming server. You can set up the streaming server addresses in advance using the Preferences dialog. The server paths you assign become your default server settings and are applied to every streaming file you create. You can override the default server address and specify a new one in the Settings window. The Destinations dialog manages the cleaner StreamPublisher feature, which automates uploads by allowing you to create a custom destination for the server that contains its upload address, log-in information and streaming server paths. See “StreamPublisher” on page 219 for more information. 216 Chapter 10: Publishing Setting Streaming Server Paths The first time you process any streaming file, you are prompted for the address of the streaming server if you have not already specified the information in the Preferences dialog. The addresses you supply in the Preferences dialog apply to all the streaming files you create, unless you override them in the Settings window. Remember, these addresses are player mount points. QuickTime Streaming Server Preferences QuickTime streaming movies are hosted by a QuickTime Streaming Server. The path that you enter in the Streaming Server Paths field in the Preferences dialog is embedded into a master movie that points to different alternate movies. The master is stored on the HTTP server and the alternate movies are stored on the QuickTime Streaming Server. When the viewer loads the master movie in your Web page, the QuickTime Plug-in examines the master movie and looks for the alternate movies on the QuickTime Streaming Server. The QuickTime Plug-in chooses the most appropriate alternate movie for the viewer’s configuration. For additional information on QuickTime alternates, see “Alternates and Streaming” on page 99. The streaming server path you set in the Preferences dialog must be the exact address where the QuickTime alternate movies can be played. If this information is not accurate, the plug-in is unable to find the alternate movies. If you are creating a QuickTime streaming file and you do not want to use the default server settings you entered in the Preferences dialog, you can override the default in the Output tab of the Settings window. Setting Streaming Server Paths To override default preference settings: 1. In the Output tab, click the check box to activate the Set Server Path option. 2. The streaming server address you supplied in the Preferences dialog appears in the dialog box. 3. To use a different path than the one displayed, click the Override Prefs option check box and type a new server address in the field. If you are creating QuickTime Alternate files, the server path information also appears in the Alternate Tab. You cannot modify the server path in the Alternate tab. Go to the Output tab and change the path in the Set Server Path panel. Note: When you create streaming QuickTime alternates, the Set Server Path panel check box must be active in the Output tab to embed the server address in the master movie. See “QuickTime Streaming” on page 97. RealServer Preferences RealSystem SureStream files must be uploaded to a RealServer. The path you enter in the Streaming Server Paths fields in the Preferences dialog is used in the metafile, or RAM file. The RAM file is uploaded to the HTTP server, and you create a link to the RAM file from your Web page. When the viewer clicks on the link to the RAM file, the browser downloads the RAM file and opens it with RealPlayer. RealPlayer then uses the streaming server path information in the RAM file to find the RealSystem file on the RealServer and plays it. See “Putting RealSystem Files on a RealServer” on page 127. To override default preference settings: 1. In the Output tab, click check box for the Create Metafile (RAM) option. The streaming server address supplied in the Preferences dialog box appears. 2. To specify a different path, click the Override Prefs option check box and type the new address in the field. Note: Though primarily used for SureStream files, you can also create a RAM file for a single- stream RealSystem file. 217 218 Chapter 10: Publishing You can also link viewers directly to a RealSystem file on an HTTP server so it can be downloaded to their computer. See “Adding downloadable RealSystem Files to a Web Page” on page 129. Windows Media Server Preferences Windows Media files must be uploaded to a Windows Media Server. You can override the preferences dialog and customize the streaming server path for the Windows Media Server in the Settings window. The path you enter in the Streaming Server Paths field is used in the metafile, which for Windows Media is called a WVX file for video and a WAX file for audio. The WVX/WAX file is linked in your Web page and uploaded to the HTTP server. When the viewer clicks the link to the WVX/WAX file, the browser downloads it and opens the Windows Media Player. Windows Media Player then uses the streaming server path information in the WVX/WAX file to find the Windows Media file on the Windows Media Server and plays it. See “Uploading to a Windows Media Server” on page 133 To override default preference settings: 1. In the Output tab, click the Create Metafile option check box. The streaming server address supplied in the Preferences dialog is displayed. 2. To specify a different path, click the check box for the Override Prefs option and type the new address in the field. You can also link viewers directly to the Windows Media file on an HTTP server so it can be downloaded to their computer. For more information, see “Adding Downloadable Files to a Web Page” on page 134. StreamPublisher StreamPublisher The StreamPublisher allows you to automatically upload your files to a streaming server after they have been encoded. You do not have to manually upload the files with an FTP application after the encoding is completed. This is a time saver, especially if you are encoding a large batch of files. Specifying the Destination for Streaming Files In addition to choosing different folders on your hard drive that you can use for saving encoded files, the Destinations dialog box also lets you upload streaming files to a streaming server. Note: In order to upload files to a QuickTime Streaming Server, RealServer or Windows Media Server, you must have an active FTP account on the same machine as the streaming server software. To set up a server destination: 1. In the Batch window, double-click the Destination column of the project. Or, choose Batch > Set Custom Destination. The Destinations dialog box appears. 2. In the Server section, choose an existing destination from the list or click Add to create a new destination. If you choose an existing destination, click OK to return to the Batch window. 219 220 Chapter 10: Publishing If you add a new FTP server destination, you are prompted to enter the server information, including the log-in information and the upload path. Important: This is the upload address for the server, not the player mount point. The paths in the metafiles are created from the paths specified in the Preferences dialog or overrides in the Settings window. Metafiles do not use the path specified in the Destinations dialog. 3. Click OK to return to the Destinations dialog. If you specified a label for the destination, it appears as one of the options under Server. 4. Click OK to return to the Batch window. The Destination column of the file changes from Default to the name you assigned to the server destination. 5. Click Start to process the file. cleaner processes the file and automatically uploads only the streaming files to the server. A progress bar in the Status column appears when uploading begins. When the upload is complete, the progress bar disappears and the file status changes to Done. Note: Metafiles, cleaner-generated HTML and any other files that do not belong on the streaming server are not uploaded and are saved, along with the streaming files, in the default destination folder. If there are any errors while uploading to the server, such as an incorrect password or server failure, the Status column in the Batch window indicates that there was an error. Double-click on the Status column to display a brief description of the error. If there is an upload error, pressing the Start button again causes cleaner to attempt to upload the file again instead of reencoding the file. Configurations of streaming servers can vary greatly — consult your network administrator or see the server software documentation for more information on streaming server setup. For more details on using the Destinations dialog, see “Selecting Destinations” on page 33. Workflow When you are dealing with large numbers of files, streamlining your workflow to save time becomes important. cleaner 6 offers several options to help you encode streaming media as easily and as quickly as possible. Watch folders enable drag and drop processing. You can set up folders that cleaner 6“watches”. When you drop media into a watch folder, it is immediately processed using the setting assigned to the folder. Contextual menus give you access to several cleaner functions with a click of the mouse. When you need to process a lot of files quickly, there are processing options and preferences you can use to reduce the processing time. See “Improving Processing Speed” on page 224 and “Preferences” on page 227. Helpers allow you launch players from within cleaner, making it easy to view the original and output movies. See “Helpers” on page 225. Using AppleScript, you can automate many tasks, including creating and processing batch files, assigning settings, scheduling batches for encoding and file management. 222 Chapter 11: Workflow Preproduction Preproduction is a critical step in preparing content. Knowing what delivery platform will be used will set guidelines for creating the content. Knowing the basic design of the associated Web page will determine what kind of information must be gathered and what metadata and interactivity options can be included. •Creating a storyboard will clarify the goal of the production by providing a list of elements and their needs. •Know the bandwidth available to the audience to determine data rates. •Define and test your workflow. Know how your cameras, location sound, video and sound editing software and cleaner are going to interact. Watch Folders Watch folders are a quick and easy way to automate processing. To use watch folders: 1. Make a new Batch. This example was named Encode QuickTime. 2. From the cleaner menu bar choose Batch > Add Watch Folder. The Choose a Folder dialog appears. 3. Choose a folder or create a new one. 4. Click Choose. The Folder appears in the specified location (usually the desktop) and as a project in the Batch window. For this example, the folder was named Watch QuickTime. 5. Assign a Setting to the Watch QuickTime folder project. 6. Click Start. 223 The Watch folder is now active. Media dropped on the folder will be processed with the setting assigned to the project. 7. Drag and drop media into the Watch Quicktime folder on the desktop. Processing begins. 8. While processing, the media is moved to the “Encoding by *Computer Owner’s Computer*” folder inside the Watch folder. If processing is stopped it is moved back out. 9. When processing is finished the source file will be placed in the “Done by *Computer Owner’s Computer*” folder inside the Watch folder. 10.The output files are placed in the specified Destination for the Project. You can create as many Watch folders as you need, each with a different setting. You can encode the same source file in multiple Watch folders by placing an alias of the file in each Watch folder. While a Watch folder is activated by pressing the Start button, you cannot make changes within cleaner. Contextual Menus Control-clicking (or right-clicking with a three button mouse) while the cursor is over a window brings up a contextual menu that gives you access to certain functions. The Project window contextual menu lets you modify In/Out points and display sizes, or go directly to a time or frame number in the file. 224 Chapter 11: Workflow If you Control-click a project in the Batch window, a menu appears that lets you apply settings and modify other options related to that project. You can choose from several options in this menu, such as Clear Media Status and Set Priority. If you choose Apply Setting, you can also access the settings in the cleaner Settings folder using the contextual menu, which is easier than choosing one in the Settings window. If there are too many folders or more than six levels of folders in the cleaner Settings folder, the menu cannot display all the settings available for the Apply Settings option. If you Control-click anywhere else in the Batch window, you can open new files, modify or create batches and edit Preferences. Commands selected with a Control-click anywhere in a selection are applied to all files in the selection. A Control-click outside the selection but on another file deselects the previous files, selects the new file and lets you select a new command. Improving Processing Speed Processing and encoding the source files often takes a long time. Depending on the settings, particularly the codec and CPU speed, processing and encoding a movie can take up to several seconds per frame. Here are some ways you can reduce the time it takes to finish your projects. Upgrade Your Computer The most important thing you can do to improve the compression speed is get the fastest computer you can afford. The speed of the CPU makes a huge difference. cleaner is accelerated to take advantage of dual-processors. This can substantially decrease the processing time of your projects. How much faster a dual-processor computer encodes compared to a single processor system depends on the source video and computer configuration. Some codecs do not take full advantage of multiprocessor computers, so the speed increase with a dual-processor system may not be as great as you might expect. Turning Off Video Display It takes time to redraw the final image in the Output window. You can slightly increase the processing speed by turning off the display of the movie in the Output window. Click the disclosure triangle next to the movie file name above the video. This closes the video window so that the image is no longer displayed. 225 Minimize Processing If you need to encode a movie many times, you may save time by scaling, filtering and adjusting it once and saving an intermediate version in an uncompressed format, such as the Animation codec at 100% quality. You can then encode this intermediate movie without adjusting it each time. This saves the time it would take to scale, filter and adjust it with each encoding pass. Helpers cleaner is often used in conjunction with other tools during the production process. To help streamline this process, the Helpers menu enables you to open files listed in the Batch window with related applications. For example, you can easily check the QuickTime files by choosing QuickTime Player from the Helpers menu. This saves you the time it used to take to find the files on the desktop and drag them onto the various other applications you need to use. Using Helpers When cleaner is launched, it checks the Helpers folder in the application Folder. Any programs, aliases to programs, or AppleScripts present in this folder are added to the Helpers menu. You can then open the source or output movies directly from the Batch window using these programs or scripts. Note: The Helpers menu does not appear if there are no items in the Helpers folder. To add applications to the Helpers folder: 1. Create an alias to a program or script. 2. Place the alias in the Helpers folder in the application folder. Note: If you add items to the Helpers folder while cleaner is running, you must restart the application before they appear in the Helpers menu. Opening Source Movies with Helpers To open the original source file from the Batch window: 1. Select the project in the Batch window. 2. Choose the desired application from the Helpers menu. You can also select a project and press the function key assigned to the desired Helper application (see the next section for more details). 3. The project source opens in the selected Helper application. Opening the source file is helpful for making changes to the original source file prior to encoding. For example, you can make simple edits using QuickTime Player. 226 Chapter 11: Workflow Note: If you modify the source movie, save the changes within the original source file by using the Save command in the Helper application. If you create a new version of the file with the Save As command, the new version is not listed in the Batch window. You must manually add the new version to the batch. Also, if you change the duration or speed of the movie, any previously set EventStream or In/Out points may become inaccurate. To open multiple files at once: 1. Press shift or a and click projects in the Batch window. 2. Choose an application from the Helpers menu or click an assigned function key to launch them all at the same time. Opening Output Movies with Helpers To open the encoded output of a project listed in the Batch window: 1. Select the project in the Batch window after it is done processing. 2. Press option and choose an application from the Helpers menu. Or, press option and the assigned function key at the same time to launch the output version of the movie in the Helper application. 3. The encoded version opens with the Helper. You can then view files that cleaner cannot display, such as RealSystem and Windows Media files. Using AppleScripts with Helpers You can add AppleScripts to the Helpers folder to add special functionality to cleaner. For additional AppleScript information, see the Apple documentation on AppleScript. Helpers and Function Keys Items in the Helpers menu are automatically assigned Function keys to help you easily launch these applications from the keyboard. Preferences Preferences The Preferences dialog lets you modify several cleaner-specific options to help streamline your workflow or help encode files faster. Interface Data Rate Units You can choose in which units you want the data rates to be displayed — Bytes per second (Bytes/sec) or bits per second (bits/sec). By default, cleaner displays data rate units in bits per second. When you switch between units, cleaner converts all data rates to the equivalent data rate in the new units. For example, if a setting specifies 10 KBytes/sec, and you switch to bits/sec, the data rate in this setting is shown as 80 kbits/sec. Use advanced QuickTime Effects Some QuickTime Effects let you change the effect over time. See “Advanced QuickTime Effects” on page 79 for more details. Load source movie into memory Checking the Load source movie into memory option does not improve encoding speed but allows QuickTime and other types of source movies to be loaded into RAM for better playback within cleaner. This is helpful for previewing uncompressed source movies, such as movies rendered with the None or Animation codec. See “Enhanced Movie Playback” on page 52. 227 228 Chapter 11: Workflow Chime on completion and error By default, cleaner chimes when it is done processing movies and beeps three short times upon errors. These sounds give you audible feedback on the batch processing, but can get annoying if you are working with single movies or using headphones. Disable these sounds by unchecking the Chime on Completion & Error option in the Preferences dialog. Only play selection between in and out You can play only the portion of a movie between the In and Out points set in the Project window. This is especially useful for testing processing parameters on short segments of the project file. See “Trimming Files” on page 49 for details. Processing Minimizing Preview The Minimize preview (faster) option is often used with large batches and improves encoding performance by displaying every fourth frame of the movie in the Output window instead of every frame, which saves redraw time. This option also shrinks the preview image in the Output window to a thumbnail and deactivates the Before/After slider. When you move the cursor during encoding, the output movie display expands to show the whole image and enables the Before/After slider. Appending Settings to File Names With the Append settings to file name option checked, cleaner adds the name of the setting used to compress a file into the output file name. This is useful if you are making different versions of a file and want to track which version was made with a particular setting. For example, if you compress the movie Presentation.mov with the 2xCD-ROM setting, the resulting file is named Presentation2xCD-ROM.mov. Enable multifile sources Allows automatic joining of separate audio and video files. See “Importing from Audio CDs” on page 29. Adjust audio sync for Sorenson b-frame Inserts a 3 frame audio sync offset in movies using b-frames with the Sorenson 3 pro codec. Source Frame Format: Interlaced, bottom or top field first— choose the default field dominance for source media. Preferences Progressive — choose to make progressive scan source the default. Auto Detect — detects whether the source is progressive or interlaced. Works with most common source material, but exceptions exist. Note: These are default settings. The controls in the Project window will override these defaults on a per project basis. QT Alternates Creating a QuickTime Alternate Movie Fallback When producing alternate movies, you can create a fallback for viewers who do not have the latest version of QuickTime installed. The Fallback menu in the Preferences dialog lets you globally ensure that all the alternate movies have fallbacks, even if you do not manually create them. For more information on using this feature, see “Using Preferences to Ensure Fallbacks” on page 113. Add Alternate Folder Name in Custom Path This option is useful if you prefer to organize your movies within subfolders on the server when making QuickTime movies with streaming alternates. Enabling this option causes cleaner to organize the streaming alternates into a subfolder named from the source movie. The name of this folder is included in the absolute path stored in the master movie, and you should upload the entire subfolder to the correct location on the Streaming Server. See “Organizing Streaming Alternates in Subfolders” on page 110. Server Paths You can enter streaming server player mount points in the Preferences dialog for the QuickTime Streaming Server, RealServer and Windows Media Server. See “Setting Streaming Server Paths” on page 216. 229 230 Chapter 11: Workflow Troubleshooting Common Problems and Solutions Memory Memory was a common source of problems with the Macintosh prior to OS X, which has automatic memory management. OS 9.x memory management Turn off virtual memory (VM). It may cause movies to play erratically or stutter. Some versions of Mac OS automatically turn on VM when installed, so be sure to check. Always keep at least 2 MB of memory free for QuickTime. To check memory for QuickTime: 1. Launch cleaner. 2. Switch to the Finder. 3. Choose Apple Menu > About This Macintosh. Make sure at least 2 MB are available in the Largest Unused Block section. If at least 2 MB aren’t free, quit other open applications. Also, try lowering cleaner ’s Preferred Size and Minimum Size and restart your computer to make sure all the memory that should be available is released properly. Hardware codecs •Make sure that you do not have multiple movies open at one time. Certain hardware codecs may use the capture card to display video. If more than one movie is open at a time, the card must support all movies simultaneously and could possibly crash. Make sure that you don’t have a movie open in the background with another application such as Premiere or QuickTime Player. 232 Chapter 12: Troubleshooting •Make sure that you have the latest version of the codec and drivers and are not running your capture hardware on an unsupported configuration. Please see the capture hardware vendor’s documentation for more details. Image quality problems •If the movie periodically gets blurry, then sharp again, or vice versa, you may have the Temporal and/or Spatial quality sliders set too high or low. •When using the Apple Animation codec, use the keyframe Quality Balance slider to balance the keyframe and delta frame quality. Otherwise, set the Spatial slider in the Encode tab of the Settings window to a lower setting if the keyframes are sharp and the delta frames are blurry. Use a higher setting if the opposite is true. •If you are making low-data rate Web movies, make sure that you haven’t allocated all the data rate to the audio. This is easy to do if you aren’t careful. Also, be sure that you know what data rate units you are using. If you are expecting KiloBytes but are specifying kilobits, your movies will look substantially worse. See “Choosing the Data Rate” on page 179. Older machines Most new codecs and architectures do not support computers prior to PowerMacs and Pentium machines. Usually movies do not play at all on unsupported machines, but sometimes they are displayed with very strange or erratic results. Progressive-streaming movies If progressive-streaming movies are not showing up properly in your page even though you included the embed tags in the new HTML and uploaded the HTML and movies to the server: •Reload the page with your browser. •View the HTML source with a text editor to make sure the embed tag is actually included. Older HTML editors may not recognize the QuickTime tags and may delete them. •Make sure that the names of the movies are compatible with the server and end with the proper suffix. For most servers, this means avoiding spaces and using only alpha-numeric characters. •Double-check to make sure that the movie name in the HTML is exactly the same as the movie name on the server. Sometimes you may change the name of a movie and forget to change the reference to it in the HTML document. Make sure that the capitalization is the same if you are using a Unix or Windows server. Common Problems and Solutions Realtime-streaming movies If realtime-streaming movies are not showing up properly in your page : •Make sure that you have properly created the reference file (master movie for QuickTime, RAM for RealSystem, and WVX or WAX for Windows Media) and linked it in the HTML. •Make sure the reference file is in the correct location on the HTTP server. •Double-check that the embed tag in the HTML page links to the reference file, not the movie itself. Carefully look at all specified paths to make sure that they are correct and don’t have capitalization differences. •Make sure that you have uploaded the movie to the streaming server and not to the HTTP server. •Test the server with a sample movie to determine if you are having trouble in general with the server or if it is a specific movie with which there are problems. Servers •A common cause for movies not playing properly when they are on the server is problems with their names. For best results, use only numbers and letters, no spaces, followed by the appropriate suffix (the suffix should be in lowercase). Make sure that the suffix matches the file type of the movie. For example, using the .mov suffix with a RealSystem file won’t work. •Make sure that your browser is configured to play that file type properly. Also, make sure that only one “helper” application or Plug-in is selected in your browser’s preferences for each file type. •Make sure that the HTTP server has its MIME types set properly. Adding the following line to its MIME types file may help: video/quicktime qt, mov audio/x-pn-realaudio ra, rm, ram, rpm audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin rpm video/x-msvideo avi video/x-ms-wma wma, wax video/x-ms-wmv wmv, wvx video/mpeg mp2, mpe, mpeg, mpg application/octet-stream mp3 audio/x-wav wav audio/aiff aiff, aif 233 234 Chapter 12: Troubleshooting •If you are viewing streaming video over a network, talk to your system administrator to make sure that there are no firewall issues. Firewalls often block RTSP traffic. •Make sure that the streaming server is properly configured and working correctly. See the server’s documentation for more details. Technical Support Before you contact us: Read the manual Make sure that you are following procedures and that you understand what is possible. Make sure your system is working properly The majority of the problems we encounter are configuration issues. Make sure your system is working properly in general before contacting us. Do the tutorials on the cleaner 6 CD-ROM to verify that your system is working properly. If you are not encoding or displaying a tutorial properly, make sure that your system is configured to handle that movie type. System Configuration To check system configuration with OS 9x: 1. Choose Help > Save System Configuration. A text file named System Config Info will be generated. This file includes your serial number, CPU, memory, OS version, encoder versions, system extensions and other important details. If you are having problems with a specific movie, make sure it is open when you create the log. To check system configuration with OS X: 1. Choose Applications > Utilities > Apple System Profiler. 2. Choose File > New Report. 3. Check all options. 4. Click OK to create a profile of your system. 5. Choose View report as Text document. 6. Choose File > Save. Technical Support Create a Log or System Profile prior to contacting us. The information it contains is helpful to our support team and should be included in any technical support requests. Technical support may ask you for this information when you call us. If you are having problems with a particular setting, please attach that setting to your emailed support request. Please also have your cleaner serial number available. What is the problem or question? In order to provide you with useful assistance, our support staff needs a clear description of your problem or question. What steps led to the problem? If you are getting an error message, what exactly does it say? Screen shots of problems are helpful, too. World Wide Authorized Resellers. Your local reseller is an excellent source for support and information about discreet streaming products, as well as training and assistance on related hardware and software. To locate a Reseller near you, please dial 800.869.3504, fax us at 800.305.6442 or visit the Reseller Look Up on the Discreet Web site at http://www.discreet.com/resellers/. Online Technical Support Website. The Discreet Web site http://www.discreet.com/support is a rich knowledge pool of free product information. Information and assistance are available on our peer-to-peer Online Discussion Forum. To visit the Discussion Forum for your product, go to http://www.discreet.com/support. Direct Telephone Support from within the US. As a registered client of the full retail version of a discreet product, you are entitled to receive telephone support for installation, configuration, and troubleshooting for thirty (30) consecutive days. This support period starts with your first support call. Product Support is open Monday through Friday, 9am - 9pm Eastern Time. Please have your product serial number ready when you call. Toll free in North America: 1-877-DISCREET or 1-877-347-2733 Outside of North America: 1-514-954-7550 Fax: 1-514-954-7254 Overseas please contact your local authorized reseller. 235 236 Chapter 12: Troubleshooting Glossary 2.21:1 Aspect Ratio — see Cinemascope. 3:2 Pulldown — a conversion of film frame rate material (24 fps) to NTSC video (29.97 fps), that results in the addition of approximately 6 frames per second. Pulldown frames are created by blending frames from the original source in a specific pattern and are very undesirable in compressed movies. Pulldown is introduced with a system called Telecine and can be removed with cleaner’s Intelecine feature. 4:1:1 Color — uses chroma blocks 4 wide x 1 tall. Moderately compressed video color subsampling in which the luminance channel is not subsampled, but the chrominance channel has 1/4 the resolution. Most of the DV formats use 4:1:1 color. 4:2:0 Color — uses chroma blocks 2 wide x 2 tall. Moderately compressed video color subsampling that is very similar to 4:1:1. Standard color for MPEG. 4:2:2 Color — uses chroma blocks 2 wide x 1 tall. Mildly compressed video color subsampling in which the luminance channel is not subsampled, but the chrominance channel has half the resolution. Commonly used in professional digital video formats, such as Digital Betacam, D1, D5, D9, DVCPro-50 and Motion JPEG. While Betacam SP is often described as being 4:2:2, it is an analog format, and doesn't have a digital colorspace. 4:3 Aspect Ratio — common width-to-height display aspect ratio. 640x480 and 320x240 are examples of 4:3 aspect frame size. 238 Chapter 13: Glossary 4:4:4 Color — uncompressed video color that has no subsampling. 8-Bit — color depth that allows 256 colors to be displayed simultaneously. The colors that will be displayed at a given time are specified in the Palette. Many older computers only have 8-bit displays. Also called 256 Colors on the Mac OS. 16:9 Aspect Ratio — standard display aspect ratio of DVD-Video. When displayed on a normal television (which is 4:3), 16:9 material is letterboxed with black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. 16-Bit — color depth that allows thousands of colors to be displayed simultaneously. Also called Thousands of Colors on Mac OS, and High Color on Windows. 24-Bit — color depth that allows millions of colors to be displayed simultaneously. 24-bit images can have true photographic quality. Also called Millions of Colors on Mac OS and True Color on Windows. A/B Slider — in the Dynamic Preview window, the A/B Slider lets you compare your processing and/or compression settings by moving it back and forth in real time. AAC — Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is included in the MPEG-4 specification. AAC provides audio encoding that compresses more efficiently than older formats. The AAC codec in QuickTime 6 builds upon signal processing technology from Dolby Laboratories and adds true variable bit rate (VBR) audio encoding to QuickTime. Absolute Path — directions to a given folder, page, graphic, etc. as expressed in complete coordinates. For example, http://www.discreet.com/media/Presentation.mov is an absolute path. Absolute paths are used to reference items that are on different servers from the page referring to them, such as movies located on a streaming server. 239 Activation Key — a set of characters used to activate cleaner. It can be found inside the front cover of this manual. The activation key applied may be found in cleaner’s System Configuration Log. Adaptive Deinterlace — deinterlacing option that analyzes the video and selectively deinterlaces only the parts of the image that are moving while leaving static portions unaltered. Adaptive Noise Reduction Filter — an “Intelligent” noise filtering system that analyzes each pixel and reduces the fine detail and noise of an image. This maintains edge detail without blurring the image and improves compression. ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) — high-speed Internet connection technology that uses existing telephone lines. AIFF — Audio Interchange File Format (or AIFF) is a file format for storing digital audio (waveform) data. It supports a variety of bit resolutions, sample rates, and channels of audio. The format was developed by Apple Computer and is the standard format for audio CD production. Alpha Channel — additional image channel that is often used to store transparency or compositing information. Alpha channels are often 8-bit, but some applications support 16-bit alpha channels. Only certain formats, such as PICT and the QuickTime Animation codec, support alpha channels. Alternate Movies — QuickTime option that allows you to create multiple versions of a movie and set criteria for when the QuickTime Plug-in should display the various versions. Analog-to-Digital Converter (A/D) — a chip that converts analog video signals to digital signals. Analog-to-digital converters are used on capture cards to change the video into a format that the computer can better manipulate and store. Architecture — see Multimedia Architecture. 240 Chapter 13: Glossary ASF (Advanced Streaming Format) — the general file format for older versions of Windows Media. Replaced by Windows Media Video. Aspect ratio — width-to-height ratio of an image. See 4:3 aspect ratio, 16:9 aspect ratio and Cinemascope for common examples of aspect ratios. ASX — Windows Media metafile that is placed on the HTTP server and gives Windows Media Player the location of the Windows Media file on the Windows Media Server. ASX files can contain references to multiple movies, different content locations, temporal aspects, and more. The Windows Media 7 replaces ASX with WVX and WAX. Asymmetric Codec — codec that takes longer to encode than decode. For example, Sorenson Video is extremely asymmetric because it takes many times longer to encode a video frame than it does to play back the same frame. Most modern codecs are asymmetric. Bandwidth — amount of information that can be sent, processed, etc., in a given amount of time. For example, a 2x CD-ROM drive has a maximum bandwidth of 300 KBytes/sec; a 28.8 modem has a theoretical bandwidth of approximately 3 KBytes/sec. Batch Encoding — grouping two or more movies together to be compressed sequentially, so that it is not necessary to start encoding manually for each file. Batch List — specific list of movies to be compressed in a batch, as well as the settings that will be used to process each movie. Batch Log File — text file that reports the results of each compression, including any problems that occurred. Batch Window — “home base” for controlling processing within cleaner. The Batch window displays the list of files to be processed, the setting with which they will be processed, and the Start, Stop and Pause buttons. 241 B-frame (Bi-directional frame) — MPEG difference frame that is based on both the previous and next frame. Similar to a QuickTime delta frame, only with the ability to see what’s ahead. Binhex — Mac OS encoding scheme that converts normal computer files into ASCII (text) characters for transmission over the Internet. Binhexed files normally end with .hqx and must be returned to their binary format prior to use. Web video files should never be binhexed. Bit (Binary Digit) — unit of measure for computer data. A bit is a single computer digit (either a 1 or 0). Eight bits make up a Byte. Bitmap — collection of pixels that make up an image. Often used to distinguish images that are pixel-based as compared to images that are vector-based. Blur — filter that averages pixels together to soften the image and can be used to minimize subtle frame-to-frame differences. Normally when compressing movies, you get better results with the Adaptive Noise Reduction filter. Bottlenecks — points in a system that are slower than the rest of the system, causing overall delays. In the Internet, bottlenecks are often caused by localized problems, such as overloaded switching complexes and slow modems. Broadcast — used to refer to signals intended for delivery over the television system, as well as network delivery to a wide audience. Burn — changing a text or sprite track into an image in the video track. Byte — computer data unit that represents a single character in most languages. One byte is made up of eight bits. Cable Modem — special modem designed to operate over cable TV lines to provide extremely fast access to the Internet. 242 Chapter 13: Glossary CD-ROM (Compact Disc — Read Only Memory) — delivery medium used for distributing computer software, photos, audio and multimedia content. Chapter — EventStream event that lets you add chapters to your QuickTime file for easier navigability through the movie. See Chapter List. Chapter List — QuickTime allows viewers to click on a pop-up to jump to selected points in the movie. Chrominance — color component of an image. Cinemascope — very wide (2.21:1) aspect ratio that is one of the standards in MPEG-2. When displayed on a normal television, Cinemascope material requires pronounced “letterboxing” (black bars on top and bottom). Cinepak — codec used for CD-ROM video compression. Allows temporal and spatial compression, as well as data rate limiting. Newer codecs, such as Sorenson Video, offer superior image quality and features, but Cinepak is still sometimes used for backwards compatibility. CMYK (Cyan Magenta Yellow Black) — color space commonly used for images that will be printed with 4-color ink on offset presses. Codec (Compressor/decompressor) — software component that translates video or audio between its uncompressed form and the compressed form in which it is stored. Sorenson Video and Cinepak are common QuickTime video codecs. Also called a compressor. Color Depth — possible range of colors that can be used in a movie or image. There are generally four choices with video: Grayscale, 8-bit, 16-bit, and 24-bit. Higher color depths provide a wider range of colors, but require more space for a given image size. Only Animation, None and PNG support multiple color depths. These codecs also support 1-bit, 2-bit and 4-bit video in both color and grayscale. 243 Color Lookup Table — see Palette. Color Space — mathematical model that describes colors. Common models include RGB, CMYK, HSV and YUV. Color Subsampling — method of reducing the size of an image by storing color data with lower resolution than luminance data. Typically used in video with the YUV color space. Common subsampling options include 4:2:2, 4:1:1, and YUV9. Compression — Digital compression reduces the overall number of bits in a file so it can be transmitted faster over Internet connections, or take up less space on a disk. Audio compression boosts the volume of quiet parts of the audio, while limiting loud parts. Compressor — see Codec. CPU (Central Processing Unit) — processor chip in a computer. Also used to refer to a computer in general. CPU-Intensive — describes processes that use large amounts of processor power. CPUintensive processes tend to tie up the computer while they are running, and not work well on slower machines. D1 Resolution — standard resolution specified by certain formats, including DV, which is 720x486. Also known as CCIR601. Data Rate — amount of information per second used to represent a movie, often expressed in KiloBytes per second (KBytes/sec). A single speed CD-ROM movie is usually made at a data rate of 100 KBytes/sec and a double speed CD-ROM movie about 200 KBytes/sec. The data rate of uncompressed NTSC video is about 15 MBytes/sec. Data Rate Limiting — ability of a program or codec to control the size of the final compressed movie so that it meets the specified data rate. See also Variable Bitrate Encoding. 244 Chapter 13: Glossary Data Rate Spikes — short sections of a movie that have significantly higher data rates than the rest of the movie. If not properly managed, spikes may cause dropped frames or other problems. Decode — in multimedia, refers to decompressing an encoded file so that it may be displayed. Codecs do this decoding while the video/audio is played. Deinterlace — to remove the interlacing artifacts caused by the two-fields-per-frame nature of conventional video. Delta Frames — frames that contain only the changes from the previous frame. Delta frames are created by codecs that use temporal compression. Delta frames are also called difference frames. Dial-up Modem — see Modem. Difference Frames — see Delta Frames. DirectShow (formerly known as ActiveMovie) — the successor to Microsoft's Video for Windows architecture. It is built on top of the DirectX architecture and supports playback of multimedia from the the local hard drive, the Web, CD-ROM and DVD-ROM. Display Text — EventStream event that lets you add subtitles or closed captioning to your QuickTime, RealSystem and Windows Media files. Download — to copy a file from a server or network to your machine. DVD — DVD (digital versatile disc) is an optical disc technology. The digital versatile disc (DVD) holds 4.7 gigabyte of information on one of its two sides, or enough for a 133-minute movie. With two layers on each of its two sides, it will hold up to 17 gigabytes of video, audio, or other information. 245 DVD-Video — The usual name for the DVD format designed for full-length movies. Uses the MPEG-2 file and compression standard. Audio quality on DVD is comparable to that of audio compact discs. DVD-ROM — A version of the DVD disc format for computers that is replacing CD-ROMs. Similar to a fast , large (4.7–17 Gigabytes) CD-ROM, DVD-ROM can hold any type of computer data, and does not require MPEG. Dynamic Preview — a feature that lets you see the effects of your processing and/or compression settings. edge blanking — black part of the video signal that normally falls outside the area that shows on a TV screen. Most capture cards include some amount of edge blanking around the captured image. Commonly referred to as “edge noise” or “overscan.” embed tag — HTML code that specifies how a graphic or movie will be included within your WWW page. Encode — process by which files are reduced in size by the removal of redundant or less important data. Also called Compression. See also Lossy and Lossless. Export Module — plug-in that allows files to be transferred from a video editor to cleaner for optimization and compression. Extensions — See Suffix. EventStream Authoring — feature that lets you create streaming media files that takes advantage of QuickTime, RealSystem and Windows Media’s interactive capabilities by allowing you to add events, such as stream navigation, URL flips, hotspots, subtitles and chapter lists, directly to your streaming media files. See also Chapter, Display Text, Go to Time, Hotspot, Keyframe, Marker, Open URL, Pause, Play, Web Poster and Replace Movie. 246 Chapter 13: Glossary Fallback — alternate movie, image or text message displayed to viewers who don’t have QuickTime 4 or later installed. Fast Start — progressive-streaming feature of QuickTime that allows movies to be viewed in your browser before the whole movie has been fully downloaded. Field — half of an interlaced video frame consisting of the top or the even image lines. Alternating video fields are drawn every 1/59.94 of a second in NTSC video to create the perceived 29.97 frames per second video. PAL fields are drawn every 1/50 of a second to create 25-fps video. Firewall — network device that may be configured to limit unauthorized entry or use of a private network. Firewalls may create problems with streaming media delivery, especially with formats using protocols such as RTSP. FireWire — Apple’s trademarked name for the IEEE 1394 standard. Flat Field Noise — slight differences in areas that should be identical, for example, “blotchiness” in the background behind a title. Although often not objectionable to the human eye, flat field noise degrades compression and may be removed with the Adaptive Noise Reduction filter. Flattening — final pass applied to a QuickTime movie that ensures that the movie data is laid out in a linear fashion and all external references are removed so the file can be played on a Windows machine. It also ensures that the sound is interleaved properly with the video. FPS (frames per second) — measure of the frame rate of video or film. NTSC video is 29.97 fps, PAL video is 25 fps and film is 24 fps. Frame — one single still image among the many that make up a movie. A conventional video frame is made up of two fields. A film frame is a single photographic image, and does not have separate fields. 247 Frame Rate — number of frames per second of a movie. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) — common Internet protocol used for transferring files between computers. Gamma — curve that describes how the middle tones of images appear. Often confused with brightness and/or contrast, gamma is a non-linear function. Changing the value of the gamma affects middle tones while leaving the white and black of the image unaltered. Gamma adjustment is commonly used to compensate for differences between Macintosh and Windows video cards and display. Gamut — range of possible colors within a given color space. For example, the gamut of NTSC is dramatically more limited than the gamut of the RGB color space. Generation Loss — image degradation that occurs each time a movie is saved with a lossy compression codec. Also occurs in each dub with analog video tape. GOP (Group of Pictures) — self-contained sequence of MPEG frames starting with an I-frame, followed by B-frames and P-frames and ending with a I-frame. Go to Time — EventStream event that lets you jump to a specified time code. Can be used by itself or with hotspots. Helpers — refers to programs often used in conjunction with cleaner. The Helpers menu lets users easily open their source or output movies with user-defined applications. Hotspots — EventStream event that lets you assign an action to a specific area in a movie that, when clicked, triggers a specified action, such as Open URL, Go to Time or Play events. 248 Chapter 13: Glossary HSV (Hue Saturation Value) — color space that defines colors in terms of their hue (the color of an object, such as green), saturation (how much grey is in the color), and value (the lightness or darkness of the color). Variations on this color space include HSB (Hue Saturation Brightness) and HSL (Hue Saturation Lightness). HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) — language the World-Wide Web uses to display pages, links to other pages, etc. HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) — most common transfer protocol used on the World Wide Web. HTTP Streaming — see Progressive Streaming. IEEE 1394 — very fast serial bus, often used to connect DV cameras to computers. IEEE 1394 is widely applicable to consumer electronics that move large amounts of data. Some other companies use different names to describe their IEEE 1394 products, including Apple’s FireWire and Sony’s i.Link. I-frame (Intraframe) — complete MPEG frame containing the entire image. This is the same thing as a keyframe in QuickTime/AVI. See Intraframe. i.Link — Sony’s name for the IEEE 1394 standard. See IEEE 1394. IMA — 4:1 compression audio codec that works with 16-bit audio. A standard created by the Interactive Multimedia Association. Indeo — family of several codecs developed by Intel that allow temporal and spatial compression, as well as data rate limiting. Now owned by Ligos Technology. Inline — within the browser page as opposed to needing to be viewed with an external application. 249 Intelecine — An inverse telecine process that removes the 3:2 pulldown frames added to movies when 24 fps film source is converted to 29.97 fps video. Intelligent Streaming — Windows Media scalability feature that allows a movie to be encoded with multiple data rates in a single file and delivered to viewers over the Internet at an appropriate data rate based on their connection speed. Interframe — temporally compressed frame. Also called a difference or delta frame in QuickTime. MPEG has two types of interframes — B-frames and P-frames. Interlaced Video — each NTSC or PAL video frame consists of two fields. When displaying video, an NTSC television draws one field every 1/59.94 of a second, and PAL televisions display one field every 1/50 of a second. Our eyes put the two alternating fields together to create 29.97 whole NTSC frames per second or 25 whole PAL frames per second. This effect is undesirable for multimedia applications and should be removed (deinterlaced) prior to compression. Interleaving — intermixing the video and audio data in the final file. Interleaving is required for proper playback of movies because it allows the drive to read the file in a linear fashion and still receive the separate audio and video data as needed. AVI has several different interleave options, including interleaving each frame of video with the audio. Internet — decentralized global computer network. The term Internet is often erroneously used to refer to the World Wide Web, which is one specific application of the Internet; the Internet encompasses much more than just the Web, including email, newsgroups and chat sites. Intraframe — spatially compressed frame from which interframes are based. Also called a keyframe in QuickTime and an I-frame in MPEG. Intranet — large private network, often in a corporate environment. 250 Chapter 13: Glossary IP (Internet Protocol) — commonly used protocol for transferring data over the Internet. Most networks combine IP with a higher-level protocol called Transport Control Protocol (TCP). Streaming servers use either Microsoft Media Server (MMS), Realtime Protocol (RTP) or Realtime Streaming Protocol (RTSP). ISDN — moderate speed connection to the Internet. Theoretical throughput is either approximately 8 KBytes/sec or 16 KBytes/sec depending on configuration. ISP (Internet Service Provider) — company that provides Internet related services, often including connectivity, e-mail accounts and Web hosting. Increasingly, ISPs are starting to offer video hosting. JPEG — graphic format developed by the Joint Photographic Experts Group. JPEG is a lossy bitmapped image format that is widely used for online graphics. JPEG works well for photographic images. (PNG works better for flat color illustrations.) Keyframe — In the context of this manual: spatially compressed frame that contains the complete video image and is the basis for the following delta frames. See also Intraframe. EventStream event that requests a keyframe to be inserted at a specific time during a QuickTime or RealSystem movie. kHz (kiloHertz) — audio frequency unit measured in thousands of cycles per second. kilobit (kb) — 1000 bits. The term kbits/sec (with a lowercase “k” and “b”) is short for kilobits per second, a unit of data rate measurement frequently used in reference to audio data rates and telecommunications. KiloByte (KB) — unit of measure for computer data. This unit is frequently used to designate file sizes. A KiloByte (with a capital “K” and “B”) is 1024 Bytes. KBytes/sec is short for KiloBytes per second, a unit of data rate measurement frequently used in multimedia. 251 LAN (Local Area Network) — network that connects computers within a geographically small region, often within just one building. Letterbox — to add black bars to the tops and bottoms of images that are a different aspect ratio than the display monitor. Many films are shot on wider formats than NTSC’s 4:3 aspect ratio. When these movies are played on a television, black bars can be added to the top and bottom to preserve the entire original image. The other option of handling different aspect ratios is to Pan and Scan the image to make it the same ratio as the television. Because computers can play back content of any aspect ratio, it is generally better to supply video at its original aspect ratio. See also Pan and Scan. Live — video or information that is captured, compressed and distributed in real time, such as live news broadcasts. This is the opposite of On-Demand. Live Action — video that is shot on location or in a studio that contains real-world subjects, such as people, places, etc. The term live-action video is usually used to differentiate between realworld video and computer generated video. Local Area Network — see LAN. Lossless — process in which no information is lost. Saving a file repeatedly with lossless compression will not affect the image quality. The QuickTime Animation codec set to 100% quality is lossless. Lossy — compression in which information is lost. Saving a file repeatedly with lossy compression will additionally degrade the image quality. This degradation is known as “generation loss.” For example, Cinepak is a lossy codec. Luminance — brightness component of an image. Mac OS — Apple’s Macintosh operating system. 252 Chapter 13: Glossary Marker — EventStream event that is not encoded but is merely used as a placeholder for assigning future events or for notations within the EventStream Editor. Master Movie — when making QuickTime alternate movies, the master movie is the one that contains the display criteria for the other alternates as well as containing the fallback. The master movie is the one that should be embedded in a Web page. Media — In the context of this manual: Elements such as movies, sounds, pictures (multimedia). Items used for storage or transmission, such as tapes, diskettes, CD-R’s, Zip™ disks, networks, etc. Metadata — additional identification information, such as title, author and copyright, attached to a movie that is made visible by applications that can read it, such as QuickTime Player, RealPlayer and Windows Media Player. Metadata is usually accessible to viewers within the media player’s file information dialog. MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) — architecture that is used to instruct electronic instruments how to play a piece of music — think of MIDI files as “PostScript” for music. QuickTime supports a data type called QuickTime Music that is very similar to MIDI. QuickTime can easily convert MIDI files into QuickTime Music. MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) — specification originally used for non-ASCII email messages so that they can be sent over the Internet. Web browsers also support various MIME types that enable the browsers and the installed plug-ins to handle non-HTML files, such as movies and audio. Modem (Modulator-Demodulator) — device that connects computers over analog phone lines to another computer or network. Currently the most common consumer Internet connection, modems are much slower than other options, such as DSL, Cable and T1. 253 MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) — often used to refer to the standard file format and set of compression algorithms jointly developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group to handle video and audio. The various forms of MPEG are used for a wide range of video and audio applications, from desktop computer presentations and games to consumer DVD-Video players and satellite video systems. MPEG-1 — format that produces high-quality video and audio streams at approximately 2x CD-ROM data rates. Standard MPEG-1 is full frame rate (24–30 fps, depending on the source) with a quarter-size image (352x240, NTSC) and is useful for playback on most desktop computers. MPEG-2 — format that produces high-data rate, full broadcast-quality files. MPEG-2 playback requires an extremely fast computer and video card or a hardware accelerator card. MPEG-2 is the format for DVD-Video and many home satellite dish systems. Standard MPEG-2 is full frame rate (24–30 fps) and full-screen resolution (720x480, NTSC). MPEG Layer-2 audio — generally used for high-bandwidth MPEG audio at near-CD quality. Used for audio with both MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. MPEG Layer-3 audio (MP3) — MPEG audio format that is very popular on the Internet. Generally used in audio-only files (.mp3), this is a lower-bandwidth format than MPEG Layer2 audio but is still not ideal for modem streaming. Can also be used in audio tracks for QuickTime movies. MPEG-4 — QuickTime 6 provides a new video codec for MPEG-4 video compression. It can provide an extremely low data rate of 64 kbits/second. Interoperability is the primary goal of the new codec. Multicast — transmitting the same media stream simultaneously to many recipients. Multicast delivery is similar to traditional television broadcast, in the sense that a stream is made available at a given time, and viewers may watch the part of that stream that is currently playing. Multicast delivery results in less network traffic than Unicast delivery because the signal is sent once; viewers watch this signal as it is sent instead of initiating multiple unique streams. Multicast is not yet supported by many networks. 254 Chapter 13: Glossary Multimedia — media presentations that combine various elements such as sound, graphics and video. Multimedia Architecture — software, including system extensions, plug-ins, servers, etc., that provides for the creation, storage and playback of synchronized multiple media types. QuickTime, Real and Windows Media are examples of multimedia architectures. Multiplexing (a.k.a. Muxing or Interleaving) — process of combining audio and video data in a final MPEG file. See Interleaving. Noise — any part of a signal that contains unwanted randomness. In audio, noise makes the track have hiss or fuzz. In video, it can make the image grainy, and appear as pixel shimmer or blotchy areas. Noise generally interferes with compression and should be minimized for good results. Noise Reduction — removing unwanted noise from a signal. For video this is accomplished with filters such as blur, mean or median. Uniform noise reduction applies one filter equally to each pixel. Adaptive Noise Reduction applies different filters to different kinds of noise. NTSC (National Television Standards Committee) — defines North American broadcast standards. The term NTSC video refers to the video standard defined by the committee, that has a specifically limited color gamut, is interlaced and is typically 720x486 pixels, 29.97 fps. On-Demand — video that is not broadcast live as it is filmed, but is compressed and made available on a server for people to watch when they wish. A television broadcast is Live; renting a video and watching it at home is On-Demand. Open URL — EventStream event that opens a specified Web page at a certain time or when a hotspot it is associated with is clicked. Output Movie — compressed video ready for playback and distribution. 255 PAL (Phase Alternating Line) — 25 fps interlaced video format used by many European countries. Palette — list of colors that are used in an 8-bit color movie or image. There are several standard palettes, such as the Macintosh System palette. Often referred to as a Color Lookup Table, Color Table or abbreviated as CLUT. Pan and Scan — dynamic cropping technique used to translate between materials with different aspect ratios. Pan and Scan is used to translate movies shot on wide screen film formats to 4:3 television display. In the pan and scan process, the image is cropped to the new aspect ratio and the transfer operator pans within the wider original image to include important details that are near the edge. (These details would be lost by a simple cropping technique.) Pan-and-scan movies don’t have black bars (letterboxing) and completely fill the television screen. Path — the sequence of directories that must be traversed to get from one directory to another. On the Internet, a path is essentially the directions to a given folder, page, graphic, etc. See Absolute Path, Relative Path and URL. Pause — EventStream event that pauses a movie at a specified time. P-frame (Predictive Frame) — MPEG difference frame that looks to previous frames. Same as a QuickTime/AVI delta frame. PICT — still image file format developed by Apple Computer. PICT files can contain both vector images and bitmap images, as well as text, and an alpha channel. PICT is a ubiquitous image format on Mac OS and can be read and displayed by QuickTime. Pixel — one dot in a video or still image. A very low-resolution computer screen is 640 pixels wide and 480 pixels tall. Digital video movies are often 320 pixels wide and 240 pixels tall. 256 Chapter 13: Glossary Pixel Ratio — used by MPEG-1, a comparison of a pixel’s vertical measurement to its horizontal measurement. A ratio of 1 is a square pixel. Numbers greater than one produce narrow pixels and less than one produce wide pixels. Technically, the pixel ratio is the horizontal distance between the centers of 2 adjacent horizontal pixels divided by the vertical distance between 2 adjacent vertical pixels. Pixelization — when the pixels that make up an image get exaggerated or enlarged. Makes the image look chunky or jagged and is a compression artifact. Play — EventStream event that plays a movie at a specified time. Only works as an action associated with a Hotspot. PNG (Portable Network Graphics) — pronounced “ping,” a bitmap still image format designed to replace GIF. PNG is completely patent- and license-free and is superior to GIF in many respects. PNG is also a QuickTime codec. Premiere Export Module — see Export Module. Progressive Streaming — term referring to online media that viewers can watch as it downloads onto their computer. Also called progressive download. Progressive streaming files don’t adjust to match the bandwidth of the viewer’s connection like a realtime-streaming format. QuickTime’s fast start feature is a progressive streaming technology. Also called HTTP Streaming because standard HTTP servers can deliver progressive-streaming files. Pulldown — introducing a pulldown is the process that compensates for the differences in frame rates between film and video by creating new frames. For 24-fps film to be converted to 29.97-fps NTSC video, a 3:2 pulldown is used, which creates approximately six extra frames per second. PureVoice codec — see Qualcomm PureVoice codec. QDesign Music Codec — QuickTime low-bandwidth audio codec. 257 Qualcomm PureVoice codec — QuickTime low-bandwidth audio codec optimized for voiceonly material. QuickTime — Apple Computer’s cross-platform multimedia architecture. Widely used for a range of applications including CD-ROM, Web video, editing and more. QuickTime Music — track that is very similar to MIDI. Allows music to be stored as instructions rather than digitized sounds and then played back with defined instruments within QuickTime. QuickTime Music tracks are much smaller than digitized versions of the same music. Often referred to as MIDI even though it technically isn’t. QuickTime Streaming — Apple’s streaming media addition to the QuickTime architecture. RAM File — RealSystem metafile that is placed on an HTTP server and gives RealPlayer the location of the RealSystem file on the RealServer. RealAudio — RealNetworks’ initial online audio format. Replaced by RealSystem. RealSystem — RealNetworks’ streaming media architecture. Realtime — any process that is done in actual time. For example, a 20-second movie that takes 20 seconds to encode. Realtime Streaming — technologies that match the bandwidth of the media signal to the viewer’s connection so the media is always seen in realtime. The word realtime is added to differentiate this type of streaming from Progressive Streaming (HTTP Streaming). Specialized media servers and streaming protocols, such as RTSP, are required to enable realtime streaming. RealVideo — RealNetworks’ original streaming video codec. RealVideo G2 — the second generation of the RealVideo codec. 258 Chapter 13: Glossary RealVideo 8 — the latest version of RealVideo codec that may be encoded on the Mac (OS9 only). Recompress — compressing an already compressed file an additional time. Recompression of material that is already highly compressed should be avoided if at all possible, because the video and audio quality will be degraded with multiple compressions. Relative Path — the directions to a given folder, page or graphic expressed as different from the current location. For example, ../media/Presentation.mov means the Presentation.mov file is located in a folder titled media in the folder above the current location. Relative paths are often used when files are located on the same server as the page referring to them, such as progressive-streaming movies that reside on the same HTTP server as HTML Web pages. Replace Movie — EventStream event that replaces the currently playing movie with another movie in the same location. RGB (Red Green Blue) — color space commonly used on computers. Each color is described by the strength of its red, green, and blue components. This color space directly translates to the red, green, and blue phosphors used in computer monitors. The RGB color space has a very large gamut, meaning it can reproduce a very wide range of colors. RTP (Realtime Protocol) — transport protocol used to deliver live media to one or more viewers simultaneously. RTP is the transfer protocol for RTSP streaming. RTSP (Realtime Streaming Protocol) — standard now commonly used to transmit realtimestreaming media to one or more viewers simultaneously. RTSP handles the communication between the player and server and uses RTP as its transport protocol to deliver the actual data. Sample — measurement of a signal level at one specific instant in time. Sample Rate — number of samples per second used for audio. A higher sample rate yields higher-quality audio that is larger than that of lower sample rates. Common multimedia sample rates include 11.025 kHz, 22.050 kHz and 44.100 kHz. 259 Sample Size — accuracy with which a sound sample is recorded. Generally, audio sample size is 8 bits or 16 bits. The latter is more accurate and provides more dynamic range, but takes up more storage space. SECAM — transmission standard that is authored as PAL on PAL equipment. Serial Number — found on the bottom of the cleaner 6 box. This number is required for future upgrades of cleaner 6 and also for obtaining technical support. Server — term that can be applied to hardware or software: •Hardware — computer to which other computers connect for retrieving information. In this manual, generally used to mean the computer that hosts a Website. •Software — software program that runs on a Web server to support online video (such as the RealServer). Server-based — technologies that require a specialized media server. Setting — name for all of the processing parameters in the Settings window. Settings can be saved, modified or deleted. Settings Modifiers — feature accessible through the Project window that allows you to modify the base setting of a single file in a batch without affecting the settings of other files that are using the same base setting. Sharpen — edge-sharpening filter that mostly affects edges and is less detrimental to encoding than a conventional sharpening filter. SMIL — short for Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language — pronounced “smile.” This language enables the synchronization of media and actions within a Web page in addition to video and audio. For example, SMIL can control the loading of multiple movies at given times, URL page flips, transitions, text tracks and more. 260 Chapter 13: Glossary Sorenson Video Codec — high-quality, low-bandwidth QuickTime video codec. Source Movie — original movie to be encoded. Spatial Compression — compression method that removes redundant data within any given image. For example, a field of blue in a picture would be stored as one large blue area rather than many individual blue pixels. Spikes — see Data Rate Spikes. Sprite Track — QuickTime track made of small graphic elements that have position and time information associated with them. These elements are called sprites. A bouncing ball is a good use of a sprite track — only the ball and its location are stored at any given time instead of a series of bitmaps that describe each whole frame. Static Mask — a feature that composites defined areas of an image across frames to improve temporal compression. Store and Forward — alternate term for On Demand. Streaming — network delivery of media. May refer to technologies that match the bandwidth of the media signal to the viewer’s connection, so that the media is always seen in realtime (Realtime Streaming). Also refers to media that can be viewed over a network prior to being fully downloaded (HTTP Streaming or Progressive Streaming). StreamPublisher — a feature that streamlines the workflow by automatically uploading files to an FTP server after they have been encoded. Eliminates the task of performing a separate upload with an external FTP application. Subsample — see Color Subsampling. 261 Suffix — Also called an extension, the last part of a file name that indicates the file type. SureStream — RealSystem scalability feature that allows a movie to be encoded with multiple data rates in a single file and delivered to viewers over the Internet at an appropriate data rate based on their connection speed. Symmetric Codec — codec that encodes and decodes video in roughly the same amount of time. Live broadcast and teleconferencing systems generally use fairly symmetric codecs in order to encode the video in realtime as it is captured. H.263 is an example of a symmetric codec. T1 — fast network connection. Theoretical limit is 1.5 Mbits/sec, but the realities of the Internet usually cut down the throughput dramatically. TCP (Transfer Control Protocol) — common network transfer protocol used widely on the Internet. Target Machine — typical/minimal configuration (of computer hardware and software) on which a movie will be viewed. Telecine — film-to-video conversion system that introduces the 3:2 pulldown necessary to compensate for the differences in frame rates between film and video. The 3:2 pulldown is undesirable in compressed movies and should be removed with the Intelecine feature. Temporal Compression — video compression that compares frames and only transmits the differences between them. Also called “interframe” compression. Temporal Processing — Adaptive Noise Reduction option that smoothes pixels over time to remove even more video noise to further improve encoding quality. In addition to general video noise, this filter can eliminate one-frame-duration artifacts, such as lines resulting from dirty video heads or worn tape. 262 Chapter 13: Glossary TIES — XML-based file format used for exporting EventStreams. TIES files can be edited with either an XML editor or a regular text editor and can be imported back into cleaner for use with other projects or batches. Text Track — track made up of text, style, positioning and time information. QuickTime text tracks are often used for subtitles. TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) — widely supported cross-platform file format for storing bitmapped images. Often used in pre-press. Toggle — little triangle-shaped button that, when clicked, rotates to reveal more information in the interface. Similar to “disclosure triangles” in the Finder that let you view the contents of a folder without first opening it. Clicking once reveals more information; clicking again hides the extra information. Tracks — separate media types that make up a movie. Most movies include a video track and an audio track. In some multimedia architectures, such as QuickTime, there are also text tracks, sprite tracks, music tracks and more unusual track types. Transcode — to change a file from one format to another. UDP (User Datagram Protocol) — data transmission standard used by realtime transfer protocol for broadcasting data over IP networks. UDP is designed for realtime broadcast, and thus lacks many of the error correction features of TCP, because there isn’t time to resend lost data. This means that UDP may lose data in transmission if there are problems with the network. Unicast — delivery of a unique stream to each viewer. Because each viewer initiates a new stream when viewing the same source, this approach to media delivery can result in increased network congestion as multiple, identical streams are sent at the same time. Upload — to move a file from a computer to a server. 263 URL (Uniform Resource Locator) — global address of documents, pages, and other resources on the World Wide Web. Variable Bitrate (VBR) Encoding — two-pass process of analyzing and then compressing movies to an optimal data rate. Produces movies with data rates that vary instead of being uniform, flat data rates. cleaner supports VBR encoding with MPEG-2 and RealSystem 8. Variable Frame Length Movie — movie that contains frames that are not all of equal duration. Supported by QuickTime, RealSystem and Windows Media, but not AVI. Vector — in multimedia, formats that store graphical information as mathematical algorithms instead of pixels. These images don’t have any pixels, but are equations describing the objects portrayed. Vector images scale perfectly to larger and smaller sizes. Illustrator files, Flash and QuickTime curve media are vector formats. Vertical Edge Blanking — see Edge Blanking. Video for Windows — also called AVI, Microsoft’s initial multimedia architecture primarily aimed at CD-ROM video. Replaced by DirectShow and Windows Media. Volume — within the context of this manual: Hard disk drive, floppy diskette, CD-ROM or other storage device or storage media. Level (amplitude) of an audio track. WAN (Wide Area Network ) — network connecting a large area, usually more than one building. 264 Chapter 13: Glossary WAV — an audio file format, created by Microsoft, that has become a standard PC audio file format. A Wave file is identified by a file name extension of WAV (.wav). Used primarily in PCs, the Wave file format has been accepted as a viable interchange medium for other computer platforms, such as Macintosh. This allows content developers to freely move audio files between platforms for processing. In addition to the uncompressed raw audio data, the Wave file format stores information about the file's number of tracks (mono or stereo), sample rate, and bit depth. WAX — Windows Media metafile that is placed on an HTTP server and gives Windows Media the location of the Windows Media Audio file on the Windows Media Server. Web — short for World Wide Web. Web Poster — in the context of this manual: a frame taken from a QuickTime movie that is used as a placeholder for a movie that is to be embedded in a Web page. When the viewer clicks it, the Web poster is replaced by the actual movie. EventStream event that lets you select a Web poster. Wide Area Network — see WAN. Windows — Microsoft’s operating system. Windows Media Audio — Windows Media Technologies’ latest audio codec. Windows Media Video — Windows Media Technologies’ latest video codec. Windows Media Technologies — Microsoft’s streaming media architecture. World Wide Web — hyperlinked, graphical application of the Internet. 265 WVX — Windows Media metafile that is placed on an HTTP server and gives Windows Media the location of the Windows Media Video file on the Windows Media Server. Video Buffer Verifier — used to emulate the data buffer size on an MPEG player so the stream plays smoothly. xDSL — refers collectively to all types of Digital Subscriber Lines. See ADSL. XML — short for Extensible Markup Language, used to create settings and Eventstream information in an open, cross-platform manner. XML files can be opened and edited using an XML editor or a standard text editor. YUV — color model that describes color information in terms of luminance (Y) and two chrominance channels (U,V). The YUV space is commonly used in video and easily supports color subsampling. YUV9 — color format with substantial subsampling often used with online video technologies, such as Sorenson Video. For every 16 luminance “Y” samples in a 4x4 pixel block, there is only one “U” and one “V” sample. This dramatic color subsampling produces smaller files with correspondingly lower color fidelity. YUV9 subsampling often results in noticeable color artifacts around the edges of brightly colored objects, especially red. 266 Chapter 13: Glossary index Index Numerics 2-pass VBR 124, 182 50 Hz 85 60 Hz 85, 86 A A/B Options correcting for codec 195 image adjustment 195 AAC 96 Adaptive Deinterlace 70 Adaptive Noise Reduction 72 Adjust Tab 75 All keyframes option 178 Alternate tab 100 Alternates 99 analog 77, 237, 239, 247, 252 Analog Capture 18 analog signal 17 Animation and 3-D formats supported 90 Appending setting names 228 Aspect correction 42 aspect ratio 42, 46, 47 Audio Audio-only movies 96 capture settings 19 CD-ROM 96 connectiing MPG and WAV files 29 Dynamic Range 83 Hotter 83 Limit to 90% 83 Narrow Range 84 Fade 88 formats supported 89 High Pass Filter 82 importing from CD’s 29 Low Pass Filter 81 Noise Gate 84 Notch Filter 85 Reverb 86 streaming 23 streaming audio 23 The Audio Tab 80 using filters 81 volume 81 web 95 Averaging frames 186 AVI 167 Interleave 159 268 Video for Windows 144 B Basic data rate 182 Batch Files 28 Batch Log 38 Batch Processing Assigning Settings 30 Destinations Custom Destinations 33 Default Destination 33 file naming 31 Processing 36 Removing Files 30 Replacing a File 29 Batch Window 25 Before/After Preview 198 Begin/End Tab 88 Big Endian 168 black line doubling 120 Black Restore and White Restore 76 Blend deinterlace 68 Blue Screen 22 bluescreen 20, 22, 178 Blur filter 71 Brightness 76 C Capture and Author Codecs 95 Capturing video 17 CD-ROM Codecs 96 Chapter events 206 Chime 228 Cinemascope 136, 237, 240, 242 Cinepak 242 Codecs QuickTime 95 RealSystem 125 Windows Media 132 Color Bit Depth 175 Depth 242 Gamut 247 Hue 77 Palette 255 Saturation 77 Subsampling 243 colored noise 82 Compare Uncompressed Frames 178 Compress Movie Header 120 Connection Speed 180 constrain pop-up menu 67 Contextual Menus 223 Contrast 76 Copy option 174 Copyright 167, 191 CPU 176, 182, 224, 234 crash 231 crop aspect ratio 47 Cropping 46 cross-platform 76, 94, 118, 131, 136, 144 D D1 20, 237, 243 Data Rate 2-pass VBR 124, 156, 183 Alternates 102 Choosing 179 Codec 175 Disc Space 181 Factors that Limit 179 high 52, 121 269 keyframes 212 low 120 minimum target CPU 182 MP3 140 MPEG 135 Output Window 197 QuickTime 92 RealVideo 125 Setting 182 Units 179, 227 Windows Media 132 decimal frame rates 176 Decimal Time System 50 Deinterlacing 68 Delete Projects 106 depth, audio 19 Destinations 33 Disable Saving for QuickTime 118 Display aspect ratio 42 Display Text 123, 128, 207 distortion, preventing 47 Done file status 38 dual-processor 11, 224 DV 142 File Suffix 168 Locked audio 142, 168 non-square pixels 142 streams,exporting 142 DVD-ROM Codecs 96 Dynamic Range filter 83 E edge blanking 19, 245 edge-sharpening 71, 259 embed tag 115, 148, 232, 233 Embedding Alternates 111 Encoding,monitoring 197 Enhance from multiple frames option 187 Enhanced Movie Playback 52 Enhancing Still Images 187 Error 26 error 37, 38 EventStream 121, 128, 178, 190, 201 Adding 202 Adding Markers in Real Time 203 Playback Events 206 Chapter 206 Go to Time 208 Hotspots 210 Open URL 208 Pause 209 Play 211 Replace Movie 209 Processing Events Keyframe 212 Web Poster 212 F Fade 23 Fade, Audio 88 Fade, video 88 Fallbacks 99 File Naming 31 file status 220 film frame rate 237 film, movies shot on 18, 68 FireWire 17, 142, 246 Fit to Window 41 flat data rate 182 Flatten Only Option 173 Flatten Only Setting 95 Flatten, Cross-Platform, Fast Start 147 270 Flattening 246 Flattening Movies 94 Force Block Refresh 97 Formats supported 89 Frame rate 176 Ideal NTSC-Derived 176 Ideal PAL-Derived 176 Frame Size 184 Full Size 41 G Gamma 75, 247 Gamma, using alternates 111 Go to Frame 50 Go to Time 50 greenscreen 22 Group alternates 102, 105 H Half Size 41 HDTV 42 Headers, compressing 120 Helpers 225 High Pass Filter 82 High Quality First/Last Frames 120, 190 High Quality Flag 119 Hotspots 210 HTML 248 creating for QuickTime 148 creating for RealSystems 150 creating for Windows Media 151 HTTP streaming 13, 92, 97, 116 Hue 77 I i.Link 17, 142, 248 IEEE 1394 17, 142, 246, 248 Image adjustment 195 Image aspect 136 image aspect 135 image aspect ratio 42, 48, 67 image distortion 48 image size 67, 184 Image Tab 66 iMovie 16, 17, 18 import EventStreams 204 importing from audio CDs 29 In/Out Points 49, 50 Intelecine 68, 69, 249 Intelligent Streaming 15, 131, 249 interactive streaming media 201 interlace 18, 68, 69, 70, 142, 228, 229, 239, 244, 249 inverse 68, 249 J JPEG 90, 112 K kbits 179 KBytes 179 keyframe 177, 212 L Limit to data rate 183 Little Endian 168 Load source movie into memory 52 lock settings 64 locked audio 142 loop 116, 149, 208 Low Pass Filter 81 271 M manual cropping 43 Mask 71, 72 memory 227, 231 Metadata Tab 191 Metafile RealSystems 150 Windows Media 151 MiniDV 18, 142 Minimize Preview 199 minimum targer machine 182 minimum target machine 120, 179, 180 M-JPEG 95 Mobile Play 130 Movie Controller 41 movie headers 94 movie parameters 145 MP3 139 Constant Bitrate 140 Copyright Settings 141 Creating 139 Data Rate 140 Speed vs. Quality 140 Variable Bitrate (VBR) 140 MPEG 95, 96, 118, 132, 135 MPEG Audio 138 MPEG Licensing 138 multiprocessor 224 N narration 84, 85 natural keyframes 178 new batch 28 Noise Gate filter 84 Noise Removal 82 non-square pixels 142 Normalize volume 81 Notch filter 85 NTSC 42, 50, 68, 69 Numeric Cropping 66 Numeric image size 67 P PAL frame rate 68 PAL MPEG 136 PAL ratio 42 Pause 27 Pause Event 209 Photo-JPEG 95, 112 Pixel Aspect Ratio 136 pixel aspect ratio 42 Platform 100 Play Event 211 Plug-in 99, 216, 233 power line noise 82, 85 Preferences 216, 227 preload 174 preview settings 193 Preview, minimize 199 Priority 26 professional camera 23 Progressive scan 18 Progressive streaming alternates 107 Project Window 40 Project, assigning settings 60 Publishing QuickTime Streaming Server Preferences 216 RealServer Preferences 217 StreamPublisher 219 Windows Media Server Preferences 218 272 pulldown 18, 65, 68, 69, 70 PureVoice 189 Q QDesign 189 QT FX 121 Quality Balance slider 232 QuickTime 91 Alternates and Streaming 99 Alternates from Encoded Movies 106 Alternates from Multiple Sources 105 Alternates of One Source 102 Authoring 93 Auto-Play in QuickTime Player 118 Compatibility 93 Computer Power 101 Connection 100 Controlling Tracks 118 Custom Still Fallbacks 113 Delivery 93 Disable Saving 118 Embed Options 116 Embedding Alternates 111 Fallbacks 99 Flatten Only 95 flattening 94 Force Block Refresh 97 Language 100 Marking for RAM playback 122 Movies for Real-Time Streaming 97 Organizing Alternates 110 Other Scalability Factors 93 Paths to Alternate Movies 108 Platform 100 Playback 93 Plug-in settings 111 Poster Frames 119 Preferences to Ensure Fallbacks 113 Progressive Streaming 92 Quality 101 Readme File 107 Real-time streaming alternates 108 Server Path 101 Still Images as Fallbacks 112 Text as a Fallback 113 web posters 119 QuickTime 4 94 QuickTime 5 94 QuickTime 6 94 R RAM 11, 52, 122, 127, 227 RAM file 127 RealAudio 124 RealServer 123, 125, 127 RealSystem 123 Allow Mobile Play 130 Audio-Only Files 126 data rates 125 Downloadable files 126 PerfectPlay 130 RAM files 127 Selective Record 129 SMIL files 128 Variable Bitrate Encoding 124 removing Files 30 Rename 58 Replace Movie 209 resume processing 36 Reverb filter 86 Reverse Sort 32 273 S T Sample Rate 140, 258 Sample Size 259 saturation 77 Save Batch Log 38 scaling 67 Setting In/Out points 50 Settings 53 Assigning a Setting 60 Automating Setting Creation 64 Creating a New Setting 59 Modifying Settings 60 Organizing Settings 55 Protecting Settings 64 Settings Modifiers 61 Sharing Settings 63 Tabs 59 Using Aliases 63 Shooting Video for Streaming 21 Skipping files 33 SMIL 123, 128 Sorenson Video Codec 260 sort 32 square pixels 42, 142 Static Mask 72 Still Images 186 enhancing 187 formats 90 from Movies 187 Movies Out of 188 Optimizing 188 streamlining 221 StreamPublisher 219 stutter 20, 69, 231 Summary tab 192 SureStream 15 target machine 76, 87, 120, 145, 180 Technical Support 234 Telecine 70, 237, 261 Temporal Compression 22, 261 Temporal Processing 72 Temporal slider 175 testing 21, 185, 186 Total KBytes 183 Total MBytes 183 Tracks tab 173 triming 49 U Untitled Batch file 28 upload files 33 uploading status 26 URL, end frame link 121, 190 URL, open event 208 URL, replace event 210 V Variable Bitrate 124, 140, 263 Variations for Testing 186 Video for Windows 144 Video formats supported 89 virtual memory 231 W watermark 73 WAV 89, 139 Web Codecs 95 web posters 119 white noise 82 White Restore 76 Windows Media 131 274 Adding to Web page 134 codecs 132 Creating 132 Downloadable 132 formats 131 Uploading 133 Windows Media Audio 131 Windows Media Video 131