Merlin 2003 DV and MPEG-2 Recorder and Dual Stream Decoder
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Appendix A
Video Play List Files
A.0 Video Play List File Format
The format of a Video Play List File is as follows:
<Video File> <Starting Frame #> <Ending Frame #> <Repeat Count> <Alpha File> <Start Alpha @ Frame #>
<Video File> <Starting Frame #> <Ending Frame #> <Repeat Count> <Alpha File> <Start Alpha @ Frame #>
<Video File> <Starting Frame #> <Ending Frame #> <Repeat Count> <Alpha File> <Start Alpha @ Frame #>
<Video File> <Starting Frame #> <Ending Frame #> <Repeat Count> <Alpha File> <Start Alpha @ Frame #>
.
.
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<Video File> <Starting Frame #> <Ending Frame #> <Repeat Count> <Alpha File> <Start Alpha @ Frame #>
Any line that starts with a semicolon (“;”) or any line that has no arguments on it is ignored. Alpha files are
optional. So a line may contain either four or six arguments. The “Alpha File” specifies what transition file should
be used when starting the “Video File” specified on the next line. If there is no “Alpha File” the next “Video File”
will start immediately after the last Field of the previous “Video File”. If an “Alpha File” is specified then the next
file will start at “Start Alpha @ Frame #” of the current video file.
Here is an example of a Video Play List File:
;Video File Start End Repeat Alpha File Alpha Frame Start
;========== ====== === ====== ========== =================
<d:\mpeg\clip1.mpg> <50> <500> <0> <d:\mpeg\alpha\crossfade50.alp> <450>
<d:\mpeg\black1.mpg> <0> <250> <250> <d:\mpeg\alpha\rwipe50.alp> <200>
<d:\mpeg\clip2.mpg> <1000> <1500> <0>
<d:\mpeg\clip3.mpg> <100> <600> <0> <d:\mpeg\alpha\dissolve80.alp> <520>
In this example “clip1.mpg” start at field 50 of that file. At field 450 of that file “black1.mpg“ starts and a
crossfade transition is applied for 50 fields. If the fields in a file are less than the “end – start” the file is repeated.
In this example “black1.mpg” is actually a single frame of black video. Therefore it is repeated 250 times. The
Repeat count is ignored by the player application but it is used by the playlist editing application. At field 200 of
black1.mpg (after it has repeated 200 times) “clip2.mpg” starts and a rwipe transition is applied for 50 fields. This
file will start at offset 1000 fields into this clip and play for 500 fields. Since no alpha file was specified here
“clip3.mpg” starts as soon as “clip2.mpg” ends at an offset of 100 fields into that clip. When the Play List file ends,
it starts again from the beginning. Therefore at field 520 of “clip3.mpg”, “clip1.mpg” will start again at an offset of
50 fields and a dissolve transition will be applied for 80 fields.
