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Autodesk 64006-051108-9001 - Discreet Cleaner - Mac, User Manual

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Autodesk 64006-051108-9001 - Discreet Cleaner - Mac User Manual Download Page 80

Chapter 6: Pre-processing

72

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 
platforms. 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 computers 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 121 for more information.

Brightness

The Brightness slider makes the image lighter or darker in a linear fashion. Unlike the gamma 
setting, increasing the brightness 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.

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/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.

Summary of Contents for 64006-051108-9001 - Discreet Cleaner - Mac

Page 1: ...from discreet November 2000 ...

Page 2: ...o Burn Buzzsaw com CAice Cinestream Cleaner Central ClearScale Colour Warper Content Explorer Dancing Baby image DesignCenter Design Doctor Designer s Toolkit DesignKids DesignProf DesignServer Design Web Format DWF DWFit DWG Linking DXF Extending the Design Team GDX Driver Gmax logo Gmax ready logo Heads up Design ObjectDBX Plasma PolarSnap Productstream Real time Roto Render Queue Toxik Visual B...

Page 3: ...Window 18 Project Modification Icons 20 Batch Files 20 Adding Files 21 Importing from Audio CDs 21 Connecting Files 21 Adding Numbered Stills 22 Replacing a File 22 Removing Files 22 Assigning Settings 23 File Naming 24 Processing Order 25 Skipping Files 25 Selecting Destinations 26 Default Destination 26 Custom Destinations 26 Customizing Output File Names 27 Processing a Batch 28 Pausing 28 Stop...

Page 4: ...Shift Fields 67 Telecine 67 Blur 67 Sharpen 67 Adaptive Noise Reduction 68 Static Mask 69 Watermark 70 The Adjust Tab 71 Gamma 71 Brightness 72 Contrast 72 Black Restore and White Restore 73 Hue 73 Saturation 74 QuickTime Effects 74 The Audio Tab 76 Using Audio Filters 77 Sample Rate 77 Data Rate only for MP3 MPEG Layer 1 MPEG Layer 2 77 Depth 77 Channels 78 Speed vs Quality only for MP3 78 Option...

Page 5: ... Real 10 Files 133 Downloadable Real 10 Files 134 Audio Only Real 10 Files 134 Viewing Real 10 Files 135 Putting Real 10 Files on a RealServer 135 Windows Media 136 Windows Media formats 136 Windows Media codecs 137 Creating Windows Media Files 137 Downloadable Windows Media Files 137 Uploading to a Windows Media Server 138 Adding Downloadable Files to a Web Page 139 8 Encoding 141 Output Tab 142 ...

Page 6: ...QuickTime Audio Codecs 198 Sample Rate 199 Data Rate only for MP3 MPEG Layer 1 MPEG Layer 2 199 Depth 200 Channels 200 Speed vs Quality MP3 200 Options 200 Volume 200 Low High Pass 200 Noise Removal 200 Dynamic Range 201 Noise Gate 201 Notch 201 Reverb 201 Begin End Tab 202 Video Audio Fades 202 High Quality First Last Frames 202 End Frame URL Link 203 In Out Points 203 Metadata Tab 203 Summary Ta...

Page 7: ...pers and Function Keys 236 Preferences 237 Interface 237 Processing 238 QT Alternates 239 Server Paths 239 12 Troubleshooting 241 Common Problems and Solutions 241 Hardware Codecs 241 Image Quality Problems 241 Older Computers 242 Progressive streaming Movies 242 Real Time streaming Movies 242 Servers 243 Technical Support 244 Before You Contact Us 244 Glossary 247 Index 277 ...

Page 8: ...Contents viii ...

Page 9: ...t of new features in Cleaner 6 5 OS X 10 4 Tiger support Cleaner runs under both OS X 10 3 Panther and 10 4 Tiger QuickTime 7 Support for QuickTime 7 including the H 264 codec Wildform Flash Video Encoder You can encode to both FLV and SWF formats DivX You can produce video files using the DivX codec 3GP You can encode 3GP files for playback on mobile devices MPEG 2 enhancements MPEG 2 encoding no...

Page 10: ... higher 128 MB of available application RAM 256 MB recommended Graphics card that supports 1024x768 resolution at 16 bit color 24 bit color recommended CD ROM or DVD ROM drive 35 MB of available hard drive space To install 1 Insert the Cleaner 6 5 CD ROM into the drive 2 Double click the Install Cleaner 6 5 icon The Cleaner 6 5 installer appears 3 Click Continue to move through each panel of the i...

Page 11: ...previous version the previous Activation key window appears 2 Enter your Cleaner 4 5 or 6 activation key and click OK Registration You can register your product online at http www autodesk com registration Alternatively you may register your product by contacting Autodesk Media and Entertainment worldwide United States Canada and Latin America email authcodes autodesk com phone 1 800 551 1490 or 1...

Page 12: ...n like a Real Time 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 The QuickTime 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 trailer...

Page 13: ...er 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 Real Time streaming uses special network protocols such as RTSP Real Time Streaming Protocol or MMS Microsoft Media Server Standard and Streaming Servers A standard Web HTTP server is designed to send text and graphics as quickly as possible...

Page 14: ...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 alterna...

Page 15: ...ave 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 Gamm...

Page 16: ...Chapter 1 Introduction 8 ...

Page 17: ...eo because there is no analog to digital conversion when capturing DV to the computer Note Many computers have built in FireWire ports However if your computer does not have a FireWire port you can purchase a FireWire 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 an...

Page 18: ...wer 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 resol...

Page 19: ...n 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 ...

Page 20: ...ced 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 two common camera classes used to create streaming video Video Conferencing Cameras These types of cameras are designed to be connected directly t...

Page 21: ...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...

Page 22: ... 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 sce...

Page 23: ...puters 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 e...

Page 24: ...Chapter 2 Capture 16 ...

Page 25: ...ny projects easy by processing in batches You can group two or more projects together to be encoded sequentially This is especially useful if you are processing many files since it is not necessary to manually encode each file separately ...

Page 26: ...f 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 the file name opens the Project window and enables 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 the file settings opens the Settin...

Page 27: ...ion for the file Double clicking the project status 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 headings to re order them Click and drag the column heading dividers to resize the columns The Batch window has three processing butt...

Page 28: ... 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...

Page 29: ...wanted files select them in the Batch window and delete them Importing from Audio CDs To import a track from an audio CD Drag tracks from the CD to the Batch window You can also drag the entire CD onto the Batch window to import all of the tracks at once Connecting Files Some capture systems produce both a video file such as M2V MOV or MPG and a separate audio file usually AIFF Cleaner can automat...

Page 30: ...tput serialized stills instead of movies For details see Making Movies Out of Still Images on page 196 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 Press the a key 2 Drag the new file to the Batch window ...

Page 31: ...ply 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 highligh...

Page 32: ...s 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 ...

Page 33: ...e bar You can click the Reverse Sort button on the right side of the column header to reverse the sorting order of the list 2 To sort files by their status click the Status title bar 3 To change a file s priority double click the file s priority to display the Priority menu 4 To change a file priority double click the file s priority and choose the priority you want to assign to that file The lowe...

Page 34: ...nd 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 Custo...

Page 35: ...ose a Folder dialog appears 5 Navigate to the new destination 6 Click Choose 7 Type a short descriptive 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 Note You can also edit or remove a location with the buttons in the Destination dialog Customizing Ou...

Page 36: ...ions and ignores requests to pause until it completes these operations Important Do not quit Cleaner or shut down your computer while in the pause mode Doing so requires that you restart encoding from the beginning of the currently paused movie To pause processing 1 Click Pause When paused you cannot do anything within Cleaner other than resume processing Pausing the processing is useful if you ne...

Page 37: ...ay decide to change the setting 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 Sto...

Page 38: ...The status dialog containing details from the batch log file on the last process completed appears 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 Inf...

Page 39: ...anual Cropping on page 40 Correct the aspect ratio of the source file See Aspect Ratio Correction on page 34 Trim the movie if necessary by setting In Out points See Trimming Files on page 42 Assign a setting to the file by clicking the Edit button in the Setting panel See Using Settings on page 48 Apply any settings modifiers such as increasing contrast changing frame size or changing metadata by...

Page 40: ...s the window to a smaller size if the source video is too large to fit on your screen You can also manually change the size at which the video or image is displayed in the Project window Tabs Video Info Audio Info Data Rate graph Edit Destination button Movie Controller ...

Page 41: ...ideo use the parameters in the Image tab in the Settings window The Movie Controller The Movie Controller shows the duration and current time of the source It also 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...

Page 42: ...eaner 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 Note Changing the display aspect ratio does not alter the final file in any way It merely changes how it is displayed within Cleaner Sometimes you may want to set a specific aspect r...

Page 43: ...he Frame Format options control how the source video is 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...

Page 44: ...s 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 sh...

Page 45: ...ned to the Project The Settings tab shows the settings for the selected Project Click the Edit button to access the Settings window See Settings on page 47 The Modifiers tab shows the Settings Modifiers applied to the selected Project Click the Edit button to access the Settings Modifiers window See Settings Modifiers on page 56 ...

Page 46: ...Chapter 4 Projects 38 The EventStream tab shows the number of events assigned to the selected Project Click the Edit button to access the EventStream window See EventStream on page 213 ...

Page 47: ...g enables you to specify which part of the image you want to keep in the final file Cropping is useful for eliminating the black edges and garbled edge pixels of some captured video and for excluding areas that are not interesting ...

Page 48: ...elect an aspect ratio that is not bound by a set ratio Custom aspect ratio enables you to enter custom crop values in the Aspect dialog 2 Click and drag 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 ...

Page 49: ...tio 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 s...

Page 50: ...tab and check the option Only play selection between in out 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 row or press a R to open the Project window 2 Move the mov...

Page 51: ...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 enables multiple sequenced events to be assigned within a given frame which ...

Page 52: ...y to a time to set In Out points 1 Choose Edit Go To Time or Control click anywhere in the Project window and choose Go To Time from the context menu 2 Enter the In Point time in the Time field and click OK The Project window displays the time specified For example 00 00 10 000 which is 10 seconds into the source 3 Choose Edit Set In Point press a or Control click anywhere in the Project menu and ...

Page 53: ...n full motion In the cleaner Preferences dialog check the option Load source movie into memory 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 ...

Page 54: ...Chapter 4 Projects 46 ...

Page 55: ...ese files are stored in the Settings folder in the Cleaner application folder You can organize the settings in the Settings window The Settings window gives you full control over all setting parameters See Using Settings on page 48 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 ...

Page 56: ...te new settings via the Settings window To open the Settings window do one of the following Choose Windows Settings or press a T Control click a project in the Batch window and select Settings from the menu Double click the Project row to open the Project window and click the Edit button in the Setting tab Settings browser Buttons Tabs ...

Page 57: ...ery method Most of the time you can simply pick the proper setting apply it to the project and click Start For more experienced users the Settings window provides total control over every setting parameter To choose the appropriate setting determine your delivery method There are settings for Web CD and DVD delivery These delivery methods and their associated formats are provided as follows See Ch...

Page 58: ...te sub folder within the delivery format folder In this example the NTSC sub folder is opened because we have NTSC sources that we want to encode to QuickTime For the complete list of format folders their sub folders and definitions see Setting Hierarchy on page 51 384k DSL streaming setting selected Open format folder Triangle points down Open QuickTime NTSC input format sub folder Closed format ...

Page 59: ...ons and save your own custom settings See Modifying Settings on page 54 6 To preview the effects of your setting choose Windows Dynamic Preview or press a D to access the Dynamic Preview window See Dynamic Preview on page 205 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 t...

Page 60: ...ce for cross platform delivery NTSC NTSC source to streaming download or CD DVD PAL PAL source to streaming download or CD DVD Audio RealAudio for streaming and download delivery Film Telecined film source to Real 10 streaming or download NTSC NTSC source to Real 10 streaming or download PAL PAL source to Real 10 streaming or download Audio Windows Media Audio for streaming or download Film Teleci...

Page 61: ... setting by entering a name in the field Duplicate duplicates a selected setting or folder A number is appended to the name of the duplicate setting or folder Save saves the selected setting or folder Rename renames the selected setting or folder Enter the new name Revert reverts to the saved state Delete deletes the selected setting or folder Tabs The right panel displays the details of the selec...

Page 62: ...eded 5 Click Save To create a new setting 1 In the Settings window click either the folder in which you want to create the new setting or a setting in that folder 2 Click the New Setting button A new setting Untitled appears in the folder 3 Enter a name for new setting 4 Change the parameters as needed 5 Click Save Modifying Settings You cannot modify the installed settings If you attempt to a dia...

Page 63: ... 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 ...

Page 64: ...e 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...

Page 65: ... 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 55 for details 2 Double click the project in the Batch window to access the Project window 3 In the Settings Modifiers panel click Edit to access the Settings Modifiers dialog 4 Change the desired options in the Settings Modifier...

Page 66: ... 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 ...

Page 67: ...ting 1 Find the setting in your Settings folder 2 Click the setting 3 In the Finder choose File Show Info 4 Check the Locked option in the setting Info window Note 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 h...

Page 68: ...Chapter 5 Settings 60 ...

Page 69: ...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 Ratio Correction on page 34 for details If the source media is captured from tape you also need to compensate for differe...

Page 70: ... edges and garbled edge pixels of some captured video You can crop manually via the Project window See Cropping on page 39 Numeric Crop You can choose Numeric from the Crop pulldown menu and crop each side an exact number of pixels You can also numerically crop via the Settings Modifiers window See Settings Modifiers on page 56 ...

Page 71: ...and enables you to enter any dimension Note that you will distort your file if you choose dimensions that are a different ratio than the file s original aspect ratio If you choose any option other than Unconstrained entering a number in one 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...

Page 72: ...ot 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 de interlace full screen video prior to encoding Thi...

Page 73: ...e 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...

Page 74: ...e 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 ...

Page 75: ...perior 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 enables 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 ...

Page 76: ...s 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 ...

Page 77: ... 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 whereas areas that are 100 black are not composited at all Use shades of gray and feathered edges to blend between the first frame and the rest of t...

Page 78: ... 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 ...

Page 79: ...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 ...

Page 80: ...a settings and are displayed according to the viewer s platform See Using Alternates to Adjust for Gamma Differences on page 121 for more information Brightness The Brightness slider makes the image lighter or darker in a linear fashion Unlike the gamma setting increasing the brightness changes all the pixels the same amount Thus your light tones tend to become totally white when you raise the bri...

Page 81: ...estore filters have two controls the Amount slider and the Smoothness slider 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 slide...

Page 82: ...ng a QT FX Track on page 131 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 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 acti...

Page 83: ... the stored movie See Adding a QT FX Track on page 131 for details Advanced QuickTime Effects Some QuickTime Effects enable you to change the effect over time To implement QuickTime Effects that change over time 1 In the Preferences dialog 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 ...

Page 84: ...Reverb that enable 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 Real 10 Windows Media and MP3 without using dedicated sound applications See Strea...

Page 85: ...d 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 f...

Page 86: ...ake 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 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 filte...

Page 87: ...re 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 ...

Page 88: ...s do not handle material that is too loud or too soft Compressing the dynamic range of the material enables 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 of volume This is important for compressed Web...

Page 89: ...duce 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 m...

Page 90: ...eshold 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 t...

Page 91: ...his 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 y...

Page 92: ...ing 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 ...

Page 93: ...ou choose Color Cleaner brings up the standard Mac OS color palette and enables you to select a color Audio Fades 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 d...

Page 94: ...t frame is a keyframe JPEG Track Creates a JPEG compressed still image that is overlaid on top of the video track at the beginning end of the movie JPEG tracks may not work properly with some codecs End Frame URL Link This QuickTime feature enables you to define a URL that directs viewers to a Web page when they click the last frame of a QuickTime movie To use this feature check the End Frame URL ...

Page 95: ...V MPEG 4 Flash Video FLV SWF QuickTime Kinoma PDB Video for Windows AVI MPEG 1 MPEG 2 MPEG 4 QuickTime Real 10 Read Write AIFF AIFF AU AAC Audio CD DV DV MPEG 4 Audio MPEG 4 Audio MP3 MP3 QuickTime QuickTime Real 10 Sound Designer II System 7 Sound WAV WAV Windows Media WMA ...

Page 96: ...MP BMP GIF JPEG JFIF JPEG JFIF PICT MacPaint PNG Photoshop QuickTime Image File QTIF PICT PNG QuickDraw GX Picture QuickTime Image File QTIF Silicon Graphics Image File Targa Image File TGA TIFF Read Write Animated GIF Flash FLV SWF FLC FLI FLC PICS Image Sequence Series of stills ...

Page 97: ...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 the Cleaner 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 the Cleaner Settings window and then choosing the des...

Page 98: ...enus Multiple subtitles Multiple audio tracks Chapter points Other metadata Although divx files play in Quicktime and Windows Media Player they will not open automatically in these players To enable this feature you can change the suffix to avi This action however will disable the DivX media format features There is also a growing amount of hardware specifically designed to play back DivX encoded ...

Page 99: ...rrection on page 34 Some DV cameras support progressive scan video This records each frame as a single non interlaced 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 bu...

Page 100: ...es 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 QuickTime Player 2 Choose QuickTime Player Preferences to bring up the Preferences dialog 3 Under Movies select the checkbox next to Use high quality video setting when available 4 Close the dialog When ...

Page 101: ... handheld devices from Palm Sony Handspring Kyocera Samsung IBM Acer Handera and others Besides audio and video encoding Kinoma provides control over the presentation of the video including background image background color and layout of the elements Video Encoding Kinoma offers four video encoding formats MPEG 4 Is the most advanced video encoding format included in Kinoma Producer It produces th...

Page 102: ...ncompressed Applies no audio compression algorithm to the audio placed into the output file It is compatible with a wide range of Palm handheld devices Yamaha ADPCM Provides about the same compression ratio and quality as the ADPCM audio encoding format The Yamaha ADPCM audio encoding format can be played back on handheld devices running Palm OS 5 It can also be played on handhelds that contain a ...

Page 103: ... often sounds substantially better At 256 kbits sec Cleaner encoding is considered archival quality but at only 1 5 of the size of the original 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 su...

Page 104: ...ing 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...

Page 105: ...e 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 dispos...

Page 106: ...sed 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 4 is a global multimedia standard delivering professional quality audio and video streams over a wide range of bandwidths from cell phone to broadband The MPEG 4 video compression codec is ISMA compliant and can provide an extremely low da...

Page 107: ...e 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 M...

Page 108: ...nitor and leave black letterbox bars on movies that are not 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 ...

Page 109: ...ress more than P frames but they also take longer to encode 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 enables random access throughout the stream and is required for encoding DVD Video Using closed GOPs...

Page 110: ...me 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 pre configured QuickTime settings to the project files in th...

Page 111: ...les delivery of content based on factors in addition to data rate such as language platform and CPU speed Alternates also enable 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 versi...

Page 112: ...ess CPU intensive versions to viewers with slower computers 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 authori...

Page 113: ... instead of only over the Web QuickTime 6 QuickTime 6 includes the MPEG 4 AAC and JPEG2000 codecs When installed these options will appear in the Settings window QuickTime 7 QuickTime 7 includes the H 264 codec Flattening Movies Flatten QuickTime movies before they are distributed Flattening a movie does three things Makes the movie self contained There are no references to external files Optimize...

Page 114: ...codecs for example M JPEG Photo 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 for example Sorenson 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 capt...

Page 115: ...uickTime AAC codec builds on 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 Audio o...

Page 116: ...rnet 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 rat...

Page 117: ...download movies because it wastes bandwidth 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 F...

Page 118: ...ars the first time encoding begins If necessary you can change this location in the Preferences dialog under the Edit menu 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 connect...

Page 119: ... 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 enables you to specify the minimum CPU power speed required to play the movie This is very helpful if you are creating higher bandwidth more ...

Page 120: ...e 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 ...

Page 121: ... 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 ...

Page 122: ...pter 7 Formats 114 4 Select the settings that you assigned alternate criteria to 5 Click the Alternates button at the bottom of the Settings dialog Cleaner produces one alternate for each setting selected ...

Page 123: ...ternates 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...

Page 124: ...ovies are flattened so that they are playable on Windows computers 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...

Page 125: ...lled Presentation mov as a QuickTime progressive download 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...

Page 126: ...ces 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 chan...

Page 127: ...tocol 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 Cleaner also adds the sub folder name to the path See Organizing Streaming Alternates in Subfolders on page 120 Note Because Cleaner adds the alternate movie f...

Page 128: ...rs 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 Cust...

Page 129: ...igher 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 movi...

Page 130: ...ption 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 p...

Page 131: ...taining 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...

Page 132: ...ickTime 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 si...

Page 133: ...le the Create HTML option in the Output tab of the Settings window you automatically create the appropriate embed tag for realtime streaming or progressive streaming movies When making single version realtime 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 direct...

Page 134: ...he same folder on your HTTP server See Embedding Alternates on page 121 Embedding RealTime 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 progre...

Page 135: ... 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 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 opt...

Page 136: ... 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 QuickTime Web Posters QuickTime Web posters are an EventStre...

Page 137: ... 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 the Cleaner 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 This flag is ...

Page 138: ... 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 se...

Page 139: ...ly 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...

Page 140: ... Tracks tab next to the QuickTime track s you want to be preloaded into RAM See Tracks Tab on page 178 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 ...

Page 141: ...nging 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 degrade the image quality to maintain realtime playback over slower connections In extreme cases RealPlayer can omit the video track...

Page 142: ...t tab and choose RealMedia in the Format menu 2 In the Output tab enable Options and click Set to display the Real 10 Export Settings dialog 3 Set the Optimize for option to VBR Download 4 In the list select the type of download for which you want to encode 5 Set the audio and video options in this dialog 6 Click OK to exit the Real 10 Export Settings dialog 7 Upload the file to your HTTP server A...

Page 143: ... Option key and selecting RealPlayer from the Helpers menu This launches RealPlayer and opens the Real 10 file For more details on using Helpers see Helpers on page 235 Putting Real 10 Files on a RealServer Using a RealServer enables realtime streaming of Real 10 files To do this you must first install and properly configure the RealServer software on your video server hardware or use an Internet ...

Page 144: ...ements 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 wi...

Page 145: ...t or click the Output tab and choose Windows Media in the Format menu 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 t...

Page 146: ...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 I...

Page 147: ... 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 t...

Page 148: ...Chapter 7 Formats 140 ...

Page 149: ...e right video pre processing parameters such as noise reduction gamma adjustment and de interlacing See Pre processing on page 61 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 computers This chapter also discusses the basics of testing the output movie This chapter gives...

Page 150: ... will change dynamically depending on QuickTime version and third party plug ins 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 a setting or create a custom setting you can change all parameters manually See Creating a Setting on page 54 and Modifying Settings on page 54 Some fo...

Page 151: ...ed 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 computers 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 Whe...

Page 152: ...ver can support but also increases 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 enables you to compress the information called the header stored at the beginning of a movie Compress...

Page 153: ...nt portion has downloaded Loop Makes the movie 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 embedding QuickTime Streaming movies in HTML you must specify the exact path to the QuickTime Streaming Server See Embedding RealTime Streaming QuickTime on page 126 for more details Autoplay when Opened in Quic...

Page 154: ...d change the suffix if needed Stream Type This option determines whether streamed audio and video are contained in one or two files System write one file containing audio and video Elementary write two files one audio and one video Elementary streams are useful for DVD video authoring applications requiring separate streams Video CD Compatible Enable to select a Video CD VCD data format ...

Page 155: ...files one audio and one video Elementary streams are useful for certain DVD video authoring applications that require separate streams AVI File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default Windows file type suffix to the output file for cross platform compatibility You can select and change the suffix if needed Interleave Interleaving an AVI file is similar to flattening a QuickTime ...

Page 156: ...l 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 138 for more details DivX 6 File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default file type suffix divx to the output file This allows the file to play in a DivX player You can also use the avi s...

Page 157: ...ace This can be achieved by some simple calculations based on the running time of the video and the desired bit rate The bitrate is the amount of data or bits per second on average that the encoder should use when encoding a video clip The trade off is between file size and image quality A video clip encoded at a higher bitrate will produce a higher quality video with a much larger file size The s...

Page 158: ...code your video where maximumfilesize is the maximum file size in MB videolength is the duration of the video in seconds videolength is the duration of the video in seconds hh mm and ss represent the hours minutes and seconds of the video length desiredbitrate is the desired total bitrate in kilobits per second kbps filesize is the file size in MB videolength is the duration of the video in second...

Page 159: ...ake more specific settings for Video Codec and Audio Refer to the Official DivX 5 2 Guide in the Cleaner application folder for more explanation of some of the DivX encoder properties desiredfilesize is the desired file size in MB totalbitrate is the combined bitrate in kbps for both audio and video videolength is the duration of the video in seconds desiredfilesize totalbitrate videolength 8389 ...

Page 160: ...Chapter 8 Encoding 152 ...

Page 161: ...graphic images File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default jpg file type suffix to the output file for cross platform compatibility You can select and change the suffix if needed PNG PNG or Portable Network Graphics is 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 cod...

Page 162: ...me Image QTIF QTIF or QuickTime Image File is a format intended to provide the most useful container for QuickTime compressed still images It uses the same structure as a QuickTime movie File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default qtif file type suffix to the output file for cross platform compatibility You can select and change the suffix if needed 3G The 3G encoding format is...

Page 163: ... Rate and Image Size options to Current This sets the Frame Rate option to the value of its counterpart in the Encode tab of the Settings window and the Image Size option to the value of its counterpart in the Image tab This prevents unexpected results by ensuring a single value is associated with each option Audio Text Streaming or Advanced Use these tabs to set the remaining options for this cod...

Page 164: ...file type 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 file type 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 BMP Compression Settings dialog De...

Page 165: ...ffix 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 Color table Choose the Mac or Windows system color table Motion Click the Frames per second pulldown menu to set FPS ...

Page 166: ...er mp4 where number is a five digit number For example a valid filename is M4V00012 mp4 When you transfer the file to the PSP Memory Stick you must place it in the MP_ROOT 100MNV01 folder If this path does not exist on the PSP Memory Stick then create it The MP_ROOT folder must be located in the root of the Memory Stick file system If the PSP naming convention is not followed the file either does ...

Page 167: ...of the presets available for that model The complete set of preset settings is divided into two categories Sony PlayStation Portable presets and Palm handheld presets The following are the settings presets for the Sony PlayStation Portable Normal Provides the best tradeoff between audio and video AV quality and file size The encoded file combines MPEG 4 video and AAC audio into an MP4 file MP4 fil...

Page 168: ... AV in a format compatible with Kinoma Player 3 and Kinoma Player 3 EX The file size will usually be larger and the media quality lower than files encoded using Player 3 EX AV Normal Quality and Player 3 EX AV High Quality The encoded file combines H 263 video and ADPCM audio into a Kinoma movie file File encoded with this preset may be played back from a memory card or internal device memory Play...

Page 169: ...anced video encoding format included in Kinoma Producer It produces the highest quality images and the smallest files MPEG 4 playback requires Kinoma Player 3 EX for playback on Palm Powered handhelds MPEG 4 video can be stored in Kinoma Movie files MPEG 4 files and QuickTime Movies Cinepak Mobile Is a lightweight video encoding format intended primarily for older handhelds running Kinoma Player 2...

Page 170: ... 5 It can also be played on handhelds that contain a Yamaha audio chip This includes some Sony CLIÉ Palm OS 4 models and Handspring handhelds with a Springboard module containing a Yamaha audio chip CLIÉ Audio Is a very high quality audio compression algorithm developed by Sony It is supported on some Sony CLIÉ handheld devices CLIÉ Audio is also supported by the Sony plug in Audio Adapter CLIÉ Au...

Page 171: ...ile 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 Layout Settings Dialog You can set the dimensions and position of the video select a background color or background image and show or hide the Kinoma Player user interface Note Only the Kino...

Page 172: ...or Click the color box to choose a background color for the video The background color appears in any area not covered by user interface elements the movie or the background image Choose Background Image Click to select a background image Kinoma Producer scales the image to fit the selected Layout screen size The size and position of the background image can be modified in the preview area Images ...

Page 173: ...network protocols or media specific codecs thereby reducing run time processing File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default QuickTime file type 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 Hint Exporter Settings dialog See Prepare Hint for Streaming Server ...

Page 174: ...re 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 RealMedia RealMedia is a streaming media architecture developed by RealNetworks Real 10 is most appropriate for network delivery of audio video and other media types such as text and Flash animation...

Page 175: ...t rate for your output clip selecting Music will use up a larger portion of the clip s total bandwidth leaving less for the video track and resulting in decreased video quality Video Track Specifies the balance between frame rate and image sharpness for the video track Choose Normal to balance frame rate and visual clarity This is the best choice for most content Choose Smoothest Motion to produce...

Page 176: ...ting clip Video Dimensions Set the width and height of the video Select Custom to define a custom size using the Width and Height fields If you define a custom size you can enable Maintain Aspect Ratio to maintain the aspect ratio of the source video Optimize for Set the optimization strategy Choose either Streaming or VBR download then select the streams from the list QuickTime TeXML QuickTime Te...

Page 177: ...uffix if needed Options Enable the Options checkbox and click Set to open the Sound Settings dialog Compressor Choose a compression method from the drop down menu µLaw 2 1 A legacy codec used for speech ALaw 2 1 Another legacy codec used for speech 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...

Page 178: ...he 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 results on Macintosh machines and Little for best results on Windows machines WAVE File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default ...

Page 179: ...animations and other data types including bitmapped video over the Internet to the Macromedia Flash Player File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default Windows file type suffix flv or swf to the output file for cross platform compatibility You can select and change the suffix if needed Options Enable Options and click Set to display the Wildform Flix Exporter Settings window for...

Page 180: ... the resulting clip will have duplicated frames as it will be encoded first to 15 frames with additional frames added to reach the 30 fps target MX SWF Select this option This produces higher quality results However it is not backward compatible so verify that your target audience can accept this limitation Use host dimensions Select this option Since Cleaner does a much better job of scaling vide...

Page 181: ...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 access the DV Export Settings dialog This dialog enables you to specify the DV Format Set to DV DVCPRO or DVCPRO50 Video Format Set to NTSC or PAL Scan Mode Set to interlaced or progressive Aspect Ratio Set to 4 3 or 16 9 Audio Format Select...

Page 182: ...ettings File Suffix Enable File Suffix to automatically add the default qtl Windows file type 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 QuickTime Media Link Settings URL field Shows the current URL You can change the URL if you plan to p...

Page 183: ... in this text field provided to load if a user clicks the movie Output Defaults Select this checkbox to write 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 Options Enable the O...

Page 184: ...ers is interoperability with other systems Interoperability is the primary goal of the 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 mp4 Windows file type suffix to the output file for cross platform compatibility...

Page 185: ...e widest possible range of playback on MPEG 4 compatible devices Audio tab Set the options for the audio track If the user selects music in the Audio Format pop up menu the settings automatically change to a high data rate and stereo Audio can be optimized for music in this case AAC Note that AAC can handle a full range of music and other audio Streaming tab Set the streaming options for the encod...

Page 186: ... create settings that only flatten QuickTime movies instead of processing them 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 Flatten Only Option QuickTime The Flatten Only option is a QuickTime feat...

Page 187: ...ls in the video track 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 Preload Forces the player to preload the track in RAM before it can be played Useful for autom...

Page 188: ...ts most of the features that are unique to specific codecs within the Encode tab sections However to allow flexibility you can directly access a codec control panel if available via the Options panel of the Encode tab Check the Options panel and click the Set button This opens the codec control panel If a codec doesn t have a unique control panel the Options section will not appear Bit Depth The B...

Page 189: ...lity keyframes are achieved by lowering the quality of the delta frames 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 ...

Page 190: ...ckbox to match the source media frame rate Keyframes or Insert Keyframes 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 Ideal NTSC Derived Frame Rates 30 fps all frames 15 fps every other frame 10 fps every third frame 7 5 fps eve...

Page 191: ...y on temporal encoding to achieve high quality at low data rates and do not need very many keyframes Temporal encoding targets compression of information between frames 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 The number you enter in the keyframes field with ...

Page 192: ...ressed 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 Video 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 th...

Page 193: ...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...

Page 194: ...nd portable DVD players or on computers with DVD ROM drives Disc Space If you have a fixed amount of content that you need to fit onto a disc the length of the video and the size of the disc may become the determining factors of the data rate instead of the speed of the media Data Rate If you know the space available on the disc and the length of the video use the following formula to determine th...

Page 195: ... 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 ...

Page 196: ...the keyframes are larger and the delta frames smaller Generally this is not the optimal way to encode a movie The Suppress Spikes or 2 pass VBR options generally provide superior results CBR MPEG 1 MPEG 2 only Uses a fixed data rate throughout the entire file This is useful when you are limited to a maximum file size for the output clip such as VideoCD 1 pass VBR The 1 pass VBR Variable Bit Rate o...

Page 197: ...ts 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 Compression Buffer Window Windows Media only The Compression Buffer Window affects the duration of the buffering process during playback of a streaming clip When a clip is streaming the media player buffers a few seconds of the clip before beginn...

Page 198: ...ata stream never exceeds the buffer on the MPEG decoder The value of this setting is in buffer units which are 2 KB each It should not be necessary to change this setting Group of Pictures GOP MPEG 1 MPEG 2 only Use the frames field to set the size of the GOP and the P Frame distance pop up to select the pattern for the GOP New GOP on Scene Change MPEG 1 MPEG 2 only Select to create a new GOP at e...

Page 199: ...ue as luminance 4 2 0 is recommended for content destined for internet playback 4 2 2 This chroma value yields a compression ratio of 1 5 1 with half as much color value as luminance 4 2 2 is recommended for content destined for playback on devices with high bit rate capacity 4 2 2 is used in professional studio environments The video minimum and maximum bit rate limits will vary depending on the ...

Page 200: ...n 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 computer Display Size Some f...

Page 201: ...ress 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 computer disconnect the test computer from the LAN and access the video via the target connection such as a modem to simulate t...

Page 202: ...ssign the same base setting to all versions See Assigning a Setting to Multiple Projects on page 55 2 Apply different settings modifiers to the projects in the Batch window to experiment with different parameters See Settings Modifiers on page 56 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 24 4 Process t...

Page 203: ...o 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 ima...

Page 204: ...ckTime 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 f...

Page 205: ...ssion settings for the final movie The audio codecs and options available will depend on the video codec selected in the Output tab AVI Audio Codecs IMA Interactive Multimedia Association standard compressor Good for music and voice playback on low performance target computers ...

Page 206: ... data rate audio compressor Qualcomm PureVoice The Qualcomm 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 ...

Page 207: ...s systems µLaw 2 1 Another legacy codec used for speech MP3 A high quality general purpose codec that uses perceptual coding techniques based on the way the human ear perceives sound You can compress at 12 1 without losing significant sound quality Sample Rate Enable to set the sample rate the number of samples per second used to reproduce the audio The highest frequency that can be reproduced is ...

Page 208: ...ons specific to the selected audio codec Volume Enable to adjust the volume of the audio track Choose Adjust to increase or decrease the volume Choose Normalize to set the highest peak to the specified percentage and scale the rest accordingly Low High Pass Enable Low pass to remove all frequencies above the specified value This is useful for removing high pitched noises such as whining Enable Hig...

Page 209: ...ld controls the audio level under which the filter completely silences the audio track higher values silence louder sections Minimum Duration measured in seconds controls how long the audio must be quiet before the noise gate activates very short values can cause the audio to become choppy Notch Enable to remove a specific section of frequencies centred on the specified frequency It is useful for ...

Page 210: ...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 I...

Page 211: ...you want to include in your file See Open URL on page 219 In Out Points Set In and Out points numerically In and Out points determine the portion of the source Cleaner encodes See Trimming Files on page 42 for more information on In and Out points and the Cleaner time system Metadata Tab The Metadata tab enables you to attach additional information to the movie you are creating such as the title a...

Page 212: ...Author Copyright Album QuickTime only Software QuickTime only Other To add more file information to a QuickTime movie there are five additional options available Check the Other option choose one of the additional categories in the menu and enter the desired information in the field Note Because fonts on Mac OS and Windows vary symbols such as copyright may not display properly for viewers on both...

Page 213: ...as you modify them The Before After slider in the Output window enables you to preview during processing Dynamic Preview The Dynamic Preview window enables you to 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 ...

Page 214: ...he movie 2 To generate a new preview click the Update button or press a D 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 3 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 o...

Page 215: ...re After Preview on page 210 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 ...

Page 216: ...2 In the Settings window Encode tab adjust the spatial quality slider 3 Click Update or press a D 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 origin...

Page 217: ...verify that no errors occur You can monitor the encoding process by watching the Output window The 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 ...

Page 218: ...s 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 enables 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 e...

Page 219: ...at high bitrates The Before After preview enables you to 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 B...

Page 220: ...Chapter 8 Encoding 212 ...

Page 221: ...ckTime Real 10 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 217 for a list of supported events Most importantly you can author EventStreams in a fo...

Page 222: ...ams 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...

Page 223: ...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 43 Adding Markers in Real Time Cleaner lets you add Events in real time This is the fastest way to add Events to your project To...

Page 224: ... 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 databas...

Page 225: ...t 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 Chapter Add Chapter events for QuickTime Windows Media to enable users to 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 p...

Page 226: ...t 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 6 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 synchroniz...

Page 227: ...t 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 223 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 We...

Page 228: ...ave 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 Real 10 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 als...

Page 229: ...events To create a Replace Movie event 1 Select a 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 10 add a new level of interactivity for viewers of your movie With hotspots you can have a movie that plays an introduction and then ...

Page 230: ...spot 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 7 Choose an event type for the action using the Events menu 8 Assign the necessary information for the action you cho...

Page 231: ...s increases the file data rate and can negatively impact the file image quality playback performance For more information on keyframes see Keyframes or Insert Keyframes on page 182 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 t...

Page 232: ... Posters on page 128 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...

Page 233: ... 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 Destination dialog manages the Cleaner StreamPublisher feature which automates uploads by enabling you to create a cu...

Page 234: ...aster 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 informati...

Page 235: ... 10 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 t...

Page 236: ...ownloads 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 138 To override default preference settings 1 In the Output tab click the Create Metafile option check box The streaming server address supplied...

Page 237: ...lders on your hard drive that you can use for saving encoded files the Destination dialog also enables you to 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 computer as the streaming server software To set up a server destination 1 In the Batch window doubl...

Page 238: ...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 des...

Page 239: ...ed to the folder Context 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 234 and Preferences on page 237 Helpers enable you launch players from within Cleaner making it easy to view the original an...

Page 240: ... 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 ...

Page 241: ...ssing is stopped it is moved back out When processing is finished the source file will be placed in the Completed Source Files by Computer Owner s Computer folder inside the Watch folder 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...

Page 242: ...odify 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 enables you to select a new command Improving Processing Speed Processing and encoding the source files often takes a long time Depending ...

Page 243: ... 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 launch...

Page 244: ... 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 th...

Page 245: ... 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 75 for more details Load Source Movie into Memory Checking the Load source movie into memory option does not improve encoding...

Page 246: ... 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 s...

Page 247: ...not manually create them For more information on using this feature see Using Preferences to Ensure Fallbacks on page 123 Add Alternate Folder Name in Custom Path This option is useful if you prefer to organize your movies within sub folders on the server when making QuickTime movies with streaming alternates Enabling this option causes Cleaner to organize the streaming alternates into a sub folde...

Page 248: ...Chapter 11 Workflow 240 ...

Page 249: ...ore details Image Quality Problems If the movie periodically gets blurry then sharp again or vice versa you may have the Temporal 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 k...

Page 250: ...ake 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 Real Time streaming Movies If realtime streaming movies are not showing up properly in your page Make sure that ...

Page 251: ...ences for each file type Make sure that the HTTP server has its MIME types set properly Adding the following lines to its MIME types file may help 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 th...

Page 252: ... should be included in any technical support requests A technical support representative may ask you for this information when you call in 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 staf...

Page 253: ...re also available on our peer to peer online Discussion Forums To visit the Discussion Forums go to www autodesk com cleaner support Technical Support Options Registered users of Cleaner receive 30 days of free technical support following product registration After this 30 day period users can pay for technical support on a per incident basis Contact Technical Support online at www autodesk com cl...

Page 254: ...Chapter 12 Troubleshooting 246 ...

Page 255: ... 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 chrom...

Page 256: ...n Mac OS and True Color on Windows A B Slider in the Dynamic Preview window the A B Slider enables you to compare your processing 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...

Page 257: ...oped 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 enable...

Page 258: ...e 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 BatchEncoding 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 bat...

Page 259: ...mally 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...

Page 260: ...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 comm...

Page 261: ...ip in a computer Also used to refer to a computer in general CPU Intensive describes processes that use large amounts of processor power CPU intensive processes tend to tie up the computer while they are running and not work well on slower computers D1 Resolution standard resolution specified by certain formats including DV which is 720x486 Also known as CCIR601 Data Rate amount of information per...

Page 262: ...so 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 local hard drive the Web CD ROM and DVD ROM DisplayText EventStream event that enables you to add subtitles or closed ca...

Page 263: ...red 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 enables files to be transferred from a video editor to Cleaner for ...

Page 264: ...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 QuickT...

Page 265: ...ly 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 enables you to ...

Page 266: ...ect 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 the Apple FireWire and the Sony 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...

Page 267: ...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 de interlaced prior to compression Interleaving alternating the video and audio data in the final file Interleaving is required for proper playback of movies because it enables the drive to read the file in a linear fashion and still receive the s...

Page 268: ...net 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 bit mapped 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 t...

Page 269: ...an the NTSC 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 a...

Page 270: ...ovie 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 Qu...

Page 271: ...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 re...

Page 272: ...c 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 ...

Page 273: ...nd 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 detail...

Page 274: ... 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 GI...

Page 275: ... Web video editing and more QuickTime Music track that is very similar to MIDI Enables 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 a...

Page 276: ...sion 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 abo...

Page 277: ... rates Common multimedia sample rates include 11 025 kHz 22 050 kHz and 44 100 kHz 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 Server term that can be applied to hardware or s...

Page 278: ...s text tracks and more 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 trac...

Page 279: ...icates the file type SureStream Real 10 scalability feature that enables 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 symmetr...

Page 280: ...ES 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 bit mapped images Often used in pre pres...

Page 281: ...ources on the World Wide Web Variable Bitrate VBR Encoding a process of compressing movies to a changing optimal data rate Produces movies with data rates that vary instead of being uniform flat data rates Variable Frame Length Movie movie that contains frames that are not all of equal duration Supported by QuickTime Real 10 and Windows Media but not AVI Vector in multimedia formats that store gra...

Page 282: ...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...

Page 283: ... open cross platform manner XML files can be opened and edited using an XML editor or a standard text editor Y CbCr color model that describes color information in terms of luminance Y and two chrominance channels Cb Cr The Y CbCr space is commonly used in digital video and easily supports color subsampling YUV is often used mistakenly to describe this color space but YUV is accurate only for broa...

Page 284: ...Glossary 276 ...

Page 285: ... 249 257 263 Capture 10 signal 9 Animation and 3 D formats supported 88 Appending setting names 238 Aspect Ratio 34 40 correction 34 preventing distortion 41 Audio Audio only movies 107 capture settings 11 CD ROM 107 connecting MPG and WAV files 21 Dynamic Range 80 formats supported 87 High Pass Filter 79 importing from CD s 21 Low Pass Filter 78 Noise Gate 81 Notch Filter 82 Reverb 83 streaming a...

Page 286: ... 106 Capturing video 9 CD ROM Codecs 107 Chapter events 217 Chime 238 Cinemascope 100 247 250 252 Cinepak 252 Codecs AVI 89 DivX 90 Flash 93 MP3 95 MPEG 98 QuickTime 106 Real 10 133 Windows Media 136 137 Color Bit Depth 180 Depth 252 Gamut 257 Hue 73 Palette 265 Saturation 74 Subsampling 253 Colored noise 79 Compare Uncompressed Frames 184 Compress Movie Header 130 Connection Speed 185 Constrain p...

Page 287: ...x 173 174 Locked audio 91 173 non square pixels 91 streams exporting 91 DVD ROM Codecs 107 Dynamic Range Hotter 80 Limit to 90 80 Narrow Range 80 E Edge blanking 10 255 Edge sharpening 68 270 Embed tag 124 145 242 Embedding Alternates 121 Encode tab 180 Encoding monitoring 209 Enhance from multiple frames option 195 Enhanced Movie Playback 45 Enhancing Still Images 195 Error 19 29 30 EventStream 8...

Page 288: ...nu 142 Formats supported 87 Frame Format 35 Frame rate 181 Ideal NTSC Derived 182 Ideal PAL Derived 182 Frame Size 192 Full Size 33 G Gamma 71 257 Gamma using alternates 121 Go to Frame 43 Go to Time 43 Greenscreen 14 Group alternates 112 115 H Half Size 33 HDTV 34 Headers compressing 130 Helpers 235 High Pass Filter 79 High Pass filter 200 High Quality First Last Frames 86 130 202 High Quality Fl...

Page 289: ...tafile Windows Media 148 MiniDV 10 91 Minimize Preview 210 Minimum target machine 129 184 185 187 M JPEG 106 Modifiers tab 37 Movie Controller 33 Movie headers 105 Movie parameters 141 MP3 95 Constant Bitrate 96 Copyright Settings 97 Creating 95 Data Rate 96 Licensing 97 Speed vs Quality 96 Variable Bitrate VBR 96 MPEG 98 106 107 128 137 MPEG Audio 101 MPEG Licensing 101 Multiprocessor 234 N Narra...

Page 290: ...7 PureVoice 198 Q QDesign 198 QT FX 131 Quality Balance slider 241 QuickTime 102 Alternates and Streaming 109 Alternates from Encoded Movies 116 Alternates from Multiple Sources 115 Alternates of One Source 112 Auto Play in QuickTime Player 127 Compatibility 104 Computer Power 111 Connection 110 Controlling Tracks 128 Custom Still Fallbacks 123 Delivery 104 Disable Saving 128 Embed Options 125 Emb...

Page 291: ... 30 Scaling 63 Setting In Out points 43 Settings 47 Assigning a Setting 55 Automating Setting Creation 59 Creating a New Setting 54 Modifying Settings 54 Organizing Settings 49 Protecting Settings 59 Settings Modifiers 56 Sharing Settings 58 Tabs 53 Using Aliases 58 Settings tab 37 Sharpen 67 Shooting Video for Streaming 13 Skipping files 25 Sorenson Video Codec 270 Sort 25 Source File tab 34 Spat...

Page 292: ...s tab 178 Triming 42 U Untitled Batch file 20 Upload files 26 Uploading status 19 URL end frame link 86 130 203 open event 219 replace event 221 V Variable Bitrate 96 273 Variations for Testing 194 Video Data Rate Setting 188 Video Fades 85 Video for Windows 89 Video formats supported 87 Video iPod 98 Volume 78 W Watermark 70 WAV 87 95 Web Codecs 106 Web posters 128 White noise 79 White Restore 73...

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