Dean's Director FAQ - VIDEO
Another FAQ exists at
MediaMacros, which
is new and extensive.
Video
Question: How do I record and edit video?
Answer:
To capture video from tape, you need a computer with a video capture
card that will convert the analog video (on the VHS tape) to a digital format
you can use. If you have your video on a digital tape, you could use a cable
called a firewire to transfer it across to your computer. You still need
a card and software to make it work, but it is much cheaper than a capture
card.
For video editing, a program like Premiere is good for general 'home' video
production. With Premiere, you can output the video as AVI or MOV, either
will import into Director. MOV is becoming more standard, so there are a
few benefits of using that format as opposed to AVI.
Using MPEG Video
Question: How do I get MPEG to play in Director?
Answer:
1. With an Xtra
Look at the MPEG
Advance Xtra. It is the successor to the DirectMedia
Xtra, which was (and still is) very good. Besides giving MPEG support
to Director, it allows you to add cue points to the video and a range of
other video controls. Now, the MPEG
Advance Xtra is cross platform. This Xtra is highly recommended if you
intend to do a lot of work with MPEG and Director.
2. With QuickTime 5+
QT 5 supports MPEG (Windows) and QT3 (Macintosh), so if you have it installed,
Director will be able to play the video through QT. However, in QT's instance
on converting the resolution of all your MPEGs can sometimes vary to the
resolutions they encoded with. 3 Other
You can use Lingo MCI messages, a Windows driver or a Macintosh extension
designed for MPEG.
Macromedia have a technote: System
requirements for playing MPEG video in Director
Question: What is the best video format to use
in Director?
Answer:
You have a few options in terms of video choice, AVI, QuickTime
and MPEG.
The biggest (and perhaps only) advantage of AVIs is that you don't need
to install any software for it to play on Windows machines. However, AVI’s
are no longer being upgraded and so are becoming obsolete. Already in Director,
support for AVI is becoming limited. So if you need more control of the
video, then QT is the better option than AVI.
QT is good for cross platform development. It requires Quicktime to be installed
on your computer. You can stream QT and QT supports cue points in Director,
which cannot be done with AVIs..
MPEG is good as it allows good compression, much smaller file size. But
you do need software to create it. QuickTime 5 plays MPEG on Mac and PC,
so in Director you’d import in the same way as you would a QT. You could
use the crossplatform MPEG
Advance Xtra, taking away the need for any external software to be installed
on the end-user's computer. It is important to note that MPEG has strict
parameters, notably dimensions – 352 x 240, so if you want large high-res
video, it may not be what you’re after.
So things to consider:
* Installing QuickTime 5 and whether you want to include an installer for
Quicktime - AVI on PC doesn't require the user to have QT installed
* Tools and cost to create MPEG and buying an Xtra for MPEG. MPEG
Advance Xtra is highly recommended.
So, in short, it depends on what you want to do with the video, what platform
it is for and what tools you have or are able to buy.
Compression
Question: What compression and settings are recommended?
Answer:
What codec is right for you will depend on the type of video and
your target platform and specifications. Some codecs are better than others
for specific types of video. There is no one codec that is the best for
every application. It is a good idea to continually test and experiment
with codecs to find one that works for you..
Here's a brief summary of some of the main codecs available.
Animation: This codec is best suited for two-dimensional animation and computer-generated
video content that contain flat colors. It is not good for content with
gradient colors or photo realistic images.
BMP: Applies very little compression and is not recommended for video output.
Cinepak: Good for CD-ROM playback where there low system requirements for
playback. The quality is not very good compared to most other recent codecs
available.
Component Video: Good if you are going to export to videotape, or are going
to edit your file with other digital video in this format. It is not an
appropriate format to import back into Director.
DV - NTSC / DV - PAL: This format is used for digital video cameras. They
should not be used for exporting with Director.
Graphics: Compressor uses 8-bit color compression. It compresses better
than Animation (roughly half the size), but is slower to decompress (roughly
at half the speed).
Ligos Indeo Video Interactive (4-5): Very high quality lossless compression
suitable for CD-ROM video. However, it requires fast computer and is most
suitable for Windows platform only. While a Macintosh codec is available,
performance is much worse than the Windows version.
Motion JPEG A / Motion JPEG B: Hardware codec and requires the Motion JPEG
card to play back video. It is also called M-JPEG but is not the same as
MPEG. It is used for general-purpose video editing and storage.
None: Does not compress at all. This will obviously result in the perfect
quality as well as the largest file size. It is good when editing video
prior to compression to use in Director.
Photo-JPEG: Very good for compressing high-resolution, photographic images,
as well as 8-bit grayscale images. It works very well for ‘slide-show’ movies
that have a very low frame rate. The decompression is slow and is not suitable
for motion video.
Planar RGB: Supports graphics with alpha channels and is good for exporting
a series of images that will be composited (combined) with other video clips
outside Director.
Sorenson Video: Provides high image
quality with small files. It is good for video that will be played over
the web. For playback of CD-ROM video, a faster computer is required.
Video: Makes low demands on the CPU. It compresses and decompresses very
quickly but the image quality is not very high. It is not appropriate for
delivering video on either web or CD-ROM. It is suitable for video playback
on a local hard drive.
Data rate is crucial factor in determining video performance. It is fixed
when you create your final video in programs like Premiere and Movie Cleaner
Pro. If your computer hardware cannot keep up with the data rate, your video
will drop frames. Each output medium allows for a maximum video data rate.
For example, a double speed CD-ROM drive has a maximum bandwidth of 300
KBps. A video to play on a double-speed CD-ROM may be set to 150-200 KBps,
allowing for the system overhead required to move data. If the video is
playing off a DVD or hard drive, you could afford to have a higher data
rate.
As a very basic guide:
For AVI, I find the Indeo 5.11 codec set to 320x240, 15fps, keyframes very
15 frames, 200KB data rate (or less), 22.050 16 bit mono audio. These play
very well on an 8 x CD-ROM even on a P166 MMX. On a newer machine, they
still look good played at 640x480, but not as good as MPEG. For QuickTime,
I use Sorenson at 15-30 fps, depending on the quality I need my movies to
be. It gives good quality with low file size, generally better than can
be achieved with Cinepak. Cinepak is a standard Codec suited for video that
will play on older machines.
Digital video files can be optimized using third party applications including,
for example Cleaner.
You can find more info on Codecs at: Codec
Central.
Protecting video
Question: Is there any way to protect my videos?
Answer:
Quicktime 3 introduced 'media keys'. This is a way to allow password
entry to view the video. Sorenson
and Indeo 4.4+ codecs allow password protection and Director can unlock
the video through Lingo's qtRegisterAccessKey and qtUnRegisterAccessKey.
The Sorensen codec is best to use on QT (may require the professional, commercial
version of the Sorensen encoder) and Indeo for AVI. However, even if an
AVI is used, it will still require users to have QT installed on their system.
Since QT Sorensen and AVI Indeo are so similar, and this method requires
QT anyway, the AVI format offers no advantage.
MPEG-1 offers great video compression and quality but there is no password
protection scheme for the video files.
Another way to protect video is through the BinaryIO
Xtra Media Protection. The BinaryIO Xtra alters files to make them unplayable
when opened outside of the Director projector. It is done by replacing a
small amount data at the beginning of the file with filler, and storing
the real data that should be in that section of the file, in a field in
your Director movie. At runtime the valid data is written back into the
file to make it readable, then when the projector quits, it is protected
again. This technique works with any file - not just Quicktime, although
the amount of filler you have to write will vary depending on the file format
Video cue points
Question: How do I add cue points to a QuickTime movie?
Answer:
Sorry to bring you all the way here to just send you somewhere
else, but DOUG have a great comprehensive article covering this area entitled
'Adding
Cue Points To Quicktime Movies'.
If you're using Windows, you can use the MPEG
Advance Xtra to add cue points. It was developed for MPEG playback but
supports other video types too
Detecting QuickTime
Question: How can I detect if the user has QuickTime is installed?
Answer:
The Lingo command quicktimeversion(), available in Director 7 and
later, can be used to detect QuckTime on a computer. The following frame
script checks the version QuickTime installed on the computer. If the version
is less than QT 5, Director will jump to a marker "QT5 Install",
otherwise, it will just go to the next frame.
on exitFrame
if quicktimeversion() < 5 then
go to "QT5 Install"
else
go to the frame + 1
end if
end
DOUG have a very good and highly detailed article covering this area entitled:
'Detecting
QuickTime'.
Packaging the Quicktime Installer
Question: Can I package the QuickTime Installer with my application?
Answer:
Yes. For the licensing procedure, look at:
http://developer.apple.com/mkt/swl/quicktime6.html
Creating Quicktime VR
Question: How can I create QuickTime VR? Can this be done in Director?
What software is available?
Answer:
You can't create QTVR from inside Director. You can create movies
that give a QTVR type behavior.
The following lists the various QTVR applications available:
QuickTime VR Authoring Studio: This is Apple's QTVR software and was the
first fully GUI software for QTVR creation. Even though it has not been
updated since it first shipped in 1998, it still has the most of features
for QTVR media. Available for Macintosh only.
VR Toolbox's VR Worx: The 2.0 version
of this software is available supports both Macintosh and Windows, and enables
the creation of hot spots and scenes on the Windows platform. The recently
released Version 2.1 supports Mac OS X.
Photovista: Different
packages include Reality Studio - Complete Immersive Environments Photovista
Virtual Tour - Immersive Multimedia Environments Photovista Panorama -Immersive
360 Panoramas Photovista 3D Objects - Interactive 3D Objects Creates files
that are QTVR-like, but are actually a competing technology, but also outputs
QTVR files. The Macintosh version is not currently available for the latest
versions of these applications, but will be available soon. See
Stitcher: Stitcher is a program that
seamlessly blends photographs for various purposes. It is capable of outputting
QTVR panoramas. It is now one of the two tools-of-choice for creating the
new cubic QTVR that QuickTime 5.0 can display. It is available on both Macintosh
and Windows. See the Realviz web site ()
Helmut Dersch's Panorama
Tools: Herr Dersch's FREE plug-in tools enable you to stitch panoramas
and spherical media, which can then be displayed as QTVR (the spherical
media is used to create QTVR cubic panoramas). He also offers Java players
that are capable of displaying the media without QuickTime on web pages
that are viewable on Macintosh, Windows, Linux and Unix. He offers the plug-in
in several "flavors" that work with Photoshop, GraphicConverter, and Gimp.
Gimp is a Linux application, making this the only tool for QTVR creation
on the Linux platform. These tools are not as easy to use as the commercial
programs. The site is temporarily unavailable - last I checked.
If you have a 3D program, like 3D Studio Max, you can get plugins that output
to QTVR - Cebas
maxVR.qt 2.0.
Once you have created the QTVR, you can import them into Director and control
them from there.