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If are helping "Beta Test" you should report bugs and feel free to ask questions about the program's commands, it is best to email me at tempnulbox (at) yahoo (dot) com and put "DANCAD3D (tm) 24x7 SUPPORT SUBMISSION" in the email subject line so your mail is not deleted as junk. See Section: 8 for more information about support related issues. I want you to ask questions so long as they are on the subject and relate to the current program's commands. If you do not get some kind of reply assume I did not get your message and resend it and also try voice mail, postal form, etc. All submissions and correspondence become the sole property of Daniel H. Hudgins to do with as he sees fit, so stay on subject.

DANCINEL.TXT (tm) Copyright (C) 2006 All Rights Reserved. This document may not be reproduced or shared without first obtaining a written distribution agreement signed in ink by Daniel H. Hudgins. This file is Preliminary Documentation for DANCINEL.EXE (tm) v1.01 BETA. This Document and the program DANCINEL.EXE (sm) are governed by the End User License Agreement a.k.a. "EULA" located at the Author's web site www.DANCAD3D.com (sm). You must read and agree to the terms and conditions of the current "EULA" before using or testing this document or the programs. DANCINEL.EXE (tm) is made available free of charge only for "Beta Testing" with the current revision of DANCAD3D.EXE (tm) and may not be distributed for other purposes. DANCINEL.EXE (tm) uses the PMODE/W to operate in 32 bit protected mode under "DOS". PMODE/W is Copyright (c) 1994-1997, Charles Scheffold and Thomas Pytel. All rights reserved. If you have questions about PMODE/W or its error messages please search for documentation about it on the Internet. Please do not re-distribute DANCINEL.EXE (tm) or DANCINEL.ZIP (tm), if you know someone who would like to help "Beta Test" them, please have them visit www.DANCAD3D.com (sm) and download the current version after they agree to the "EULA". You should also check that you are "Beta Testing" the current version. Trade marks mentioned belong to their respective trade mark holders. Information about products does not imply an endorsement or recommendation for purchase, you should make your own purchase decisions based on information taken from other sources including but not limited to the manufactures literature. DANCINEL.EXE (tm) has been undergoing development and testing and is not finished yet, so features described in this document may not have been tested adequately or may not have been tested in the current revision and therefore may not work as described here. If you find any discrepancies between the program operation and the descriptions in this document please report them to the Author, instructions for reporting things are located in Section: 8 at www.DANCAD3D.com (sm). --- OVERVIEW: WHAT DOES DANCINEL.EXE (tm) DO DANCINEL.EXE (tm) is a utility to expose motion picture film with high resolution Digital Cinema like 2K images loaded automatically from computer frame files that have numbered filenames and are stored on the computer in set of image frame files. This exposing of motion picture film is one of the final steps in the process of Digital Cinema whereby digital image files are used as the source, or for intermediate steps i.e. Digital Intermediate rather than film master positive, in the generation of a motion picture release print, or printing negative for making release prints, for projection in a movie theater. The image frame files displayed by DANCINEL.EXE (tm) may be computer generated synthetic images such as created with DANCAD3D.EXE (tm), images derived from video that has been framized out, using an AVI extractor or AVI decompiler, into separate BMP frame files taken from an un-compressed AVI file, or images scanned directly from single frames of motion picture film using a pin registered cine projector, high resolution macro copy optical printer lens, and a high resolution digital camera. DANCINEL.EXE (tm) v1.01 has two frame source modes, mode #1 reads a set of numbered frame files from a directory in order, mode #2 reads a special Cine Frame List (*.CFL) and looks for those frames, if they are not found it asks for the disk with them on it to be inserted. The Cine Frame List would normally be made with the Link command in DANCAD3D.EXE (tm)'s Kinema Edit List, and would list only the frames from each shot that you want in the final edit. You could also make your own *.CFL file if you follow its style format exactly since it is just an ASCII text file. Although DANCAD3D.EXE (tm) can be used to display frame images on the monitor and generate signals to operate the motor on the cine camera in a cine film recorder, some video boards may require Linear memory addressing. DANCINEL.EXE (tm) uses Linear memory addressing and so may work faster and at higher resolutions on some video boards. DANCINEL.EXE (tm) also has some features specifically introduced for cine film recorder operation, and can operate independently of DANCAD3D.EXE (tm) from user entry or a DOS batch file. DANCINEL.TXT (tm) is a utility program for loading 2048x1536x32 resolution numbered image frame files and displaying them on a computer monitor located in a cine film recorder, and automatically operating the cine camera in the cine film recorder to photograph a sequence of cine frames on movie film. DANCINEL.EXE (tm) can signal you to manually advance the cine camera with beeps through the computer's speaker, or automatically advance the camera (the normal operation) by using beeps through the computer's speaker to which electronics have been connected as is described at www.DANCAD3D.com (sm) or the cine camera can be advanced by making some connections to the computer's parallel port pins. DANCINEL.EXE (tm) has brightness, contrast, gamma, and dithering correction to help adjust the monitor image to aid in making a good positive or negative on cine film. DANCINEL.EXE (tm) can automatically generate a special test pattern using the brightness, contrast, gamma, and dithering settings so that you can shoot film tests and measure them on a densitometer to check that you will have the image in the film's straight line curve and check other film image properties. The test pattern can also be used to check image focus and resolution, and be used to test image registration for multiple pass shooting. The black patch can be used to check lens flare. DANCINEL.EXE (tm) can be operated automatically from a DOS batch file by first setting up a configuration file with the settings you want used for a range of frames. Different configuration files can be used for each shot to adjust the timing. DANCINEL.EXE (tm) has many modes and can be used to shoot negative, inter- negative, reversal, CRI, master positive, or positive color films, shoot negative, inter-negative, reversal, master positive, direct positive, or positive color blind (blue only sensitive), Ortho-Chromatic, or Pan-Chromatic Black and White films, or shoot color separation negatives or positives on separate rolls or sequentaly on a single roll. DANCINEL.EXE (tm) can trigger a color filter wheel to get better color saturation by shooting three exposures on color stock rather that one exposure. An effects filter wheel can also be triggered and the image tones automatically manipulated to add star burst and glow effects through double exposures without advancing the camera, thereby possibly avoiding some sources of registration error. DANCINEL.EXE (tm) is in a very preliminary state of development, but has some mouse support in the data entry. Although not tested, the program may operate up to 4096x3072x32 if a video board could be found that supports that in VESA Linear VBE2.0 mode. 15, 16, 24, and 32 bpp video modes should be supported, but only 24 or 32 are meant to be used for film output. In the initial release only 24bpp BMP files of the exact size of the video buffer are supported. Three file name numbering systems are supported, Long, Short, and Divided, see the Files Utilities sub-menus in the current DANCAD3D.EXE (tm) program to convert numbered files into these filename types. Instructional information and a video about building a film recorder are located at www.DANCAD3D.com (sm) including some information about circuits for advancing the cine camera, and making connections to the computer's speaker and parallel port. You should study that information before making connections to your computer. Making connections to your computer may damage it, the Author of DANCINEL.EXE (tm) will not be responsible or liable for damage or loss resulting from your use of information in this document, use or inability to use of DANCINEL.EXE (tm), or any of your other activities. Do not make use of DANCINEL.EXE (tm) or this document if you cannot or do not wish to bear all liability, costs, torts, for anything that might occur, including bodily injury and damage to your computer or property and the body and property of others. You must indemnify the Author against all claims including claims by third parties and you must bear all costs and penalty arising from such claims. --- MODES OF SHOOTING CINE FRAMES OFF MONITOR SCREEN In manual operation the computer loads a numbered frame file, you shoot a frame with your cine camera, the computer beeps a tone in one of three frequencies, then tap the [SpaceBar] to load another frame or turn the filter wheel, this continues for the range of frame numbers you selected from the menu or batch file. In speaker operation the work flow is the same, except the computer does not stop and wait for a key to be pressed, rather several delays can be pre-set to control the exposure and allow time for the cine camera motor to advance the film. The beeps on the computer's speaker can be electronically tapped and feed to amplifiers to switch relays to control the cine camera's animation motor. In parallel port operation the work flow is like the speaker operation except that the signals go in and out of the computer's parallel port in silence. There is an option to have the computer pause until the signal on parallel port pin 15 shows it is OK for the shooting to proceed. You can select LPT1, LPT2, or LPT3 for the use of the film recorder circuitry. The parallel port pins used in v1.01 are roughly defined as: Pin 1 = Film frame advance, sometimes also used to advance the tri-color filter. Pin 2 = Tri color filter wheel sync pulse, i.e. after blue before red. Pin 3 = Effects filter wheel advance and capping shutter trigger for effects. Pin 4 = Signals source file disk needs to be changed in mode #2. Pin 15 = Tells computer Cine Film Recorder is ready for next exposure. See the I = Install command in DANCINEL.EXE (tm) for more detailed information about the various options in the revision you are "Beta Testing". --- OPERATION FROM BATCH FILES Once you have made a *.FIG configuration file with the settings you want used for your shooting, you can select the E = Expose command from DANCINEL.EXE (tm)'s main menu, or you can make a batch file to shoot several ranges of frame numbers using different configurations for each range. In source mode #1 there are four command line parameters used, the configuration file's name, the path and name of the first file in the frame set (in the correct format for the L, S, and D type selected with [I]nstall), the starting frame number, and the last frame number to shoot. EXAMPLE: DANCINEL ONE.FIG C:\FRAMES\192.BMP 192 6875 Where ONE.FIG is a configuration file you made with DANCINEL.EXE (tm)'s I = Install command, C:\FRAMES\192.BMP is the name of a Long or Divided frame set (it would be SOMENAME.192 if it was in Short type), 192 is the first frame number to shoot, and 6875 is the last frame number to shoot. In source mode #2 there are four command line parameters used, the configuration file's name, the path and name of the Cine Frame List, *.CFL, file (SHOOTLST.CFL is made by the Link command in the Kinema Edit List in the current DANCAD3D.EXE (tm) v3.7) the starting frame number, and the last frame number to shoot. Normally the Start frame would be set to 0 and the Last frame would be set to 99999999 so that all the frames in the Cine Frame List would be exposed on the Cine film in the Cine Film Recorder, but you can select a sub- range if you wish. The first frame in the *.CFL file is always frame called number 0. You can use the View command in the Kinema Edit List to find the starting and ending frame numbers since the Link command numbers the edited frames from frame zero (i.e. the PFL and PFF files are numbered like the CFL file). EXAMPLE: DANCINEL TWO.FIG C:\P1111\R000\SHOOTLST.CFL 0 99999999 DANCINEL.EXE (tm) used the CFL extension on the shoot list file to determine if you are selecting source mode #1 or mode #2, i.e. BMP selects mode #1 and CFL selects mode #2. The *.FIG file is updated to the current source mode. If you need to load the image frame files from DVD-R disks you can make a batch file that only records a small range of frames in the cine film recorder, then deletes those frames from the harddisk, then prompts you to insert the next DVD-R, then uses the COPY command to copy those frames from the DVD-R to the harddisk, then runs DANCINEL.EXE (tm) to record those frames, then the batch file can use DELETE to delete those frames, and then repeat the cycle over and over. You may need to use the ATTRIB command to remove attributes from files copied from a DVD-R onto the harddisk, especially if you try to open them for editing. When source mode #2 is selected DANCINEL.EXE (tm) will prompt you to insert the removable disk with the next frame file on it if the frame file is not found, so mode #2 may be preferred to mode #1 if you cannot fit all of the high resolution frames for the Cine Film Recorder on one disk drive at the same time. When mode #1 is used you can write a batch file and select sub-ranges of frames from the whole project, hopefully breaking on shot changes, to load a set of frames from removable disks to a large harddisk in order to shoot a full shot before having to stop and reload the harddisk again. --- SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Since DANCINEL.EXE (tm) is a 32 bit program, and uses a large frame buffer, and video modes that use VESA VBE2.0 it has some requirements that go beyond what DANCAD3D.EXE (tm) v3.7 requires. OPERATING SYSTEM: DOS 6.22 or equivalent, with memory manager configured. WIN95OSR2 (tm) may work up to about 1GHZ. WIN98SE (tm) may help frames load faster from the disk. Under DOS you may need to edit the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT, you may need to remove EMM386.EXE from your CONFIG.SYS, or run from the DOS prompt or Manager within WIN3.11 (tm). VIDEO BOARD: Must support VESA VBE2.0 Linear memory buffer mode. 2048x1536x32 or 2048x1536x24 mode recommended. A PNY Technologies (tm) Verto GeForce (tm) 6200 AGP 8x 256MB was used for testing at 2048x1536x32, some other nVIDIA (tm) chip video boards may also support 2048x1536x32 resolution in VESA VBE2.0 Linear mode but some other boards will not, do not base your purchase on the box stating that the board supports 2048x1536 since this may not mean that the video board's BIOS supports that resolution in VESA VBE2.0 Linear mode. Some boards only support VBE2.0 up to 1920x1440x32 or 1600x1200x16, or less! If you purchase a board you might try to do so from a store that will let you take it back if it does not work properly with DANCINEL.EXE (tm). The price of the board does not necessarily indicate that it supports more or better VBE2.0 modes. SYSTEM MEMORY: At least 64MB of system memory may be required, 128MB or better may be required under Windows (tm) if any other programs are loaded. HARDDISK: A fast 7200RPM 8MB buffer harddisk or better may help speed loading of the frame files. CPU: 80486 or better. There may be issues with CPU faster than 2.8GHz, but I do not have specific information as I write this. Please report such issues. An AMD XP 2800+ was used for testing. MOUSE: Under WIN98SE (tm) the mouse should work, under DOS you need to use a mouse driver. Mouse support is limited to mostly the buttons and a little rolling in the prompts. PARALLEL PORT: LPT1, LPT2, or LPT3 can be used for the control signals. For PCI cards you may need the cards driver, for ISA cards no driver is usually required. If you are running under WIN98SE (tm) you would have installed the PCI Parallel Port driver already. Watch out for printer drivers that capture the parallel port data, you may need to install a second parallel port and tell all the printer drivers not to use it. Do not use parallel port pass through devices, connect directly to the port pins. MONITOR: Monitor capable of 2048x1536x24 or better, with good stabilization. A high resolution Monochrome monitor can be used for making color separations, and if it has a white phosphor for RGB color wheel or three pass exposures onto color film. The monitor can be analog or digital but must be supported by the video board at 2048x1536x24 or better and the video board must support VESA VBE 2.0 Linear memory at that resolution as well. A high resolution Native QXGA projector may also be able to be focused directly onto the Cine film with close up lenses to get more light on the film, which might help speed up writing to the film or let you write directly to slow speed print film stock. --- INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING DANCINEL.EXE (tm) DANCINEL.EXE (tm) is supplied in a zip file named DANCINEL.ZIP (tm). In this zip file are these files: DANCINEL.EXE 2K Digital Cinema like cine film recorder frame loader. DANCINEL.FIG Default configuration file, may be changed with I = Install. DANCINEL.FGN Holds name of current configuration file to load on start up. DANCINEL.TXT Documentation for DANCINEL.EXE (tm). Normally you would unzip these files directly into your DANCAD3D.EXE (tm) sub- directory and run them from there. If you need them in another sub-directory remember to change to that sub-directory before running DANCINEL.EXE (tm). You need to change the program directory with the DOS CD command before you run the program. EXAMPLE: C:\>CD C:\DC37 C:\DC37>DANCINEL Do not try to display frames before you have gone through all the prompts in the I = Install command in DANCINEL.EXE (tm). Most important is that you select a video and frame resolution that your video board supports. The computer you will be using with your cine film recorder would be the one that needs to have the highest resolution video board and monitor. If you select a video resolution that is higher than your video board and monitor support in VESA VBE2.0 Linear memory you may get an error message, you computer monitor may go into safety protection mode, or your monitor may try to display frequencies that are too high for it an it might burn out or catch on fire. Never select video resolutions that you are not sure your hardware can support. If you get a scrambled, narrow, or distorted image on your monitor turn the monitor off before it can become damaged. If you are running DANCINEL.EXE (tm) from a batch file make sure that you do not have any mistakes in the configuration files that you will be using, since a typo in the configuration file could send your monitor outside of its safe operating range. The configuration files are in text and can be read in a text editor (do not make changes with a text editor and save the configuration files, changes should only be made with the I = Install command in DANCINEL.EXE (tm)). Before you try to display frames, configure the video resolution, and then try the test pattern command. If the test pattern displays properly, then try loading some BMP numbered frame files by using manual frame advance mode and the E = Expose command. Remember that the frame file resolution must match the video resolution exactly, some image editing programs may make BMP files one pixel larger or smaller than requested (which will result in frame loading failure), so always check the "image info" in your image editing software to see the actual size of the BMP image. After you see that the frames load and display properly you can go on and test and configure the electronics that advance the cine film camera and filter wheels. A special command is included for manually testing the Parallel Port pins to see if you have your electronics and port connections talking to each other properly. Once you have the hardware and software hooked up and working, you can use the test pattern to adjust the contrast, brightness, gamma, and dithering to get a negative or positive image on the film print that looks correct with plenty of shadow detail and highlight detail, balanced contrast, and neutral color. You may need to have the monitor internal and external settings or controls adjusted, and use some optical filters on the cine camera lens to help achieve a clean neutral sharp test image. If the test image looks ok, then print some test frames from actual scenes. If the test frames from actual scenes look too light or dark or something, do not adjust DANCINEL.EXE (tm)'s configuration or the film recorder's monitor, rather adjust the contrast, brightness, and gamma of the monitor you use to do your color timing on the frame files themselves. It is important that you do the color timing to the frame files such that they look good when the test pattern in DANCINEL.EXE (tm) looks correct on the finished film, in other words, everything should be adjusted to match the test pattern, rather than the other way around. The test pattern is a tool and standard of performance, if you can get it to look good on the movie theater screen, then you stick to that setting and adjust the frames for artistic preference. The monitor you use for color timing adjustments should be adjusted to have the frame images it displays match the finished film print, and then never be adjusted, so that you have something that can predict the final look, without having to do hundreds of film tests for each color timing change. If you start adjusting the film recorder for every shot you will probably have a harder time predicting the look of the final image on the film print. --- VIDEO DISPLAY MONITOR ISSUES To produce 35mm or 70mm cine film of satisfactory resolution for theatrical projection on even medium size screens an image resolution of a minimum of 2048x1080x24 pixels should be used. The 2048x1536x32 (32 bpp mode has no finer color than 24 bpp much of the time since the extra 8 bits are blank filler, 32 bpp just loads faster in some cases) available on some video boards is a little better than the 2048x1080 a.k.a. 2K standard for Digital Cinema if you shoot or scan through a 1.33:1 anamorphic lens and adjust the monitor vertical size to get a 16:9 image raster. A CRT monitor has the advantage that you can adjust the image height and width to fit the camera aperture for Academy, 16:9, or 'Scope. Digital monitors are better for consistency and geometry, but are not adjustable, so the image needs to be cropped or shot off the monitor with an adjustable anamorphic lens. Few Monitors support 2048x1536x32, those that do are usually 21 inch or larger. If you try to select too high resolution on an older monitor it can overheat and catch on fire, something that would be very bad if you were in the room at the time, but could be worse if your film recorder was running for months on end and you were not home and your house burned down. Newer monitors with "plug and play" running under Windows (tm) may turn themselves off if you select a video frequency or resolution that is too high. Even so, newer monitors can also catch on fire if they are kept in the film recorder box and inadequate ventilation causes the heat to build up and the monitor overheats and catches on fire. Even if the monitor is not overheated it can still catch on fire, especially since it will be running around the clock for months on end. So you should seriously consider locating your film recorder outside of your house and arrange for sprinklers and power cutoff should smoke or fire be detected by detectors in and around the film recorder. In order to make color separation images, or multiple passes with filters and such, the image on the monitor should be stable with changes in image brightness. Inferior monitors may show image size changes with frames that are different brightness, that could induce color fringing if separations are made. Because of convergence errors in CRT monitors just using one of the three electron guns to expose the color separations on Black and White film may reduce color fringing and improve sharpness. If Black and White print stock is used to make the separations then the three color separations could be made with the red, green, and blue images displayed using just the blue gun in the CRT. See the configuration in DANCINEL.EXE (tm) for single gun options. Digital monitors may be better for accurate image geometry since the pixels are fixed in relation to the face plate and image size stability because the pixels cannot move around with power fluctuations as they do in a CRT because of the moving electron beam, but finding a Digital monitor and digital output video board that will work with VESA VBE2.0 Linear mode at 2048x1536x32 may be a challenge (if you know of a digital combination that works with DANCINEL.EXE (tm) let me know what that is). Many Digital monitors and digital video out on video boards may not work above 1600x1200x32, if that. To output images to film for Digital Cinema, a resolution of 2048x1536x32 or better should be used. Using 2048x1536x32 means that the scanned or generated frames might not need to be re-sized, they can just be cropped for HD-DVD and other near HD or Digital Cinema uses. Resizing of images, other than going from 4096x3072x48 master image frame files directly down to 2048x1536x32 size for the film recorder should be avoided. The Digital Cinema image format 2048x1080 can be letter boxed within 2048x1536 if the 2048x1080 image was not scanned anamorphic. Using anamorphic 2048x1536 images may be better than non-anamorphic 2048x1080 images because the CRT monitor vertical size could be reduced to take advantage of the better 1536 vertical resolution and reduce the jagged lines and other digital raster artifacts (assuming an output aspect of 16:9 on the 35mm image in the film recorder). Although DANCINEL.EXE (tm) can display at lower and possibly higher resolutions (maximum may be about 4096x3072x32 but I do not have hardware that goes that high to test it as I write this), the standard Digital Cinema image width of 2048 is probably best for working image frame files that will be going to film output in a film recorder (rather than 1920 or 1600) when you cannot use 4096. Moire' patterns may show up in color separations when you shoot off of a color shadow mask monitor. To reduce Moire'patterns you may need to "stop down" the cine camera lens to have diffraction reduce the upper resolution limit. Using a high resolution monochrome monitor to make color separations may help reduce Moire' patterns and give slightly higher resolution, since the shadow mask will not be between the screen and the electron gun. High resolution CRT displays are sometimes used for medical X-Ray display. A monitor with a flat face plate is generally better that a curved one from the stand point of the cine camera since photographic lenses are corrected for "flat field" and would be out of focus in the corners when shooting a curved screen. If you stop the lens down to get the corners in focus you lose light and the exposure time becomes too long. The monitor brightness is a critical issue, since the lens on the cine camera needs to be stopped down to about f/5.6 to get the best resolution. The film stocks used in the film recorder may be very slow, some as slow as E.I. 0.3, so to avoid exposures longer than a minute you may need a very bright monitor. Monitors that support 2048x1536 resolution may have their brightness limited to reduce bleeding of the bright areas due to poor electron beam focus. You may not be able to use the best aperture on your cine camera lens and the slow fine grain film stock with the best monitor brightness setting, and keep the exposure time within practical limits. You may have to pick a combination of settings that give satisfactory results, rather than the best possible image quality in order to not have the film recorder run so slowly that you take too long to finish your project. You could have several film recorders working on different reels of your project, but that would introduce variations in the results and cost more to build and operate. A Native QXGA resolution computer compatible video projector might be useful for getting more light into the Cine Film Recorder since you can point the QXGA projector directly into the camera lens and set the camera lens and projector lens at infinity. The size of the image on the film can be controlled by changing the focal length of the camera and or projector lens, or by adding negative or positive meniscus lenses between the camera and projector lenses, which may need to be modified to focus past (far of) infinity in order to get the projector image to focus on the film plane at the correct size. Prime lenses rather than zoom lenses should be used for butting the projector and camera together. If you cannot get the butting technique to work, because of vignetting and such, you can put close up lenses on the camera and projector and then move them a few feet apart and put a field lens between them to produce an aerial image on the field lens. A color separation filter wheel should be used between the camera and projector, and DANCINEL.EXE (tm) set to display three color separations in order to get better color than shooting the color as produced by the projector's internal filters. If you can get enough light onto the film, you might be able to run the Cine Film Recorder with a two to three second exposure directly onto color print stock, eliminating the need to make a printing negative if you are only going to make a few prints of your project. The monitor or projector vertical refresh rate should be as high as you can get it without loss of sharpness from the increased video frequency of the pixel rate in order to reduce video "roll bar" in the frame image shot off the monitor the cine camera. The film recorder's monitor's natural gamma should not be too far from 1.0 in order to avoid having to use large compensation values and reduce the color range or introduce large amounts of dithering. Generally monitors reproduce middle gray darker than the equal mix of black and white pixels, this is because the electron gun and video drivers are not linear with respect to the digital brightness values in the source image file. This brings up the issue of the bias of the preview monitor you use to judge the color timing of the frame image files on, and how that relates to the finished film images that will be on the screen at the theater. You should check the gamma of your preview monitor and adjust its display gamma (in your image editing software or video board utilities) if you can to give a consistent look to the images between your final image tone timing and the second or third generation film print. When you image tone balance your frame images you should leave them a little "flatter" (low contrast) that you will want them in the end, since each film step will round off some of the highlight and shadow detail. I might add that you will probably never get an exact match between the final film print and your preview monitor, but with experience you may get a feel for how much highlight and shadow detail will be lost, and give yourself some extra tonal range in the digital frames to make up for the expected loss later. Once you get your preview and film recorder monitors calibrated, do something to make sure somebody does not change your monitors' settings, or you will be surprised when the film comes back from the lab out of whack (if your monitor has digital set up you may want to write down the numbers from the monitor settings and keep it in a safe place so you can check and reset the monitors before using them). --- FILM ISSUES The best color results might be obtained by making Black and White color separations. Color separations can be made in two forms, in the first you run the film recorder to just output the red images from all the frames, then just the green images for all the frames on another roll of film, then just the blue images for all the frames and end up with three rolls to be used in a step contact printer as A, B, and C rolls. The second separation method is to output the red then the green then the blue image frames in sequence on a single roll three times as long, that roll would then be printed in an optical printer using a color filter wheel and print three exposures for each frame in the optical printer's camera. Making sequential color separations has the advantage that processing inconsistencies produce contrast and density variations, but little change in Hue, thereby generally looking better than three strip three roll color separations made with the primary color rolls for a given frame that have been recorded in the cine film recorder on different days (more likely weeks apart). Variations between three roll color separations can produce wide variations in contrast and density between the primary colors resulting in head to toe tracking errors as well as hue variations that drift over the length of a shot. Having the film processed at a good lab may help. Using a stabilized UPS power inverter for the monitor power may help as well. Sequential separations need to be printed to the color print stock on an optical printer using a dichroic or wratten filter wheel, this can be a very slow process. Three roll separations can be printed in turn on (triple exposed by rewinding the print stock twice) a fixed pin contact printer using the appropriate separation filter (wratten 99, 98, or 70) in the printer filter slot at about 4 to 8 frames per second. DANCINEL.EXE (tm) has the provision to output color separations using just a single electron gun in the monitor, this has the advantage that the convergence errors and color tracking of the three electron guns is eliminated. To make color separations using just the Blue electron gun go into the configuration and set the single gun mode to Blue. The single gun could also be set to Green for Ortho-Chromatic film, or Red for Pan-Chromatic film (Green might work better for Pan-Chromatic film since the camera lens might focus green better than red.) If you use the three gun gray scale image of separations to get more exposure on Pan-Chromatic film you will probably get less resolution because of monitor convergence issues and chromatic aberration in the cine camera lens. If you are unable to get enough light to shoot off the monitor on fine grain film, you might be able to use E.I. 50 or 100 speed camera film and have the lab "pull process" it down to E.I. 25 to 50 in order to reduce the grain and contrast. This would give you about 4 to 20 times the recording speed. You should not operate your cine film recorder faster than about a 5 second exposure since you may get monitor "roll bar" that would show up as a faint flicker in the image. The "pull process" lab technique involves speeding up the processor, some labs may operate their processor at its maximum speed, and so might not actually "pull process" much even though there is a box on their form, so you should send some film in for "normal" process first, then order some "pull process" shot at the same time on the same roll to see how much difference you get at various labs. If you are photographing directly onto tri-pack color film (negative or positive) it is better to make three color exposures through color filters such as wratten 99, 98, and 70 by using the single gun mode 4 which exposes sequential separations on the same frame of color film e.g. the red image with the red gun, the green image with the green gun, and the blue image with the blue gun. Adding the three color separation filters (on a filter wheel) to the three separate color exposures on the single color film frame may make the colors more pure and may improve saturation in the color film result. Making separate exposures might also help because of reciprosity failure in the two layers of the color film not getting exposed may reduce "cross talk". The use of a narrow band absorbing filter to block yellow and cyan light from the tri-pack color film may also improve primary color saturation. The use of an ultra-violet and infrared blocking filter generally helps in printing from a tungsten light, but I do not know if it would help much with the light from a CRT. A digital display may output some UV or IR from its back light, blocking that might improve the color. A wratten 2E filter can block UV. IR blocking generally requires an interference filter made to have a sharp cut-off above the film's red sensitivity (IR might pass through filters used in some Digital displays). Film speed is generally the limiting factor in the speed of the film recorder. The contrast of the film can be compensated for to some extent by the brightness and contrast controls on the monitor, and the brightness, contrast, gamma, and dithering values in DANCINEL.EXE (tm). A test pattern is built into DANCINEL.EXE (tm) to help you adjust the gamma and black level so that the photographed negative or positive has shadow and highlight detail, as well as the mid-tones in the middle of the film's density range. The two darkest squares are 8 digital (on a scale of 0 to 255) light values apart, and the two lightest squares are also 8 digital light values apart. You should see an equal change in density on your negative or positive film photographed off the monitor between those steps, you can measure the steps with a densitometer to check the density delta. The two gray boxes in the center are also 8 digital steps apart and should have the same density delta change as the light and dark pair of boxes. The gray field is digital value 128 for mid-tone. See the discussion below about adjusting gamma value for the monitor's characteristic to have the gray field mid-way between full black and white. If you are going to make less than a hundred release prints you would usually be using negative film in your film recorder to produce a negative to print from. When you shoot a negative you use a positive image on the monitor screen. Using a positive image on the monitor screen generally gives better results than using a negative image on the monitor screen since the lens flair is white and the bright areas bleed. If you shoot from a negative image on the monitor the black areas in the print will flair and bleed, so when shooting negative images the lens should be very clean and have very good coating, and the monitor brightness should not be turned up too high and cause spread in the light areas, which will become dark areas on the film. If you need to make several duplicate negatives from a master positive in order to produce thousands of prints you would use a negative image on the screen and shoot color master positive intermediate stock, or make positive separations from which several tri-pack inter-negatives could be made in an optical printer. DANCINEL.EXE (tm) can Mirror (flip) the image before displaying it, this can be handy if you need to contact print from an odd generation, in other words you can select if the film shot in the film recorder is "A" wind or "B" wind by using the Mirror (flip) and re-centering the image. Having the lens on the film recorder in a shifting mount is better than panning the camera to re- center the image since the film and monitor's planes stay parallel. You may be able to make a single positive release print in your film recorder, but the exposure time for an 88 minute film could be 8 mouths or more. It may be possible though if you want to save the cost of printing, and do not think your film will require additional prints later. Perhaps if your film gets sold the distributor could pay to have your digital frame files output to an inter- negative on an ARRI (tm) laser scanner or the equivalent. If you are going to project the output from your film recorder, be sure to do many tests and take them to a real theater so you can judge the timing and density since there will not be a chance to fix the timing as there would be if a printer was used to make prints from the film recorder output. Electro-printing the sound could also save the cost of a sound negative, but you would have to find someone who could interlock their sound recorder to your mag-track and align to your film recorder start marks. You should start mark the film in the cine camera gate with a ink pen if you are going to need to electro-print sound, of make more than one pass through the camera or else you will not be able to find the start when the film is rewound. If you forget to mark the head you may be able to dip the film in black and white print developer (by pulling it out of a Mitchell magazine light trap a little at a time in darkness) a little at a time until you find the head slate frames and use a synchronizer to measure backwards so that you can punch a start mark hole in the right place (be sure to wash off the developer, but do not use fixer, so that you do not contaminate your equipment and make spots on any film run through later) If you do not have anything on the head you can use as a start mark, you may be able to process the tail of the exposed film and find the exposed tail sync mark then wind back through a synchronizer in the dark to locate the head sync frame. It is always a good idea to expose several head and tail sync frames (with distinct and different images), and have at least 10 feet of film between the sync marks and the picture frames. --- ADJUSTING THE FILM EXPOSURE AND GAMMA When making a printing negative off of the monitor you have to adjust the exposure so that the density in the darkest parts of the printing negative are just dark enough to hold out the exposure of the release print stock to almost show clear base when the print stock is exposed at mid-light in the continuous contact printer. Release prints would generally be printed "one light" so you need to have all of your negatives made in your film recorder correct for the appearance of the final print without relaying on later light changes when the prints are struck. Because of the contrast of the negative stock the dark parts of the monitor may not produce much if any density on the negative shot. In order to get the dark areas of the monitor to record on the film, you may need to have the brightness set higher than CRT electron gun beam cutoff, to your eye the screen will not look black, but because of the inertia of the film, the general gray on the monitor will record as dead black. In order to not have the light areas of the displayed image "fall off" the white clip point the contrast can be reduced to make up for the lifting of the black level. DANCINEL.EXE (tm) has settings to lift the black and reduce the contrast. Typical values might be brightness = 0.01, contrast = 0.98, gamma = 1.5, dither = 4. High contrast film might require more extreme black lifting and contrast reduction. As was mentioned contrast in the negative is also affected by the exposure time, shortening the exposure time and lifting the black will help hold the highlight and shadow detail, but do not go too far in that direction or your prints may look "washed out". You cannot judge the proper contrast, density, and gamma just by looking at the negative, since the contrast of the print stock is very high, you must have a mid-light print struck of your recorded negative film, and look at that print in a projector not over a light table, since the subjective appearance of density in a print is affected by the screen brightness, ambient light, and lens flair in the projector. If you cannot use a movie projector, then cut up your print tests and put them in a slide projector. Adjust the slide projector brightness and color temperature with neutral density and bluish CC filters to match the brightness of a typical movie theater screen, use a reflected light meter to measure the screen brightness. Be sure the ambient light during your test slide viewing is as high as the typical theater that leaves some lights on during the show. The gray field in the test pattern built into DANCINEL.EXE (tm) is at digital level 128 on a scale of 0 to 255. The polka-dot patches at the top center are made of full black and full white dots. If you stand back from the monitor and squint your eyes the polka-dot patches should be the same gray as the surrounding gray field. If not, you may want to compensate for the monitor gamma. Compensation for the monitor gamma can be done in the I = Instal configuration command in the Primary image settings. The Effects exposures have their own settings. Try several gamma values between 1 and 2 and see if you can make the polka-dot patches the same brightness as gray field (the gray field will do the changing). Having the gamma set for the mid-tones may or may not be the best value for the final film images in the print, but it should be a starting point for testing. The left polka-dot patch has single pixel dots, which will make moire' with the shadow mask in a CRT monitor. The right polka-dot patch has dots that are four pixels in size and should be resolved on your monitor screen, if not your monitor may need to be focused or your video cable may need improvement. The two patches at the bottom center are vertical and horizontal lines two pixels wide and should be resolved on the finished film if you have everything in focus and exposed properly. If you can see those lines on the monitor but not on the print you may need to adjust or replace the lens on your cine camera. Camera film is less sharp than fine grain lab film, but the current camera stocks less that E.I. 200 should be able to just resolve the line patches and maybe the four pixel polka-dots. If you cannot get these test patches to print on your print you should check why, is there line ripple making the monitor image unstable, is there a magnetic field from the camera motor causing blur, is the camera motor causing vibration, or any other of a thousand things that can go wrong. You can test the camera lens by setting up a newspaper and focusing and shooting that, if you cannot read the print viewing the negative through a microscope then you probably have a bad lens or the lens is not in focus on the film (focus numbers on lenses are almost always off, and you need to do film tests to find the actual focus marks). The black and white crosses are to test the image focus, if the focus is off the black cross will be very faint or disappear, and the white cross will be un-sharp and dim. The crosses can also be used to check camera registration when making separations, if the camera or printer have weave you will see a swarm of colored crosses moving when the movie films runs in the movie projector around in place of a single black and white cross. The black patch at the left middle can be used to check for lens flair since it is near the un-exposed film at the edge of the frame, if you see a line at the edge of the frame where the "black" patch is slightly more dense than the film in the un-exposed frame you can get an idea of the lens flair, or degree of black lifting. In a negative lens flair reduces the black density on the print, but helps make the shadow detail not sink into the black on the print so you need to adjust and control the lens flair and black lifting to balance the good black and lost shadow detail. The gamma adjustment can help pull the mid- tones up and also pull-up the shadow detail a little. If your frames come from under exposed original camera negatives, the tone values in those frame files should have been balanced before being displayed in the film recorder, that is, do not try to do your timing in the film recorder, fix your frames before they get that far along in the printing chain. It is possible to do scene to scene timing when filming out, since DANCINEL.EXE (tm) can read a different configuration file for the range of frames in each shot. The white patch on the right can be read as the maximum density for the printing negative with a densitometer, and is directly affected by the exposure time. The density of the highlights in a printing negative might run around 1.1 to 1.7 above fog plus base density depending on the contrast of the print stock used, and how hard you want to push the print stock toward the highlights making clear patches on the print stock. Print stock contrast is about 2x to 3.5x the negative density range. If your negative from the cine film recorder has a highlight density of 2.0 or more you probably are giving it too much exposure, if the highlight density is less than 1.0 above fog plus base density the print negative is probably under exposed. The six step patches across the center of the test pattern are in three groups of two with their brightness level 8 digital light values different on a scale of 0 to 255. The left most patch is digital level 0 and the right most patch is digital level 255 at the default settings. When the brightness, contrast, gamma, and dithering are used their brightness value gets scaled. On the exposed film you should read the same density difference between the two patches in each pair, the dark pair, the mid pair, and the light pair. You should also read the same density difference between the right dark patch and the left mid patch, and the left light patch and the right mid-patch. When all the spacings are equal your negative should look good, unfortunately you are not projecting the negative, so you need to print the negative and measure the print, then adjust the negative off the mark slightly, or not so slightly, to get the density differences in a mid-light print or the cine recorder exposed negative to come out equal. It may not be easy to get everything to come out correct, but when the test pattern comes out correctly your properly timed frame files should come through better than if you have not fussed with the film recorder transfer characteristics, at least that is the hope. The monitor color balance may need to be adjusted to get the test pattern to look gray if you are making a color print. Most monitors have a color temperature setting. You may also need to use color CC filters. If you are making separations ND filters can be used in a filter wheel timed to rotate for the three color exposures (using single gun mode 4) to balance the white and gray, or ND filters may be used on each pass if you are making three strip separations. You can also adjust the monitor's settings or the program's Primary image settings for each pass if you are making three strip separations using three rolls of film. When using the single gun option for making separations the separations should match for neutral color since the red, green, and blue exposures are all made exactly the same way, that is no filters should be required when the red, green, and blue separations are all recorded using just the blue or green gun on black and white stock, baring problems with the processing or line voltage fluctuations and other such problems like monitor aging and camera motor speed changes due to film roll size and take up tension. Since many monitors may have a gamma other than 1.0, unless they have been calibrated in some way, when you have the monitor in your cine film recorder adjusted to have its gamma near 1.0 (by having the two top patches match the gray field in the test pattern) your printed frames may look too bright and washed out (to too dark). That is because you adjusted the color timing of your frame files on a monitor that was not at the same gamma as the combination of the film recorder monitor and the film negative and positive generations. After you get the test pattern to come out properly on your film print when viewed in an actual movie theater, i.e. sharp, neutral gray, equal highlight and shadow detail, even contrast, you need to print some test frames or shots and compare the results to the look of the images on your monitor that you use for color timing. You then need to adjust the monitor you use for color timing to compensate for the differences. You should not adjust the film recorder once you get the test pattern to look correct, you should adjust the frame files themselves, in their original 48 bpp data form, and work at having the monitor you use for timing relate to and match the final film print. Once you can get the image on the monitor you use for color timing to match the image on the movie theater screen write down all the settings and never touch anything except to alter the color and tone balance of the frame file images themselves. You should expect lab consistency to produce some variation from day to day so tests of exactly the same scene run through the cine film recorder on one day may not match well ones run through the next day. On the head of each roll you send to the lab you should record several frames each time that you know how they look, so that you can figure out if the timing errors are do to some mistake you made, or the lab processing, i.e. you look at your standard head frame set on a light box, and see if your "control" frames look the same on all of the rolls you send. Film sent to different labs on the same day cut from the same roll may show quite a lot of variation. Generally you should only use one lab for each film stock type. There are some variations in film stocks from one emulsion batch to another. Film manufactures mark their film cans with the emulsion batch number so you can use rolls from the same batch to reduce variation when you change from film shot on one roll to another roll. Processing variation is usually greater than film variation. Lab films such as print stock do not have a fixed color balance, so rolls you purchase one year will probably be slightly different from rolls purchased another time. You need to keep notes about what CC filters or other timing changes you are making for a given emulsion number if you have unfinished rolls that you will use more of later. Film color balance changes as it ages, so you should do tests if the film has been sitting around for a while in a warm place. Film should be keep in a dry cool place, but freezing it may produce spots from ice crystals, try 40F and 50%RH or follow the manufactures recommendations. Film can develop shiny spots if kept in a damp place for prolonged periods, these make an uneven density to the image and such film is not much good for anything, you can see the shiny spots if you look at the un-processed film by reflected light, they are generally larger than several mm and can cover most of the film when very bad. Shiny spotted film may also make a ticking or clicking sound when wound from one roll to another on rewinds in the dark. You should also keep your processed film in a humidity controlled room to avoid getting shiny spots, which can happen both before and after processing. --- SPEAKER CONNECTIONS When using the automatic speaker output you need to make an isolated connection to the computer's speaker. You can use two capacitors and some resistors as is described at www.DANCAD3D.com (sm) to avoid a DC connection to the computer, or you could use an audio transformer to isolate the load of your motor control circuits. Do not make a direct connection to the speaker's terminals since you could damage your computer's mother board. For simple operation just one tone is generated to advance the cine camera's motor. For more complex operations involving filter wheels two or three tone frequencies may be generated. To have the different tones operate different relays you would use narrow bandpass filters or Phase Locked Loops to differentiate between the different beep tones. The delay times for the duration of the beep tones is approximate, but may be able to be used to control the exposure in non critical applications if you run the program under DOS. Under Windows (tm) things running in background may cause a greater fluctuation in the exposure if you depend on the duration of the tones to hold the camera shutter open. If you only use the tone to start the camera motor, and the camera motor runs on its own to control the exposure then any small fluctuations in the tone duration would probably not matter. Connecting directly to the Parallel Port may be simpler and quieter than connecting to the computer's speaker, see below. --- PARALLEL PORT CONNECTIONS The pin numbers referred to here are the pins on the 25 pin parallel port connector on the parallel port card, not the pins on the 32 pin end of the printer cable. In the v1.01 release five pins on the Parallel Port are used for control signals. To operate mechanical relays you need to use a TIP120 amplifier and an external power supply since the parallel port pins supply only a weak signal. Solid state relays have their own internal amplifier and can sometimes be directly connected to the parallel port output pins 1, 2, 3, and 4 to turn motors and signal buzzers on and off. Micro switches and more relays can be used to pause the motors when they get into position in order to keep the camera shutter shaft and filter wheels in sync with the computer (i.e. to limit the rotation so that the shafts do not rotate too far after each signal pulse from the computer's parallel port). The input pin 15 may need to be pulled up to a 5 volt supply through a 2.2K ohm 0.25 watt resistor. A micro switch can be used to short pin 15 to ground in order to signal the computer. You could also use a 7414 or other 74xx series IC to buffer the signal going to pin 15. To ensure good signals both the input and output pins used should be pulled up to +5 volts through 2.2K ohm 0.25 watt resistors. Pins 18 through 25 are used as common ground. The +5 volt supply should be isolated, three "D" cells in series may work for a while. Pin 1 pulses high when a new image is loaded. Pin 2 pulses after a triad of sequential separations have been displayed to check that the camera and RGB filter wheel are in sync. Pin 3 pulses for the effects filter wheel change. You may need to use a TTL OR gate, or parallel isolation diodes, to mix these signals for some combination of operations. In v1.01 when frame source mode #2 is used Pin 4 signals when the frame file source disk needs to be changed, and might be able to be used to operate an automatic disk changer, with some other modifications to the mouse or keyboard. Without other modifications Pin 4 can be used to turn on a buzzer and or indicator lamp to tell the Cine Film Recorder operator to change the source file disk. DANCINEL.EXE (tm) displays the name of the file it is looking for on the screen when the Pin 4 signal is output. There is a delay after the file is found so that the persistence of the phosphor has time to decay the message displayed before the next frame is shot, hopefully. Making connections to your parallel port can damage your computer's mother board, so you may wish to install a second parallel port and use that for the port to connect to, that way if you destroy that port board you can replace it without replacing your mother board (provided the damage did not extend beyond the port board and damage the mother board.) You can add opto-isolators or TTL buffer chips between your parallel port and the film recorder circuits if you want more protection to your computer. Be careful that all power supplies are isolated since you do not want AC line current being accidentally sent into your computer through the parallel port. It may be a good (or bad) idea to plug your computer into an AC isolation transformer rather than the wall to have the computer ground isolated. See the I = Install configuration command for information about the values that affect the Parallel Port pins. The delay values are approximate, it is better to control the exposure with a capping shutter operated from a crystal timer. Variations in exposure can cause flicker in the projected film at sound speed. Driving cine cameras one frame at a time can produce flicker because of backlash in the shutter shaft and animation motor, these backlash problems do not show up much if the camera runs continuously, only when it is made to start and stop. A capping shutter can be used after the camera shutter has opened in this way, close the capping shutter, advance the cine camera until its shutter is open, stop the cine camera, open the capping shutter, time the exposure with a crystal timer, close the capping shutter, advance the cine camera until its shutter is closed, stop the cine camera, set pin 15 for clear to change the image on the screen, and so on. There is an option to use pin 15 as a hold for the program to keep the program from getting ahead of the cine camera i.e. closed loop, if this option is not used be sure you give everything plenty of time to settle before the next image is loaded or displayed. A special command is included in DANCINEL.EXE (tm)'s main menu to test your Parallel Port connections, pressing 1, 2, 3, or 4 toggles the output state of Pins 1, 2, 3, or 4. The state of input Pin 15 is also displayed. The current configuration file needs to be set to parallel port advance mode in order to test the parallel port. --- IMAGE FRAME FILE CONSIDERATIONS For editing images that are scanned or taken from nature it is best to use a file format that stores the brightness values as 48 bpp even though the noise from the sensor will make the color resolution less than that. Since the video board D2A is generally limited to 24 bpp, there is no enormous penalty for using a 24 bpp file to load the frame images into the video board's buffer. Even though the video board may be in 32 bpp mode, generally only 24 bpp are being displayed because 8 bit D2A converters are used for the three primary colors resulting in only 24 bpp. Some video boards may have 12 bit D2A converters, but I have not found one that supports VESA VBE2.0 2048x1536x36 mode, if you know of one tell me about it. There is a small penalty if you adjust the image brightness, contrast, and gamma, so dithering is available as an option to reduce banding that might show up with the reduction in the number of brightness levels used. Dithering can introduce some extra grain in the image, so manipulation of the 24 bpp image data should be kept to the minimum that gives a natural looking well balanced print of a negative taken from the test pattern. You should only convert your 48 bpp images to 24 bpp BMP files for output in the cine film recorder as the last step in editing your image files, for all previous steps you should try to use 48 bpp image editing and storage. Other frame file type options may be introduced later. The file numbering format is that used by DANCAD3D.EXE (tm). The Short format ranges from SOMEFILE.-99 to SOMEFILE.999. Since Windows (tm) programs like the file extension BMP on BMP files they will not read files numbered using the Short format. The Long frame format ranges from -9999999.BMP to 99999999.BMP, but the OS will not let you store that many files in the same sub-directory, so in practice each 35mm 2000 foot reel's frames would need to be in a separate sub-directory, so you would number Long format frames 1.BMP through 32000.BMP. If you want the whole 88 minute or longer film to have its frames consecutively numbered you can use the Divided numbered name format, it breaks the frames into groups of about a thousand frames per sub-directory and makes a series of numbered sub-directories to hold the frame sets in. When you enter a Divided name in you use the Long format to the master directory that the Divided sub- directories are in, not the path to the actual files, e.g. if the Divided files start with C:\FRAMES\BMP0\1.BMP you would enter C:\FRAMES\1.BMP at the prompt for the BMP filename. There are utilities in the Files Utilities sub-menu in DANCAD3D.EXE (tm) to convert numbered filenames used by other programs into the Short, Long, and Divided numbered filename formats (LSD) used by my programs. Likewise those utilities can do some backwards name conversions as well, in case you need to edit frames in my numbered name format in a program that uses a different numbering scheme. DANCINEL.EXE (tm) is meant to be used to expose the frames selected in the Kinema Edit List in DANCAD3D.EXE (tm) for your film project. The Link command in the Kinema Edit List in DANCAD3D.EXE (tm) makes the Cine Frame List file, SHOOTLST.CFL, from the selected frames for each shot in your project. In this way the film that is exposed in the Cine Film Recorder does not need to be mechanically spliced on each shot to shot edit, the editing is done by automatically selecting only the frames from each shot you want transferred to the film in the right order. --- ISSUES AND PROBLEMS If the program is run under Windows (tm) some programs can force a pop-out to the desktop, that can ruin your film since the desktop would get photographed, be sure not to have any programs running or installed on your system that can force a pop-out from a DOS program running in a DOS window. The same goes for the "Windows (tm)" key on the keyboard, if this gets bumped while the film recorder is running your film could be ruined. You should use an older AT style keyboard that does not have the "Windows (tm)" key on it. The [Pause] or [Ctrl]+[NumLock] keys on the keyboard could also cause problems if pressed while film is being exposed. Programs or things running in background in Windows (tm) may alter the timing and cause flicker in the projected film. Running the program under DOS may reduce some of the Windows (tm) issues, but may slow down the loading of the frame files from the Harddisk. If you accidentally have the program select a video mode your monitor cannot display and you see scrambled or distorted images on your monitor turn the monitor off immediately. If the monitor is Plug-and-Play it may go into "safety protection" and then give a black screen, under Windows (tm) you can press [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Del] and then tell Windows (tm) to force a shut down of the program. To avoid a repeat the next time you run the program go into the I = Install configuration and edit the video resolution values to ones that your video card and monitor can safely support. Under DOS you will need to reboot your computer if you select an invalid video mode. Do not select the Parallel Port Pin 15 pause mode if you do not have Pin 15 connected properly since the program will wait forever for the correct signals which will never come. Since the version of DANCAD3D.EXE (tm) you are using may not support Linear video memory addressing, and the video board may not support banked video memory addressing in the video mode you want to generate the frames files at, you may need to use video mode keyword BMP with DANCAD3D.EXE (tm)'s main menu preview command to generate BMP image files for display in DANCINEL.EXE (tm). The BMP video mode does not use the video board's buffer to generate the image, it saves it to a disk file directly, so you will not see the image displayed. To view the generated BMP file use DANCINEL.EXE (tm) in manual advance mode. Just be sure that you enter the exact X and Y values for the image resolution that your video board supports, or you will get an image size error message, or the video mode will not set. Standard dimensions would be 1024x768, 1600x1200, 1920x1440, and 2048x1536, but you can check the video board's BIOS with some VESA info utility programs to see what modes your video board supports in VESA VBE2.0 (or VBE1.2 and VBE3.0). Power going to your cine film recorder, its monitor, and its computer, may fluctuate causing flicker and image size changes in the finished film. You should use a regulated inverter operating off of a bank of storage batteries being continuously charged to operate the film recorder in order to have a UPS that gives very constant power. Aging and burn in on the monitor's screen may introduce timing shifts or cause ghost images. You may need to adjust the monitor settings or swap in a new monitor after a period of time to keep the film image quality up to what you were getting when you started the frames for the first reel. Recording a full 88 minute film may take 6 mouths to a year, so with the monitor on 24/7 you should expect some decline in quality over time. Harddisks that automatically park or power down can freeze the system, which might affect the exposure of a frame. To avoid problems related to system timing issues it is best to have the film advance and exposure triggered by the computer but timed by an external crystal timer. Care needs to be taken to make sure that the camera does not get ahead of the computer, or that the computer does not get ahead of the camera. The parallel port signal mode has an option for a hold in pause until OK signal on Pin 15 of the parallel port, so you can wire up your film recorder to take advantage of that option. Be sure to disable any programs running in background, especially anything that can write to the screen. Be sure to disable any task scheduling program. Be sure to disable any power saving features. Be sure to disable any screen saver program that might blank the screen after a period of time. Be sure that there are no pending print jobs that could activate the pins on the parallel port. Do not turn on your film recorder control electronics until after you have booted DANCINEL.EXE (tm) and configured the program, since tones may be generated by various programs, or the state of the parallel port pins may be such that the film recorder could start advancing film before the monitor has any image loaded, and maybe ruin a whole magazine of film. The same problem can happen if the computer reboots, the parallel port pins can get set to various patterns, which might start the film recorder running wild. So always turn off the film recorder when the last frame is shot, and do not turn the film recorder on until DANCINEL.EXE (tm) has cleared the parallel port signal pins. You can put LED's with series resistors on the parallel port signal pins to check and see if they are clear (all outputs set low, and the input is set as you need). --- FURTHER INFORMATION Additional information may be found at www.DANCAD3D.com (sm) which you must visit before trying to use or test DANCINEL.EXE (tm). If you have specific questions or suggestions you wish to contribute see Section: 8 at the web site.

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