ChamSys
MagicHD User Manual
Version 1.6.5.0
4 Media
Media refers to movies, images, and text files. MagicHD can display all common image formats,
and play almost any format of movie, although a number of restrictions apply. If you want to do
anything other than play the entire movie forwards at normal speed the movie must contain only I-
frames [2]. This is because playing backwards, skipping frames, or randomly accessing points
within the clip requires that any frame can be displayed by itself. Performance will also be affected
by file size, so consideration must be given to the quality (i.e. degree of compression) of the
movies.
Media is always addressed by a pair of DMX channels: folder and file. Wherever a media file can
be selected, you will find the folder/file parameters. If MagicHD can't make sense of the selected
file, in the context, it will be ignored. For example a movie could be selected as a mask, but it will
not have any effect because it is not an image. When selecting media, if either the folder or file is
zero, the effect is 'no selection'.
4.1 Adding Media
MagicHD is supplied with a library of basic content to get you started, but most users will want to
add their own content. Folders 1 to 9 are reserved for ChamSys libraries, and you are free to use
folders 10 to 255 in any way you like. Folder and file numbers do not have to be sequential.
Internally MagicHD stores media in numbered folders. Within each folder the file names start with
a number. The folder and file number are the DMX folder/file parameters used to select that file. An
index file is used to tell MagicHD which files to use (see section 10.2). For MagicHD to be able to
use a new file it must be named correctly, placed in the right folder, and added to the index. To
simplify this process, it is automated:
4.1.1
Automatic Conversion
MagicHD monitors a folder called
convert
. When media files are added to that folder they are
automatically converted (if required) then moved to the show's media folders. Once converted, the
files are added to MagicHD's media index and can be used right away (without restarting).
Files must be placed in a subfolder, under
convert
, whose name starts with a number (nnn, below).
This number is taken to be the folder number of the resulting media file. The rest of the folder name
is optional and is ignored by MagicHD. The file's name must start with a number (fff, below) then
an underscore. This number is taken to be the media's number within its folder. The rest of the
filename, after the underscore, is not processed, but copied verbatim. User folders start from 10 and
file numbers start from 1:
.../MagicQ PC
└─ convert
├── nnn_folder_name
:
└─ fff_file_name.mov
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