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AJA XenaHS User Manual — Using Xena With Application Software
Using Xena With
ThumbsPlus
ThumbsPlus is a highly customizable image database/thumbnails/graphics editor application
that makes it easy to catalog, locate, maintain and modify all your graphics and multimedia
files. ThumbsPlus is available in Standard and Pro versions. ThumbsPlus has several features
which allow it to work with the Xena board. By default, dragging a file’s thumbnail from
ThumbsPlus to the Xena Control Panel’s “Video Processing” page will export the file to the
board. It is also possible to double-click on a thumbnail within ThumbsPlus to initiate the
export. For most file types, this works using the default settings for ThumbsPlus. To get
ThumbsPlus to export an ‘unusual’ file type by double-clicking on the thumbnail, however,
we must first set up some new File Type Configurations in the ThumbsPlus “Preferences”
property-page.
Working with ThumbsPlus
ThumbsPlus can be configured to copy a graphics file to the clipboard when a thumbnail is
double-clicked (instead of viewing the file on the desktop). With the AJA-supplied utility
“copyname.exe”, ThumbsPlus can also be configured to copy the name of a graphics file to the
clipboard when a thumbnail is double-clicked. Either way, Xena can then Export the file from
the clipboard to either Channel 1 or Channel 2. The clipboard can be continuously
monitored by the Xena Control Panel, and an Export operation performed every time the
clipboard is updated with a new graphics file.
YUV Files and ThumbsPlus
Xena can import and export files in native “YUV” format, which preserves color information
pristinely, since there is no color-space conversion to RGB involved. ThumbsPlus displays
YUV files well, so integration with Xena and its Control Panel can be made by only making
settings in “ThumbsPlus Preferences” within ThumbsPlus.
Clipboard ‘image’ interface
If you don’t want the quality of using YUV files, you can use the simpler
Clipboard “image” interface where images are copied in RGB to the
clipboard instead of filenames. If you want to support YUV files in
ThumbsPlus, however, you’ll need to use the Clipboard “filename”
interface. You must also configure ThumbsPlus to use the YUVFormat
Photoshop Plugin (suppled on the Xena installation CD) as the viewer
for YUV files. (See the topic
“Supporting YUV Files within ThumbsPlus”
that follows later in this discussion.)
To configure ThumbsPlus to copy an image to the clipboard when a
thumbnail is double- clicked, go to the ThumbsPlus “Options” menu,
and select “
Preferences.
” In the Preferences dialog’s “
General
” tab, select
“
Copy to clipboard
.”
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