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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 e-mail 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. All submissions and correspondence become the sole property of Daniel H. Hudgins to do with as he sees fit, so stay on subject.

DOCUMENT: INFOV37N.TXT Copyright (C) 2006 by Daniel H. Hudgins, All Rights Reserved. Terms of use: This "Beta Test" document may only be used in accord and within the limitations imposed by the current End User License Agreement "EULA" posted at the author's Web site www.DANCAD3D.com (sm) in file S0000000.HTM, any other use or copying is prohibited. This document is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind express, expressed, or implied. Mistakes, errors, and omissions should be reported according to the instructions in SECTION: 8 of the current "On-Line" version of my Web site www.DANCAD3D.com (sm). This preliminary document may have some brief descriptions of changes made to my CAD or CAM programs DANCAD3D.EXE (tm), DANCAD87.EXE (tm), DANCAM.EXE (tm), and DANPLOT.EXE (tm) relating to the "Beta Test" release of v3.7. This file is meant to be included in the initial "Beta Test" v3.7 distribution to help long time users acquaint themselves with some of the many changes that have been made to the programs. If you are not a long time user you will most probably need to read all of the text located at my "Beta Test" Web site www.DANCAD3D.com (sm) before you read this document in order to make practical use of it. This document is not a complete list of changes made to the programs, and may not reflect the operation of the version of the program accompanying it in all respects. The programs may be still undergoing change, so the results obtained from any of the commands may be different than expected, and the operation of older commands may have changed as well. Since so many changes have been made to the programs you should not expect any of the commands to operate as you have used them in the past, and you should frequently back-up and save what you are working on so that you do not lose everything when the program crashes. All specifications, descriptions, and instructions are subject to change without notice. Be sure to see also the text from files INFOV27*.TXT, *.TXT, *.BAT, *.DOC, *.HTM, and any other newer INFOV37*.TXT information that is at www.DANCAD3D.com (sm). I would like to thank the thousands of users of my programs who have helped "Beta Test" the many revisions of my programs since about 1986, I hope you will enjoy checking out some of the newer program features that I have spent so many years working on. Best wishes for success in your projects. --- NOTES FROM RELEASE OF THE V3.7N. CAD PROGRAMS, MARCH 4, 2006 If you have not already read INFOV37J.TXT, INFOV37K.TXT, INFOV37L.TXT and INFOV37M.TXT please do that before installing and beginning "Beta-Testing" the new v3.7N of the CAD programs, since it goes over some of the changes from v2.7 to v3.7 that you should be aware of. Text from INFOV37J.TXT, INFOV37K.TXT and INFOV37L.TXT should be in SECTION: 3.3.7.30, 3.3.7.31, 3.3.7.32, and 3.3.7.33 at www.DANCAD3D.com (sm). You should also review the update and info documentation relating to v2.7 and updating from v2.6 if you have been using an older version or to familiarize yourself with the changes that have been going on. The major changes from v3.7M to v3.7N are: the addition of various menu and macro commands to convert between *.WAV type wave sound files and *.BMP image files. DANCAD3D.EXE (tm) and DANCAD87.EXE (tm) have been revised, the new version is called v3.7N. This new version has new commands to generate WAV files containing video signals made from images in BMP files. One use for these new commands is to display computer generated animation on a Nipkow disk scanner. Other uses are for experimenting with Low Definition television signals, transmitting images and drawings over narrow bandwidth channels using modulated signals, and generating sounds from pictures and drawings, or images from sounds or wave data. Commands are included for conversion to display of images from WAV files on the computer's screen, converting sets of animation or image frames, and modulating and demodulating WAV data for recording and transmission. See also INFOV37N.TXT in DANCAD16.ZIP (tm) for any current information. These new menu commands are located in the Files Utilities Nipkow sub-directory off of the Main Menu in v3.7N CAD programs. The Names of the new menu commands and a description of there function follow. The Nipkow NIP command converts one or more *.BMP 24 bpp frame files into a special image file format called *.NIP. The source files should have numbered names such as 1.BMP, 2.BMP, 3.BMP and so on, the result files should have numbered names such as 1.NIP, 2.NIP, 3.NIP and so on. If sync pulses will be needed the black level is lifted in conversion from the *.BMP to the *.NIP files by the amount selected by the sync black level. You need to note the amount of sync black used since some of the other commands use the sync black level as well and if you do not enter the same or similar values the results may not turn out as you expect. The Nipkow NIP command can crop part of the *.BMP image and "resize" the cropped portion, this may be useful in converting frames captured at NTSC, PAL, or SECAM resolution for reduction to Low Definition pixel densities. For instance, if you over-sample 3x a patch 150 by 150 pixels in your *.BMP file you would end up with a 50 by 50 pixel *.NIP file. The Nipkow NIP command has options to convert just one file, or convert a numbered set of frame files automatically. When going from 24 bpp *.BMP files to the monochrome *.NIP files the total of the color fractions should add up to 1.0, i.e. Red=0.30 Green=0.59 Blue=0.11. If you are going to make color separations for production of color *.WAV files you would adjust the color mixing. The Nipkow WAV command reads the *.NIP files you made from your *.BMP files and produces a *.WAV file in which the wave samples represent pixel brightness or sync level data. The Nipkow WAV command has options for mirror image, horizontal or vertical scanning, interlacing, and no sync or different kinds of sync pulses. You can also invert the wave form for sync at maximum or minimum signal amplitude. The sample rate is selectable and lets you adjust the maximum frequency your sound board will output when the *.WAV file is played. If you do not have a sound board you can burn the *.WAV file as a track on a CD disk and play that in a CD player for viewing on a Nipkow disk scanner or other transmission. The Nipkow Modulate command can be used to improve the reconstruction of images transmitted, received, and recorded. When the video data is saved to the *.WAV file by the Nipkow WAV command the video signal has a DC reference, but when the signal is played by a sound board or CD player the signal generally is high pass filtered so that signals below 20Hz are lost. For images with higher resolutions the loss of DC and very low frequencies degrades the image and causes problems locking onto the sync signals. To overcome some of the problems associated with low frequency loss in video signals the video signal can be modulated for transmission, then demodulated later to restore the DC and low frequency portion of the signal. AM modulation makes a sine wave with an equal number of positive and negative peaks for each sample in the source *.WAV file. AM demodulation rectifies and averages the sine waves to reconstruct the video wave form. Unless you edit the recorded *.WAV file to have the starting sample correspond there may be some blurring of the reconstructed video wave form. One way to improve the results is to average the sine waves for half or one fourth of a pixel and adjust the pixel aspect later with the Nipkow BMP command, this makes two or four samples in the result *.WAV file for each pixel so you need to adjust the image pixel dimensions accordingly. The Nipkow Sample command reads a *.WAV file that has appropriate video data and converts that video data into separate *.NIP image files that can then in turn be converted into *.BMP frame files by the Nipkow BMP command. Just how degraded the video signal can get and still be reconstructed depends on if you are going to use the automatic sync signals or manually sync the frame images. When image video signals are recorded on tape several errors are introduced, loss of DC and Low and High frequencies, timing errors from the tape speeding up and slowing down, short timing errors from the rollers the tape passes over, noise from tape hiss, and drop outs and volume fluctuations. To aid in reconstructing video signals recorded or transmitted through analog channels the Nipkow Sample command has DC restoration and Automatic Gain Control (AGC). The gain of the AGC is limited to about 4x to prevent noise from triggering the sync threshold, so the video wave form should be at least one third the maximum signal in the *.WAV file. Options for mirror image, horizontal or vertical scanning, interlace, inverted signal, no sync or sync type, and such are provided to correspond to the Nipkow WAV command. For manual syncing the images there is a option to have the Nipkow Sample command to check for sync tweak files that have frame numbers that correspond to the image frames produced, i.e. 1.NTF, 2.NTF, 3.NTF. The NTF stands for Nipkow Tweak File. You do not need to have a tweak file for each frame, just one for when the sample clock sync needs to be speed up or slowed down. Normally the sample clock is equal to 1.0 pixels, but if the sample clock is faster or slower, i.e. 0.9999 or 1.0001 you may be able to compensate for drift between the samples in the *.WAV file and the pixels in the scanned image. If a tape of a video signal does not have sync pulses then you would need to adjust the sample clock with *.NTF files many times as the frame *.NIP files are generated to compensate for the tape speeding up and slowing down. The *.NTF files just have a real number in text form on their first line, that number being 1.0 for 1:1 clocking or a little more or less for adjusted wave sample to image pixel clocking. The *.NTF files must be in the same directory as the *.NIP files generated for the program to find them. When the AGC and DC restoration are used, and in general, the source file set to be generated from the *.WAV file should contain three or more frames because a look ahead is used to find the signal peaks, and that look ahead uses more than one frame of data. The Nipkow BMP command converts the *.NIP frame image files made by the Nipkow Sample command or the Nipkow NIP command into *.BMP 24 bpp files that can in turn be converted into Pixel files for display with the Animate command or the Files Load Pixel command. You should also be able to view the *.BMP files in graphics programs, or convert the *.BMP files into *.GIF files and make them into an animated *.GIF file with appropriate third party software. When the *.NIP files are converted to *.BMP files you need to enter the proper sync black level if the sync black level was lifted in the video signal, i.e. by using the sync black level in the Nipkow NIP command. Because of loss of low frequencies you may want to use a slightly lower value of the sync black level in the Nipkow BMP command to avoid the converted image looking too dark in places. Because the conversion of *.BMP to Pixel files requires that the *.BMP file be the same pixel dimensions as the screen size, the Nipkow BMP command has the option of overlaying and re-sizing the *.NIP image onto a *.BMP file that matches the screen size and aspect ratio. For instance, if you are reconstructing a 50 by 50 pixel image from a *.WAV file, and you want to display the image in a 640 by 480 video mode, you could over-sample the 50 by 50 image 5x to be 250 by 250 pixels centered on a 640 by 480 pixel *.BMP file. There is an option to change the color of the image pixels, for Neon red or P1 phosphor green and such, or just a gray monochrome, and to adjust the "overscan" border color to be any color or just black or white. You do not need to have the *.BMP file made larger than the video image if the *.BMP file will not need to be converted into a Pixel file, or the sizes match. When converting the *.BMP 24 bpp file to a Pixel file for display in a 8 bpp or 4 bpp video mode you may need to convert the 24 bpp *.BMP file into an 8 bpp *.BMP file first, see the commands that convert *.BMP and Pixel files in the Files Utilities sub-menu. When converting from the monochrome *.NIP files to the color 24 bpp *.BMP the color values for Red, Green, or Blue range from 0 to 1.0 for the image and background colors, with white being Red=1.0 Green=1.0 Blue=1.0. To obtain the best, i.e. fastest, frame rate in the ANIMATE command you would probably want to convert the 24 bpp *.BMP files to 8 bpp *.BMP files, then convert those 8 bpp *.BMP frame files into pixel files made for a 8 bpp pixel file using the M256 palette, such as the V320M256 video mode pixel type file. In the M256 palette the background color would be converted into some shade of gray, or be black or white depending on what color it was in the 24 bpp BMP file. Even faster frame rates might be obtained using the M16 palette video modes, such as E640M16, but speed differences may vary from one computer or video board type to another. The C16 and C256 palette video modes are not recommended for the display of images converted from monochrome *.NIP files since the tone range would be limited. If color pixel files are desired for display of the 24 bpp *.BMP images from the *.NIP files, then the 15, 16, 24, or 32 bpp pixel file types should be selected using the VESA video modes, even though they will probably enable a slower maximum frame rate in the ANIMATE command. See the descriptions of the corresponding Nipkow macro commands for some more and detailed information about the values used by the Nipkow menu commands. Please note that many of the values used with the Nipkow commands are dependent on the values used when the various files to be used were generated, and so you will need to enter corresponding values in order for the files to be loaded or saved properly. Also the various values used in each Nipkow command interact, and so only some combinations of values entered will be valid. The width of the sync pulses when used generally need to be wider than one *.WAV file sample when the signal has been, or is to be, transmitted through an Analog channel. To record LD video on an audio cassette tape at 44100 samples per second the width of the line sync pulse should be between 5 and 10 samples. If the sync pulse is too narrow the high frequency bandpass limits the pulse height, and if the pulse is too wide the low frequency bandpass causes the tail of the sync pulse to "float" up and cross the sync threshold early. Another problem that arises with too narrow sync pulses is that if you are going to reconstruct the images from the video wave form by digitizing the Analog video signal with your sound board, the samples generated and digitized are not locked in sync, so the sample point will drift from on the center of a sample, to between two samples, so if a single sample were used for the sync pulse, the amplitude of the re-digitized sync pulse would fluctuate from near its full height to about half its full height causing problems with the DC restoration and sync lock. When the sync pulses are 5 to 10 samples wide, the fluctuations due to sampling timing errors on re-digitizing are reduced since several of the samples will be sampled at points on or between two full amplitude sync pulses. The front porch and back porch of the sync pulses is made the same width as the line sync pulse value. The frame sync pulse is made three times as wide as the line sync value. When detecting the frame sync you should enter a value about twice the line sync width. When detecting the line sync you should enter the same value as used to generate the line sync. The centering value in the NIPKOW WAV2NIP or Nipkow Sample commands can shift the image left or right one or more pixels to make up for early or late sync triggering do to distortion of the sync pulse shape caused by the Analog signal channel. A single sample width at 44100 samples per second is generally too narrow to get a good sync lock on when the video has been recorded onto audio tape. When recording video onto audio tape the signal level should be reduced to about -20db since the frequency response of most audio tape recorders is more flat at -20db than at 0db VU volume level. --- NEW MACRO COMMANDS Five new Macro commands have been added to v3.7N, NIPKOW BMP2NIP, NIPKOW NIP2WAV, NIPKOW WAV2WAV, NIPKOW WAV2NIP, and NIPKOW NIP2BMP. These correspond to the menu commands Nipkow NIP, Nipkow WAV, Nipkow Modulate, Nipkow Sample, and Nipkow BMP. See the descriptions of the Nipkow menu commands above for an overview of what these commands are for. Macro command: NIPKOW BMP2NIP As was described above for the menu Nipkow NIP command this NIPKOW BMP2NIP macro command converts images from 24 bpp *.BMP to *.NIP files for use with the commands that use *.NIP files. When converting from color *.BMP files to monochrome *.NIP files the amounts of Red, Green, and Blue mixed should add up to 1.0 total, i.e. Red=0.30 Green=0.59 Blue=0.11. The sync black level should be set to 0 for non-sync images and 0.5 for images that will be used to make sync video waves. The sync level can be lower, but signals that are transmitted analog may not be able to be recovered if the sync is too weak because of signal degradation. Note the sync level used for each *.NIP file set since the sync black level also needs to be set to restore the black level when the images are reconstructed. There are two modes, mode 1 just converts one file, and mode 2 converts a set of numbered files, i.e. 1.BMP to 1.NIP, 2.BMP to 2.NIP and so on. If the set of files to convert does not start with file 1.BMP then the file number in the filename should correspond to the starting number of the range to convert, i.e. if the range is 20 to 50 then you would enter 20.BMP and 20.NIP as the filenames for conversion. For mode 1 the command uses these values: NIPKOW BMP2NIP BMP_name = Name of source BMP files, i.e. 1.BMP NIP_name = Name of result NIP file, i.e. 1.NIP modecode = 1 for single file conversion X_over = X over-sample ratio for image patch rescale Y_over = Y over-sample ratio for image patch rescale X_width = X width of rescaled patch, i.e. *.NIP X width Y_width = Y width of rescaled patch, i.e. *.NIP Y width X_start = X of upper left pixel in image patch from *.BMP image Y_start = Y of upper left pixel in image patch from *.BMP image R_compo = Red component for Monochrome conversion, i.e. 0.30 G_compo = Green component for Monochrome conversion, i.e. 0.59 B_compo = Blue component for Monochrome conversion, i.e. 0.11 syncblack = Sync black level, 0 for no sync or 0.5 for sync Example: NIPKOW BMP2NIP C:\DC37N\BMP\1.BMP C:\DC37N\NIP\1.NIP 1 245 165 3 3 50 50 0.3 0.59 0.11 0 For mode 2 the command uses these values: NIPKOW BMP2NIP BMP_name = Name of source BMP files, i.e. 1.BMP, 2.BMP NIP_name = Name of result NIP file, i.e. 1.NIP, 2.NIP modecode = 2 for set of files conversion X_over = X over-sample ratio for image patch rescale Y_over = Y over-sample ratio for image patch rescale X_width = X width of rescaled patch, i.e. *.NIP X width Y_width = Y width of rescaled patch, i.e. *.NIP Y width X_start = X of upper left pixel in image patch from *.BMP image Y_start = Y of upper left pixel in image patch from *.BMP image R_compo = Red component for Monochrome conversion, i.e. 0.30 G_compo = Green component for Monochrome conversion, i.e. 0.59 B_compo = Blue component for Monochrome conversion, i.e. 0.11 syncblack = Sync black level, 0 for no sync or 0.5 for sync start_frame = Starting frame number, i.e. 1 end_frame = Last or Maximum frame in set, i.e. 99999999 Example: NIPKOW BMP2NIP C:\DC37N\BMP\1.BMP C:\DC37N\NIP\1.NIP 2 245 165 3 3 50 50 0.3 0.59 0.11 0.5 1 99999999 Macro command: NIPKOW NIP2WAV As was mentioned above for the Nipkow WAV menu command this NIPKOW NIP2WAV macro command converts a set of *.NIP image files into a *.WAV file that can be played to output video wave forms of Low Definition television, or the *.WAV can be modulated with the NIPKOW WAV2WAV command for the transmission of higher resolution images. The adjustment of the black level for the sync is done in the conversion from *.BMP to *.NIP, so different *.NIP files are used for sync and non-sync wave generation. Note that the interlace ratio should divide evenly into the number of scan lines so that each field has the same number of lines. When generating *.WAV files for Nipkow disk scanners or for use as sounds you might not make sync pulses. The front porch and back porch of the sync pulses are made the same sample width as the value entered for the line sync pulses, generally 10 samples. The line sync pulse should be used when the frame sync pulse is used. The frame sync pulses are made three times as wide as the line sync pulse. The sync point is the later edge of the sync pulse for both the line and frame sync pulses, so the frame sync pulse starts sooner. When the multiple sync pulse type is selected for the frame sync, there is an extra black level gap usually before the frame sync pulse. In the NIPKOW WAV2NIP command the frame sync sample width should be set to about twice the line sync sample width even though the frame sync pulse is three times the line sync pulse sample width to allow for distortion of the frame sync pulse and to have the program see better the difference between the line and frame sync pulses. Extra retrace lines should only be needed for CRT type displays to allow for the deflection yoke to sweep the electron beam back for the fly back sweep. When interlaced scanning is used, extra black lines are inserted at the start of each field so that the first field has the frame sync pulse line at its start, and the other fields just have a blank line with a line sync pulse line at their start so that the reconstruction can find the first field. So in interlaced scanning the non-first fields have a blank line plus the retrace lines before the image lines, and the first field has a frame sync line plus the retrace lines before its image lines. The interlace ratio should divide the image lines into equal sized fields. For mode 1 the command uses these values: NIP_name = Name of source NIP files, i.e. 1.NIP, 2.NIP WAV_name = Name of source WAV file, i.e. SOMENAME.WAV modecode = 1 for conversion of Monochrome *.NIP files to mono *.WAV file X_flip = X mirror for width scan direction, 0=Default, 1=Mirror Y_flip = Y mirror for height scan direction, 0=Default, 1=Mirror scan_mode = 0 for Horizontal scanning, 1 for Vertical scanning interlace = 1 for non-interlace, 2 or more for interlace, see notes above line_sync = 0 for no sync, 1 or more for line sync samples, try 10 frame_sync = 0 for no sync, 1 for do frame sync line retrace = 0 for no retrace lines, 1 or more for number of retrace lines f_sync_type = Type of sync pulse for frame 0=Single, 1=Multiple sync_black = Sync black level, 0 for no sync, 0.5 for sync invert_wave = Invert video wave form, 0=sync down, 1=inverted sync up sample_rate = Sample rate for result *.WAV file, e.g. 44100, 48000 Example: NIPKOW NIP2WAV C:\DC37N\NIP\1.NIP C:\DC37N\WAV\SOMEFILE.WAV 1 0 0 0 1 10 1 0 0 0.5 0 44100 Macro command: NIPKOW WAV2WAV As was mentioned above for the Nipkow Modulate menu command this NIPKOW WAV2WAV macro command converts *.WAV files so that they can be modulated and demodulated for improvement of low frequency restoration and compensation of some other issues related to narrow bandwidth analog signal transmission. Manual clipping of the demodulated wave data to have the first sample be the starting sample of the modulated wave may help synchronize the demodulation averaging and improve the results. The gain and inversions may need to be adjusted to have the video wave form be at full amplitude since analog distortion of the modulated signal can cause amplitude changes. In order to demodulate a *.WAV file, the wave form held in that file must have been previously modulated appropriately. For mode 1 process 1 the command uses these values: WAV_IN = Filename of source *.WAV file WAV_OUT = Filename of result *.WAV file modecode = Modulation type, 1=AM M_DM = AM process, 1=Modulate (see 2=Demodulate below) SPHC = 1+ output samples per half cycle for modulate CPS = Cycles output per input sample for modulate gain = 1 or about 0.25 to 4 for adjusting wave height invert_S = Invert source wave form, 0=No 1=Yes invert_R = Invert result wave form, 0=No 1=Yes sample_rate = Data rate for result *.WAV file, i.e. 44100, 48000 Example: NIPKOW WAV2WAV C:\DC37N\WAV\SOURCE.WAV C:\DC37N\WAV\RESULT.WAV 1 1 16 4 0.707 1 0 44100 For mode 1 process 2 the command uses these values: WAV_IN = Filename of source *.WAV file WAV_OUT = Filename of result *.WAV file modecode = Modulation type, 1=AM M_DM = AM process, 2=Demodulate (see 1=Modulate above) DC_offset = DC offset adjustment, 0 or 32767 to -32768 averaging = Sample pairs average ratio for AM demodulate, 1+ gain = 1=No gain, or about 0.25 to 4 for adjusting wave height invert_S = Invert source wave form, 0=No 1=Yes invert_R = Invert result wave form, 0=No 1=Yes sample_rate = Data rate for result *.WAV file, i.e. 44100, 48000 Example: NIPKOW WAV2WAV C:\DC37N\WAV\SOURCE.WAV C:\DC37N\WAV\RESULT.WAV 1 2 0 4 1.414 0 1 44100 Macro command: NIPKOW WAV2NIP As was described above for the Nipkow Sample menu command this NIPKOW WAV2NIP macro command reads a *.WAV file of video wave forms and attempts to convert the wave samples into pixels in *.NIP image files. How well this conversion works depends in part on having the settings set with proper values, making a good digital recording of the video wave form, and the amount of signal degradation of the video wave form during analog transmission and storage. The use of the NIPKOW WAV2WAV command to modulate and demodulate the video wave form may improve the reconstruction by reducing the video signal degradation resulting from analog transmission, at the expense of a slower frame rate in transmission or recording. The sync, when used, is detected at half the sync black level, so a small adjustment of the sync black level entered here may help sync the image, but in general the same value should be used as when the *.NIP files were made, i.e. 0.5 of the signal height. In the NIPKOW WAV2NIP command the frame sync sample width should be set to about twice the line sync sample width even though the frame sync pulse is three times the line sync pulse sample width to allow for distortion of the frame sync pulse and to have the program see better the difference between the line and frame sync pulses. The gain of the AGC is limited to about 4x to prevent noise from triggering the sync threshold, so the video wave-form should be at least one third the maximum signal in the *.WAV file. When the AGC and DC restoration are used, and in general, the source file set to be generated from the *.WAV file should contain three or more frames because a look ahead is used to find the signal peaks, and that look ahead uses more than one frame of data. For mode 1 the command uses these values: WAV_name = Filename of source *.WAV file, i.e. SOMENAME.WAV NIP_name = Filename of result *.NIP files, i.e. 1.NIP modecode = 1 for conversion of mono *.WAV file to Monochrome *.NIP files X_flip = X mirror for width scan direction, 0=Default, 1=Mirror Y_flip = Y mirror for height scan direction, 0=Default, 1=Mirror scan_mode = 0 for Horizontal scanning, 1 for Vertical scanning interlace = 1 for non-interlace, 2 or more for interlace, see notes above line_sync = 0 for no sync, 1 or more for line sync samples, try 10 frame_sync = 0 for no sync, 2x line_sync samples for frame sync retrace = 0 for no retrace lines, 1 or more for number of retrace lines centering = 0 for no centering, or +/- 1 to line sync samples to adjust l_s_smooth = Line sync smooth, 0=None, 1=Total, try 0.5 to 0.7 sync_black = Sync black level, 0=no sync, try 0.5 for sync DC_restore = DC restoration, 0=None 1=Yes, for use with sync DC_smooth = DC restoration smoothing, 0=None 1=Total, try 0.7 gain = Signal Gain, 0=Automatic (AGC) 1=None, 1+ to 4=gain value invert = Invert video wave form, 0=None 1=Invert clock = Sample clock per pixel, 1=Default or about 0.999 to 1.001 tweak = Check for clock tweak files, 0=No 1=Yes start = Starting sample, 1=First or 2+ for skip head samples X_width = X pixel size for *.NIP file images Y_width = Y pixel size for *.NIP file images Example: NIPKOW WAV2NIP C:\DC37N\WAV\SOMEFILE.WAV C:\DC37N\NIP\1.NIP 1 0 0 0 1 10 20 0 0 0.7 0.5 1 0.7 0 0 1 0 1 50 50 Macro command: NIPKOW NIP2BMP As was described above for the Nipkow BMP menu command this NIPKOW NIP2BMP macro command converts images from *.NIP files to 24 bpp *.BMP files. There are two modes, mode 1 converts just one file, mode 2 converts a set of numbered frame files, i.e. 1.NIP to 1.BMP, 2.NIP to 2.BMP and so on. When mode 2 is selected two extra values are needed, the starting frame number and ending frame number, when these are set to 1 and 99999999 all frames from 1 up will be converted even if the top number is less than 99999999. If the set of files to convert does not start with file 1.BMP then the file number in the filename should correspond to the starting number of the range to convert, i.e. if the range is 20 to 50 then you would enter 20.NIP and 20.BMP as the filenames for conversion. For mode 1 the command uses these values: NIPKOW NIP2BMP NIP_name = Name of source NIP file, i.e. 1.NIP BMP_name = Name of result BMP files, i.e. 1.BMP modecode = 1 for single file conversion x_over = X pixels in BMP image for each pixel in NIP image y_over = Y pixels in BMP image for each pixel in NIP image x_width = X width in pixels for BMP image, n >= NIP_X * X_over y_width = Y width in pixels for BMP image, n >= NIP_Y * Y_over x_start = X for upper left pixel of NIP image in BMP image y_start = Y for upper left pixel of NIP image in BMP image r_compo = Red component for NIP image in the BMP image, 0 to 1.0 g_compo = Green component for NIP image in the BMP image, 0 to 1.0 b_compo = Blue component for NIP image in the BMP image, 0 to 1.0 syncblack = Sync black level, 0 for no sync or 0.5 for sync r_bk = Red for overscan background color, 0 to 1.0 g_bk = Green for overscan background color, 0 to 1.0 b_bk = Blue for overscan background color, 0 to 1.0 Example: NIPKOW NIP2BMP C:\DC37N\NIP\SET1\1.NIP C:\DC37N\BMP\SET1\1.BMP 1 3 3 640 480 245 165 1 1 1 0.5 0 0 0 For mode 2 the command uses these values: NIPKOW NIP2BMP NIP_name = Name of source NIP files, i.e. 1.NIP, 2.NIP BMP_name = Name of result BMP files, i.e. 1.BMP, 2.BMP modecode = 2 for set of files conversion x_over = X pixels in BMP image for each pixel in NIP image y_over = Y pixels in BMP image for each pixel in NIP image x_width = X width in pixels for BMP image, n >= NIP_X * X_over y_width = Y width in pixels for BMP image, n >= NIP_Y * Y_over x_start = X for upper left pixel of NIP image in BMP image y_start = Y for upper left pixel of NIP image in BMP image r_compo = Red component for NIP image in the BMP image, 0 to 1.0 g_compo = Green component for NIP image in the BMP image, 0 to 1.0 b_compo = Blue component for NIP image in the BMP image, 0 to 1.0 syncblack = Sync black level, 0 for no sync or 0.5 for sync r_bk = Red for overscan background color, 0 to 1.0 g_bk = Green for overscan background color, 0 to 1.0 b_bk = Blue for overscan background color, 0 to 1.0 start_frame = 1 or start value end_frame = 99999999 or end value Example: NIPKOW NIP2BMP C:\DC37N\NIP\SET1\1.NIP C:\DC37N\BMP\SET1\1.BMP 2 3 3 640 480 245 165 1 1 1 0.5 0 0 0 1 99999999 --- AUDIO USES OF NIPKOW COMMANDS Sounds can be generated by making *.WAV files from scanned *.BMP files. The image line width in pixels should correspond to one cycle the of fundamental frequency of the sound to be generated in wave file samples and the number of lines in the *.BMP image should correspond to the number of cycles of sound to generate. The frequency of the sound generated can be raised or lowered in pitch by changing the samples per second value of the generated *.WAV file, i.e. changing from 44100 to 22050 would half the frequency that is drop the sound one octave. The sync pulses and interlace ratio would not normally be used when generating sounds or visualizing sounds since the samples should be an uninterrupted conversion of the *.WAV samples to or from *.BMP image pixels. To make a drawing for a sound you could use a graphics program that lets you create 24 bpp *.BMP files, or you could draw or paint on a card and then scan the drawing or painting with your flat bead scanner to generate a *.BMP file of the drawing or painting. The brightness at the start of one line in the *.BMP file should match the brightness at the beginning of the next line in the *.BMP file to reduce high frequency buzz at the line frequency in the generated sound. Using the sharpen and blur commands in your third party *.BMP file image editing software, or other image editing commands, on the drawing image of the wave may alter the frequency or amplitude of the overtones generated. Resizing the *.BMP image may alter the fundamental frequency and or duration of the sound generated. To visualize a sound, to get an idea of how to draw such a sound or for other analysis, you can convert a *.WAV file into a *.BMP file using the Nipkow commands. If you make a series of wave files that are filtered for narrow frequency bands you could then make several *.BMP image files of those *.WAV files, one for each frequency band, then use the other *.BMP editing commands in the CAD programs to mix those *.BMP image files in different colors, e.g. Red for low frequencies, Green for middle frequencies, and Blue for high frequencies, and such. When you try to convert a sound into an image you should count the number of samples between the wave peaks in the *.WAV file to ascertain the fundamental frequency and then use that number of samples between the wave peaks as the number of pixels in the scan lines of the *.BMP image. The number of lines used in the *.BMP image would be the total number of samples in the *.WAV sound file divided by the number of samples used for the pixels in each of the lines in the *.BMP image file. In other words, X_image = WAV_samples_between_fundamental_peaks, and Y_image = (total_wave_samples/X_image) for horizontal scanning, reverse the X and Y for vertical scanning, and round the values off or up to end up with whole lines. --- NIP FILE STRUCTURE The NIP filetype has been introduced for further development, but for now it is used with the NIPKOW commands. BMP files are generally limited to 24 bpp which is only 8 bpp for each color, Red, Green, and Blue. The 24 bpp BMP files are generally adequate for displaying finished images, especially since video boards are also generally limited to 8 bpp per primary color channel. When editing images having 16 bpp or 32 bpp per color channel may allow greater expansion of the tonal range without as many artifacts degrading the finished image. For use with the NIPKOW commands the 16 bpp image tone range allows the black level to be lifted to 50% without losing half the gray tones from the 8 bpp image data. Since *.WAV files generated by the Nipkow commands use 16 bits per sample, there might be reasons to generate or read *.NIP files which use 16 bits per pixel, rather than converting from or to *.BMP files that only use 8 bits per pixel. It the event that you need to produce *.NIP files for conversion with the NIPKOW commands or convert them to some other filetype, and such, I am including some preliminary information about this filetype. To simplify the code that accesses the *.NIP file data for the file header is located at the end of the file, you then read the file backwards from its end to gather the needed information about the image size and properties. Since frame sets would all use the same values you would generally only need to read the header for the first frame. At this point only 16 bpp monochrome has been developed, but other properties may be introduced. The file image data starts at the first word of a word type file, and is stored in raster format so the pixel address in the file in words is n = (X+(Y*X_width)) where X and Y start at 0 and go to one less than the raster size. The gray tones are 0=Black and 65535=White. When Sync is used the black level is lifted and 0 becomes the sync tip level, so when sync black is at 0.5 image black will be around 32768. The header data at present is made up of 512 words, to read or write the header an array is loaded reading backwards from the end of the file or written after the end of the file image data. The values that should be in that array are: 512 = ASCII code for N (this is the last two bytes in the file) 511 = ASCII code for I 510 = ASCII code for P 509 = 512, the size of the "header" in binary words All unused "header" words should be set to 0. 1 = 20061, NIP header type (this starts 1024 bytes from the file end) 2 = 1, one color (later 3 might be for 3 color) 3 = 16, 16 bits per color (later 32 might be for 32 bits per color) 4 = 1, linear data 0=Black or Sync tip 65535=White 5 = 1, color coding monochrome, (later one color might be primary) 6 = 1, upper left origin (later Y might be flipped) 10 = 1, frames total (always 1, later there may be frame series) 11 = 0, (later to be used for high bits for extra long frame sets) 20 = X, image width in pixels, 1 to 65535 21 = Y, image height in pixels, 1 to 65535 This is preliminary information and subject to change without notice. For normal use of the CAD programs you do not need to fiddle with the NIP files, just use the NIPKOW commands since they read and write the required values to and from the files for you. --- LEGAL ISSUES RELATING TO NIPKOW COMMANDS Just because the programs are capable of generating various files and wave forms, it does not mean that you are permitted to do whatever you please with such files. Transmission of video wave forms or other signals and data may be regulated in the jurisdictions applicable to your "Beta Testing" particularly signals transmitted by Radio Frequencies or over telephone lines, therefore at no time should you do anything improper. Improper use of the programs shall not be granted by the EULA, and might result in your prosecution. --- NOTES FROM RELEASE OF REVISED V3.7N. CAD AND CAM PROGRAMS, APRIL 17, 2006 Some internal changes have been made to both the v3.7 CAD and CAM programs. These changes were made to make avoiding some pitfalls in the operating of the programs somewhat easier to cope with. Some changes were made to the INSTALL.BAT file to align with the other changes. The first change is to have the programs try to automatically change the current sub-directory so that the programs can find their files in their sub- directory without you having to manually change the current sub-directory with the DOS CD command at the command prompt. The v3.7 programs now check that the disk the programs is on is a read and write media and that the program is in the current directory. When running under DOS (or reboot to MS-DOS (tm) under Windows (tm)) you may need to create a PATH command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to the directory that holds the RTM.EXE and DPMI16BI.OVL files. If the RTM.EXE and DPMI16BI.OVL files are not in a path where my protected mode v3.7 programs can find them, your computer may lock up and you may get a dead black screen, this is due to the program not getting loaded properly. Under Windows (tm) there may be equivalent files resident so the problems that can happen under DOS form the RTM.EXE and DPMI16BI.OVL files may not be as apparent. The RTM.EXE and DPMI16BI.OVL files are needed for the v3.7 protected mode programs to run under DOS, they should be in the same directory as the programs, and you may need to make a PATH command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to the program directory in order to get the programs to load. The second change relates to a serious and perplexing problem that may arise when files are copied to a CD-R or DVD+/-R disk. When files are copied to a CD-R or DVD+/-R disk the file attribute for "read/write" may get changed to "read only". Then when you copy the file back to your harddisk or to the harddisk on another computer the file may retain the "read only" file attribute even though the file is now on a "read/write" media. Files marked with the "read only" attribute may or may not open and load, and when you try to save the edited data back to the file you may get a write error, in some cases the read or write error message may not give a clue as to what is actually wrong. Worse yet, if you copy one of my program's files from one computer to another by using a CD-R or DVD+/-R those files "internal" to programs may not be able to be altered when my program runs causing unrecoverable program faults resulting in loss of the data in the workspace and other data loss. One can think that some computer users might never figure out that they need to reset the file attributes of files they have transferred from one computer to another by using a CD-R or DVD+/-R disk. This problem of the files being altered to have the "read only" attribute forced active may extend to other media or file transfer methods. One approach to overcome some of the many serious issues resulting from the files getting marked with the "read only" attribute is to now have the v3.7 CAD and CAM programs restore the file's "read only" file attribute to "read/write" for files they need to save, and also in some cases for files they just open. Therefore, you should not really on the "read only" file attribute to protect files from being written to, you should instead take other measures, such as burning important files you do not want overwritten onto a CD-R or DVD+/-R disk. For automatic program operations users already should know that use of those commands caries implicit permission to overwrite files. The "read only" attribute has not had a history of certainty, apparently under MS-DOS 1.0 (tm), as some sources describe, it may not have been clearly defined as to what protection the "read only" attribute afforded at all times. You would think that files that were originally "read/write" would be restored to that state after being copied back to a "read/write" media, but that may not occur so the OS and various applications may be changing this file attribute "willy-nilly", causing problems that could be avoided if this attribute was just ignored, in other words it may cause more problems that it solves. There are two things you might try to avoid this problem with the "read only" attribute. The first is to use a ZIP program to zip all files into a single large *.ZIP archive file BEFORE you then copy that *.ZIP file to your CD-R or DVD+/-R disk. The *.ZIP file may get converted to "read only" without your permission, but the files INSIDE the *.ZIP file might be protected from having their "read only" file attribute changed by the copying. You would then un-zip the files from the *.ZIP file on the CD-R or DVD+/-R disk to the new harddisk. The second thing you might try is to use the DOS ATTRIB command to reset the "read only" attribute after you copy the files to your harddisk from a CD-R or DVD+/-R disk. To clear the "read only" file attribute from copied files you might try: EXAMPLE: C:\DC37\ATTRIB -R *.* To clear all of the file attributes from copied files you might try: EXAMPLE: C:\DC37\ATTRIB -S -H -R -A *.* But be careful that you do not change files outside my program's sub-directory since the System and Hidden attributes, S and H, have meaning to the OS and you could cause problems by changing them. The Archive attribute may be used by back-up programs to mark files that need to be or have been backed up, so if you change the Archive attribute some files may be missed on your next backup of your harddisk. If you need to works with files from a CD or DVD you should first copy the files to a sub-directory on your harddisk, then use the DOS ATTRIB command to clear the "read only" attribute from the copy of the files so you can open those files and work on them. EXAMPLE: C:\>MD C:\CDFILES C:\>COPY D:\*.* C:\CDFILES\*.* C:\>ATTRIB -R C:\CDFILES\*.* A major headache occurs when you copy a "folder" (sub-directory) that holds further nested "folders" (sub-directories) to a CD-R or DVD+/-R disk, then copy that "folder" back to another harddisk. You would then have to go through all of the sub-directories in that "folder" with the ATTRIB command, or some other program, to make sure all of the files are restored to "read write" again. You should install my programs on additional computers you will be using for your "Beta Testing" by copying the distribution DANCAD16.ZIP (tm) file to a CD- R or DVD+/-R disk and unzipping the files into a sub-directory on the new computer, rather than copying the whole "folder" the programs were installed into on your original computer to a CD-R or DVD+/-R disk and then copying that folder to the new computers harddisk. If you do copy the program folder you should run the INSTALL.BAT file: EXAMPLE: C:\DC37>INSTALL INSTALL in order to remove the "read only" file attributes that any of the files may have picked up, then you would also need to re-do the configuration and calibration of the programs for the new computer to adjust to its speed and other factors. INSTALL.BAT will not clear any new folders or sub-directories you may have created, so you will have to clear those yourself with the ATTRIB command or some other program. Since the v3.7 programs now often ignore the "read only" attribute or change it to "read/write", they may run in some environments that are polluted with files that have been converted to "read only" by copying, but to be sure to avoid this serious issue you should try to have all files that my programs will need to work with cleared of their "read only" attributes. The updated INSTALL.BAT uses the ATTRIB command to clear the file attributes from the program sub-directories, therefore you should not run it in or from any other sub-directory. This problem is not limited to my programs, if you use a CD-R or DVD+/-R to copy some *.BMP files from one computer to another, you may be able to open the *.BMP files but may have your image editing software crash or report errors when you try to Save the new file over the old file. So even if my v3.7 programs can in some cases deal with this issue by setting the file's attributes to "read/write" other programs you are using may not, so you should keep this "read only" file attribute issue in mind if you get file errors or program crashes on your system after copying files. If you need to rely on the "read only" attribute for file protection do not install my programs on your computers. If you get problems opening a file, saving files, or the programs acting odd, try clearing the "read only" attribute, or all attributes, from the files involved. If the program reports odd errors or reports that a file cannot be found you know is there you should try clearing the "read only" attribute. EXAMPLE: C:\>ATTRIB -R C:\MYFILES\SOMEFILE.ASC Two new control files have been added to the protected mode program distribution, DANXXXXX.BIN and READONLY.NO. The file DANXXXXX.BIN gets extracted along with the other files from DANCAD16.ZIP (tm) when you first copy the program files to your harddisk. If you try to run the programs without first setting up the program environment with INSTALL.BAT the programs will find DANXXXXX.BIN and report that you need to run INSTALL.BAT properly. INSTALL.BAT erases DANXXXXX.BIN when it has been run properly. READONLY.NO can be renamed READONLY.YES to try to disable the part of the new code that alters the file attributes. However, disabling the alteration of the file attributes can cause problems if any of the program or files have there "read only" attribute set. If you are running some of the programs under Windows (tm) you should create PIF files to force the OS to display the programs in "full screen" mode rather than display in a window. Also you can have the PIF files set to run the CAM programs in reboot to DOS mode rather than the DOS window, which may improve their performance in some cases. To edit the PIF files open the Windows (tm) file menu and right click on the name of my program, DANCAD3D.EXE (tm), DANCAD87.EXE (tm), DANCAM.EXE (tm), or DANPLOT.EXE (tm), and adjust the values for the PIF file for that program, you need to edit the PIF file for each program, a file will be created called DANCAD3D.PIF, DANCAD87.PIF, DANCAM.PIF, and DANPLOT.PIF. You might disable the "screen saver", set to "full screen" display, set "idle sensitivity" to low, and mouse to "exclusive." Under Windows (tm) the DPMI may be already present, but under reboot to DOS the DPMI may not be loaded unless you setup a path to the directory where you unzipped my protected mode programs. EXAMPLE: PATH C:\DC37 If RTM.EXE cannot load DPMI16BI.OVL the program may crash and lock up on booting (sometimes with a blank screen) since the memory cannot be used to load the program if these files are not in the current directory. You may need to copy these files into the C:\WINDOWS directory and or put a PATH command in the AUTOEXEC.BAT files used to setup the system when it reboots into DOS mode. When running in a DOS window there may already be a DPMI present so the program may run under path conditions that would not work under pure DOS or reboot to DOS modes. To return from reboot to DOS or a DOS window to Windows (tm) you may need to enter EXIT at the DOS prompt after you Quit my programs. For best results with the CAM programs, DANCAM.EXE (tm) and DANPLOT.EXE (tm), the computer should be rebooted using a DOS floppy disk rather than going into the DOS mode or a DOS window. To make a WIN-DOS floppy disk you might use the FORMAT /S DOS command: EXAMPLE: C:\DC37>FORMAT A: /S You then need to change your BIOS boot RAM or ROM to boot from floppy before CD or Harddisk, and make the proper AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files with the right driver names so that the mouse, sound board's joy-stick port, and CD drive will work under DOS. See the other documentation relating to DOS configuration. The *.PIF files are usually not needed when running the programs under pure DOS. Whenever possible it is best, or in some cases necessary, to change the current directory to the directory my programs are in by using the DOS CD command before you try to run any of my programs: EXAMPLE: C:\WINDOWS>CD C:\DC37 You should always change to the program directory before using INSTALL.BAT. --- NOTES FROM RELEASE OF REVISED V3.7N. CAD PROGRAMS, MAY 22, 2006 A new WAV sub-menu has been added to the Files Utilities sub-menu off the CAD program's Main Menu. The first command in this new WAV sub-menu is the BIN or Binary command which converts "any" Binary or ASCII file into a WAV sound file and back into its original filetype (when you enter the correct file extension manually). A Binary file is any 8 bit per byte file type, a ASCII file is a file that only uses 7 bits of the 8 bits in its bytes. The 7 data bit conversion makes the WAV file somewhat smaller, but should only be used on files that have only 7 bit data in them, the 8 data bit mode should be used for all other file types. The BIN file extension is used to designate 8 data bit per byte files, but any file extension can be used with this command in place of the BIN extension, that is you need to use the correct file extension in order for the file reconstructed to be recognized for the file type of the original (Binary or ASCII) file, i.e. TXT for text files, COM or EXE for programs, BMP for image files, ZIP for zip files, and so on. To ensure the quality of the reconstructed file there are options for an extra parity bit per byte "transmitted", a special pseudoduplex mode, and a file checksum. The parity bit flags an error if one of the data bits is read wrong but does not always flag a data error if more than one data bit is read wrong. The pseudoduplex mode transmits each byte twice, the second time with the data bits inverted, then compares the two reads, the one of the data and the one of its inverse to see if they agree or not, if not an error is flagged. The file checksum counts up a total for all the bytes transmitted and tags that onto the end of the file, then when the file is reconstructed the check sum should match, if not an error should be flagged, the check sum may match if some combination of errors exists but that has a low probability. Also the file size is transmitted so that the result file can be checked to see if the byte count matches the original file. When all of the checks are used in tandem the integrity of the reconstructed file should be almost insured, although there may be a very small chance that an error or combination of errors could trick all of the checks. Some of the checks can be disabled to reduce file size of the WAV file or to speed up conversion, but you should use the checks whenever possible. Transmitting the file more than once, or sending a copy back to the source computer for comparison, and using the DOS FC command to compare the files for differences can also help insure an uncorrupted duplicate, i.e. C:\DC37>FC COPY1.BIN COPY2.BIN. The data signal is transmitted by playing the WAV file generated on the sending computer, or played on a CD player from a CD-R the WAV file was burned onto, and recording the sounds generated as a WAV file on the receiving computer. The audio data signals might also be stored on audio tape. Methods of transmission of the audio encoded data signals, with suitable amplification and transducers, could be telephone, radio, light beam, ultrasonic link, hydrophone, wire, megaphone, fiberoptic, and such. Telecommunication laws may restrict the transmission of data files encoded as audio signals, so you would need to obey the laws applicable to the method of transmission considered. No Modem is required for the serial audio data transmission, you could try to transmit files from one computer's speaker to another computer's microphone. Transmitting files by audio signals might be an option to prevent the transmission of computer viruses piggy-backing onto file operations or disks, but audio transmission would not prevent viruses within the files themselves from being copied. There are two ways to control the frequency of the "carrier" wave used to encode the Binary data as a sound Wave. One method is to change the sample rate of the WAV file generated, the other is to change the number of samples used per half wave generated. The number of wave cycles per bit encoded does not change the "carrier" wave frequency, rather it repeats the wave for more than one cycle per bit which can improve the likelihood that the decoding would later be successful. The maximum frequency is generated when only one sample is used per half cycle and the maximum frequency your sound board can output is selected for the sample rate, e.g. with a one sample per half cycle and a sample rate of 48000 per second the maximum frequency would be 24000 Hz, with eight samples per half wave and a sample rate of 44100 per second the "carrier" frequency would be 2756.25 Hz, and so on. During testing some anomalies might have occurred during the playing of a test WAV file, that is while playing WAV files perhaps at least one Windows (tm) WAV file playing program may have introduced brief gaps in the playing of the WAV file, such gaps might make decoding of the WAV data fail. Playing the WAV files with Media Player (tm) did not seem to result in problems. Likewise recording the WAV data with some programs, or with some programs running in background, may result in WAV files that are not perfectly recorded, i.e. no data gaps or losses. If you are playing the WAV data from a CD player, try not to move the player while playing since skips may also introduce data anomalies. The sound recorder that came with the sound board may work best, but you may need to try several programs to see which ones work best on your system. Some WAV recorders may save the WAV file in a format that does not conform to the basic "Canonical WAV format" used in my programs, in such a case you may need to load your WAV data into a WAV editing program such, as Magix (tm) Audio Studio 7 DELUXE (tm), and save the WAV data back out to another WAV file that has the proper "Canonical WAV format", in this case Mono 16 bit 44100 or 48000. Another problem noticed is that some Windows (tm) programs do not close a WAV file until you close the window the WAV file is in, or you exit the program that opened the WAV file altogether. My programs will sometimes report an open file as being "not found" since any file error is generally interpreted as the file not being ready to load, under DOS file sharing problems like these are not so much of an issue since only one, my, program is running, but under Windows (tm) you "can" work on the same file with two programs at the same time. If you get a "file not found" error, and have the file open in another program, close that file or program before trying to open the file in my programs. Compressing the WAV data files into MP3 or other compressed type sound files is not recommended since the timing and wave shape may get altered, but you can experiment and see what works for you. The WAV file encoded is given about one second of silence at its head and tail to avoid data loss from glitches coming out of the sound board when the WAV play starts and stops. More exactly a number of blank samples are tagged on equal to the sample data rate, i.e. 48000 blank samples if the sample data rate is 48000 samples per second. Two new Macro commands correspond to the options in the Files Utility WAV BIN command. See the description below for some detailed description of the values used with the Binary to from WAV commands. --- The new WAV BIN2WAV and WAV WAV2BIN Macro commands. The WAV BIN2WAV and WAV WAV2BIN Macro commands correspond to the Files Utility WAV BIN menu command. They are used to encode Binary files as WAV sound files and to decode WAV sound data back into a Binary file. The Binary file can be of any type whose size is within the size that can be converted. The limits of the size of the file that can be converted change depending on the adjustment of the values used to encode the WAV file, the maximum size of the WAV file being about 2.1GB. The range of values for the WAV BIN2WAV macro command are: WAV BIN2WAV = Macro command name keywords. modecode = Just equal to mode 1 at introduction. Binary_source_filename = Filename of any file within size range. WAV_result_filename = Filename for encoded WAV file to save. Sample_rate = WAV sample rate, i.e. 48000, 44100, and such. Samples_per_half_cycle = Samples in one half carrier sine wave. Cycles_per_data_bit = Sine waves output per data bit saved. start_bits = 1 to 64 marks serial data "byte" start. data_bits = 8 bits for any file, 7 bits for ASCII text. parity_bit = 0=none, 1=add parity checking bit. stop_bits = 2 to 64 spaces serial data "bytes". pseudoduplex_mode = 0=none, 1=add pseudoduplex data. checksum_mode = 0=none, 1=add data checksum. EXAMPLE: WAV BIN2WAV 1 SOMENAME.BIN SOMENAME.WAV 44100 16 8 2 8 1 2 1 1 WAV BIN2WAV 1 SOMENAME.BIN SOMENAME.WAV 48000 5 5 1 7 0 2 0 1 The range of values for the WAV WAV2BIN macro command are: WAV WAV2BIN = Macro command name keywords. modecode = Just equal to mode 2 at introduction. WAV_source_filename = Serial encoded WAV file. Binary_result_filename = Result filename with proper extension. DC_offset_adjustment = 0=Default, or -32768 to +32767 to adjust. Signal_gain = 1=Default or 1 to 10 for low signal amplitude. Sample_averaging = Samples_per_half_cycle times Cycles_per_bit. start_bits = 1 to 64 marks serial data "byte" start. data_bits = 8 bits for any file, 7 bits for ASCII text. parity_bit = 0=none, 1=confirm parity checking bit. stop_bits = 2 to 64 spaces serial data "bytes". pseudoduplex_mode = 0=none, 1=confirm pseudoduplex data. checksum_mode = 0=none, 1=confirm data checksum. EXAMPLE: WAV WAV2BIN 2 SOMENAME.WAV SOMENAME.BIN 0 1 128 2 8 1 2 1 1 WAV WAV2BIN 2 SOMENAME.WAV SOMENAME.BIN 0 2.38 25 1 7 0 2 0 1 The checksum should be used most of the time, it just adds 12 extra "bytes" of data. The parity bit adds a little to the length of the serial data, but can detect errors before the full WAV file has been decoded. The pseudoduplex doubles the size of the WAV file, but checks the data during decoding for all of the data bits, not just the parity bit. You can use all of the error checking methods at the same time, or none of it, or pick some and not others. Sending the file twice and using the DOS FC command to compare the transmitted files can also help confirm that the files received have probably not been corrupted in transmission. You can also transmit the file back to the sending computer and the sender can use the DOS FC command to compare the returned copy with the original for errors. EXAMPLE: C:\DC37>FC FILE1A.BIN FILE1B.BIN When recording Serial encoded WAV data onto Analog tape, such as a cassette, the signal level should be recorded at about -10db VU. The bias and EQ should be set for flat frequency response most of the time. When transmitting data using Audio such as from a speaker into a microphone the number of samples per half cycle should be selected to make the carrier wave well within the bandwidth of the Audio spectrum, i.e. around 1000 Hz to 2500 Hz, and the number of cycles per data bit should be long enough to give good noise resistance during decoding, i.e. about 8 to 16 cycles per bit. The averaging value used during decoding should be the same as the number of samples per half cycle times the number of cycles per bit used during encoding, i.e. if the encode samples per half cycle is 16 and the number of cycles is 8 then the averaging used to decode that file should be 128, if 1 and 1 then 1, if 5 and 5 then 25, and so on. If the decoding fails you might try adjusting the signal gain value up or down since this signal gain value affects the relative trip points between the program and the wave-form recorded in the WAV file. Passing the encoded wave data through an Analog transmission channel can introduce a great deal of distortion, so changing the gain may help in some cases, depending on what the signal amplitude is in the recorded WAV file. Also, when a wave signal is transmitted through an Analog channel by playing the WAV file through the sound board or a CD player and then digitally recording the wave data, the sample clocks will not be in phase, so in order to get a usable wave-form in the recorded WAV file the played WAV file should have been encoded to have 5 or more samples in each half cycle, in that way about 4 of 5 samples will correspond in amplitude between the encoded WAV file and its copy. You might also use the "normalize" to 95% of full amplitude command of your WAV data editing or recording software, or just adjust the recording gain in the WAV recorder so that the wave data is at 95% of full amplitude in the saved WAV recording, so that you can use a gain of 1 with the WAV WAV2BIN command, i.e. the peak signal VU meter in your WAV recorder should read about -1db VU (and average meter would read about -3db VU since the data bits are on and off and not a continuous sine wave). You probably do not want to clip the WAV recording since that would raise the noise background and cause other problems with the decode pass. The serial data is decoded in a semi-asynchronous manner, with the stop bits after the first one being used to adjust for timing errors, and the start bits triggering the beginning of the next bit cluster (transmitted byte). Any interruptions within the bit cluster will probably introduce an error and may cause the decoding to fail. The averaging used during decoding can reduce sensitivity to some noise, but impulses during the stop bits may result in data errors, so the transmission channel may need to be low pass or band pass filtered if there is impulse noise present in the signal. The noise floor Hiss and Hum should be less than a few percent of the signal peak level, or perhaps about -50db VU since the carrier signal bursts would be at about -10 db VU. --- NOTES FROM RELEASE OF REVISED V3.7N. CAD PROGRAMS, JUNE 15, 2006 Several new menu and macro commands have been added to the v3.7N CAD programs, they are: Files Utilities WAV Framize (macro WAV FRAMIZE), Files Utilities WAV Link (macro WAV LINK), Files Animate has been revised (macro ANIMATE XMODES), the Files Utilities BMP Pixel and other graphic commands have been revised to support a new P256 color palette for displaying photos, cine frames, video frames, and other images and animations for video modes V320P256 and S640P256 through S2048P256 (e.g. macro GRAPH_MODE V320P256), a new macro DIVIDED_NAME command has been added to store large file sets for more rapid loading than the LONG_NAME file sets, and a Files Load Obsolete OUT command (macro LOAD OBSOLETE OUT) has been added, see the explanation of each new or revised command below. The Files Utilities WAV Framize command and its macro equivalent WAV FRAMIZE are used to break or chop an audio sound track into single frame size pieces so that the audio frames can be edited with a one-to-one correspondence to the image frames for an audio-visual sequence, such as editing a motion picture soundtrack. For editing motion picture sound, the WAV file would be sampled at 48000 samples per second and broken into 2000 sample chunks. If the WAV file does not total an even number of frames the tail of the end frame is filled with silence to make a whole audio frame. The WAV Framize command can also join the audio frames back into a WAV file for the range of frame numbers corresponding to the portion of the picture frames that will be used from a particular shot, making an audio extract the exact length of the shot. The Files Utilities WAV Link command and its macro equivalent WAV LINK command can take the audio shot WAV files made with the WAV FRAMIZE command and link them end to end to make a full length sound track file. The WAV LINK command can automatically Blop the junctions of the different scene WAV files to reduce or eliminate any pops or clicks at the audio cuts. Alternatively in place of Blopping the head of each shot's sound a Beep can be inserted, so that the track with beeps can be used as markers for various tasks involved with building a sound track. In the past motion picture sound tracks were edited on 35mm optical sound film, and where the cement splices were made a pop or click would be heard when the film was played, so two methods were used to reduce the pop or click, one was to paint on special black "Blopping Ink" in a diamond shape about a quarter of an inch high to hide the splice, another faster method that also allowed the sound track to be cleaned in solvents was to use a special punch that made a diamond shaped hole through the splice. When Magnetic film replaced the optical film, Blopping was done by passing a small AC powered magnet over the splice to erase any signals. Diagonal splicers were also used with magnetic film to make a short cross fade in the sound at the splice. To achieve a Blopping effect digitally I have the WAV LINK command do a short fade in at the start of the shot and a short fade out at the end of the shot. The length of this short digital fade is adjustable, but should be set to about a quarter of a frame, and since at 48000 samples per second a 24th of a second is 2000 samples and there is a fade out and in at each cut, each fade should be about 250 samples, that is two fades equal 500 samples and 500 is one fourth of 2000, or one quarter of a frame. The WAV LINK command also has options to put a pulse and beep at the head and tail of the joined track, with adjustable silence between the pulse and beep. The pulse and beep can be used to align tracks in audio editing software, the length of the track can be adjusted so that the head and tail pulse and beep line up, compensating for drift due to the crystals used in recording and playing tracks if you have to go analog for some reason. The pulses and beeps can also be used for Edit or Print sync marks, or to start the projector if you want to project your workprint with digital sound playback from your computer or CD player. In 16mm projectors you can install a sync motor and a solenoid clutch, absolute 60Hz or 50Hz signal in a WAV file can be combined with the linked audio track WAV file to make a stereo WAV file, the 60Hz or 50Hz can be amplified and used to power the sync motor driving the projector, the start pulse or head beep can then be used to quickly lock the solenoid clutch in to start the projector, after that the projector will stay in sync to the "pilot tone" coming off of the stereo WAV file. For 35mm projectors it might be hard to get the film to start that fast by locking the clutch with the motor running full speed, but it might work as well if spring arms are used of the feed and supply reels. The Files Animate and macro ANIMATE commands have been revised to allow the display of long sets of files running about 24 frames per second, although the frame rate will depend on your OS, harddisk, computer speed, video board, and related factors. Three types of file sets are now supported, Short, Long, and Divided. The Short set uses a numbered file extension giving the range of FILENAME.1 through FILENAME.999. The Long file set type gives the range 1.FIL through 99999999.FIL, even though the OS may limit the number of files in a set in a sub-directory to 65534 or less depending on which OS you are using. The Long set type also suffers from another OS problem, if you get many files in the same sub-directory the access time gets longer and longer, so that you can no longer run Long name frames at about 24 frames per second. To overcome some of the limitations of the Long set type another set type called Divided has been introduced, this type limits the number of files in each sub-directory to about one thousand, and uses a series of numbered sub-directories such that 20000 files would be stored in about 20 sub-directories. To make such a scheme usable the DIVIDED_NAME macro command can be used to automatically convert from a Long type name into a Divided type name and large file sets can be made by writing and running a macro file. For instance if you enter a filename into the ANIMATE command and the Divided file set type has been selected, the filename c:\1.PIX would get converted into C:\PIX0\1.PIX, and frame 12345 in that same set would be retrieved from file C:\PIX12\345.PIX. The file extension is doubled as the first three letters of the sub-directory so that you can have more than one set of files in the root directory of a harddisk, the maximum file name would be C:\PIX99999\999.PIX, but the OS may limit you to a lower number of files such as C:\PIX511\999.PIX or C:\PIX65533\999.PIX. I picked thus scheme because you can read the frame file number directly from its filename, the back-slash is just where a comma would go between the hundreds and thousands, no numeric conversion is needed. Because file sets can be so large now, the frame [N]umber command in the ANIMATE command and the File Animate command's incoming menus lets you set the starting and ending frame for looping, as well as selecting the current frame to start from. A new video palette P256 has been added so that color photographs, cine frames, video frames, and other color images can be displayed in the quicker 8 bpp Pixel frame files. The V320P256 or V320M256 video modes are best for running large frame sets at high speed from a harddisk. Larger size frame files might be usable if you can load them from a very large RAM disk. The C256 palette should not be used for photographic images, it is a special palette for computer graphics generated in the main menu Preview command or with the macro DISPLAY command. It is best to convert 24 bpp BMP photographic image files by using the revised Files Utilities BMP Pixel command (i.e. macro GRAPH_MODE, LOAD BMP, and SAVE PIXEL), since the color dithering can then be done from the original colors in the 24 bpp color BMP file, rather than just converting the 8 bpp palette in a 8 bpp file, when the frames are running at speed the P256 palette Pixel file images dithered from the 24 bpp BMP image files blend together and may give an impression of more subtle colors. The LOAD BMP command used by the Files Utilities BMP Pixel command has been modified to be able to convert 24 bpp BMP as well as 8 bpp BMP files into 4 bpp and 8 bpp Pixel files using the M16, M256, and P256 palettes. The C16 and C256 palettes are not supported in this change to the LOAD BMP command for 24 bpp BMP files because C16 and C256 are not suitable for photographic images, and work as far as for what they are useful for with 8 bpp BMP drawings. Some of the menus in the Files Utilities BMP Pixel command have been revised to check the bpp type of the BMP file to load and change what they say, so you will see different messages, depending on the bpp type of the BMP image file you are converting to Pixel. Only some video modes are valid with some bpp modes of the BMP files, so you may need to convert your BMP files to the correct type before you convert them to Pixel type. The size of the BMP files to convert to Pixel must be exactly the same size as the video mode you are selecting, some Windows (tm) graphics editing programs may make the BMP files one or more pixel too large or too small, so check the image information in your image editing software if you can to make sure that the BMP files are the right size before you try to convert them into Pixel files. The Video Graphics Mode prompt at various places in the program has been modified to accept keywords for 8 bpp video modes with the P256 palette in them, e.g. V320P256, S640P256, S800P256, S1024P256, S1280P256, S1600P256, S1920P256, and S2048P256. The P256 palette is mostly intended for use with the ANIMATE command, the LOAD PIXEL command, the LOAD BMP command, and the SAVE PIXEL command, although it may work to some degree in other parts of the program that use graphics modes. For making 8 bpp color graphics the C256 palette may give better results. The best results for both photographs and computer graphics will be to use the VESA 24 bpp and 32 bpp video modes, but since they use three or four times as many bytes they do not load as fast as the 8 bpp Pixel files, and so are mostly too slow to use with the ANIMATE command for display at 24 frames per second. The VESA 24 bpp and 32 bpp commands work best when outputting to cine film in a cine film recorder, and later projected at 24 frames per second in a movie projector, or transferred to video. There is also the consideration of the size of the harddisk required to hold large frame sets, the V320P256 frames are 64002 bytes each, and 1440 frames are required for each minute, so an 88 minute film would take up about 10GB to 20GB, the extra being used by the OS since files can be bigger than there actual size in the space they take up on the disk due to OS issues. Larger Pixel files would take much more disk space, and load slower. The macro command DIVIDED_NAME has been added to allow the automatic generation of Divided filenames and the production of large file sets. The DIVIDED_NAME command also automatically creates the sub-directories that the file set is split up into as needed by the filename's value. Because some commands like the ANIMATE command do the conversion from Long to Divided type name, the DIVIDED_NAME has extra modes to deliver both converted and unconverted filename strings. The options UNHERE, UNNEXT, and UNINPUT deliver unconverted filename strings, and the regular NAME options HERE, NEXT, and INPUT deliver converted strings which could be used with the SAVE PIXEL and LOAD PIXEL macro commands. A new Files Load Obsolete OUT command and its macro equivalent LOAD OBSOLETE OUT have been added. Early versions of DANPLOT.COM (tm) supported two file types, 2D ASCII files and *.OUT files. The *.OUT files were produced by the plotter driver in DANCAD3D.COM (tm) by using the provided DANPLOT.PLT (tm) plotter driver file as the driver for then Hardcopy Plot Plot command. The advantage of using the DANPLOT.PLT (tm) plotter driver was that you could see how the lines fit within the plotting space's border by looking at the Hardcopy Plot Plot command's blinking preview. The disadvantage of using the DANPLOT.PLT (tm) driver to generate tool path files was that the Plot command only output integer values, not real numbers, so there were small rounding changes in the points to plot. The DANPLOT.PLT (tm) driver was installed to save the plotted lines into a file named DPLOT.OUT in the CAD program sub- directory, the user then needed to rename that DPLOT.OUT file in order to prevent it from being overwritten the next time the DANPLOT.PLT (tm) driver was used to plot a drawing. The fact that the name of the *.OUT file did not change was not a problem, since a batch file could be used with DANPLOT.COM (tm) and it would always use the same filename for different jobs, in other words the DPLOT.OUT was meant to be a temporary file for transmitting the lines from the CAD program to the DANPLOT.COM (tm) program for plotting at that moment and not to be a filetype used for archiving drawings, which should have been done in a drawing file type, not as plotter data output. The small rounding off of the values saved was not a major issue for many tasks, but users needed to keep the scale values used when plotting in mind in order to not have the rounding visible in the finished piece. The *.OUT file type is no longer supported by DANPLOT.COM (tm) since it is not needed and the ASCII file type uses real number values which can be scaled over a larger range before rounding changes show up. The Files Load Obsolete OUT command has been added so that users who saved their drawings to plot in *.OUT file type but neglected to save there drawings in a normal drawing file type such as ASCII, 3D-Quick, or 2D-Real, can load their *.OUT files and re-save the drawings to convert them to a more current file type or edit them and save them in a drawing file type. Files created by third party programs with a *.PLT file extension are probably not plotter drivers for use in my CAD programs. Although 24 Bit 96000 sample per second WAV files are perhaps becoming more common and standard, One can probably see little, or even perhaps almost no, piratical benefit to using such larger files in the production of 35mm Optical, Magnetic, or even Digital Motion picture sound tracks that will be played on Movie house Cinema theater sound systems. Motion picture sound tracks are normally compressed to keep the volume near 100% modulation with the average signal between -3db VU and -7db VU much of the time. At the theater people are talking and making noise with their popcorn, and at Multiplex theaters you may hear the loud sounds from the movies playing at each adjacent theater, so the ambient noise floor is quite high, probably above even the LSB of 16 Bits let alone 24 Bits. In an excellent home theater system on a quiet night a young person might be able to tell some difference, but even then it would probably be very small. The benefits of the smaller 16 Bit 48000 sample per second WAV and RAW files in conserving disk space and perhaps editing, loading, and saving faster, seems to me at this point to be a very real benefit. So for those commands that only support 16 Bit WAV files at present, you can use your WAV editor to convert your 24 Bit WAV file to 16 Bit for use with those commands, and then convert back to 24 Bit when the finished sound track has been completed, i.e. to archive the finished track or tracks, if you like. The WAV commands may work with 96000 sample per second 16 Bit files if you have the extra harddisk space for files twice as large as 48000 sample per second files, this would allow you to not have to resample just change the bit resolution, but remember that some commands only work with Mono WAV files, so for multi track sound tracks you may want to write a macro to process all the shots the same way. Remember to double the samples per frame if you process your sound track at 96000 samples per second rather than 48000 samples per second so that the audio frame numbers will match the image frame numbers, i.e. change the frame audio samples from 2000 to 4000. You should also note that my WAV editing command may only load so called "Canonical WAV" files, so you may need to load your WAV files that my programs refuse to load into a WAV editing program that can save the simple "Canonical WAV" file type, such as "MAGIX audio studio 7 deLuxe (tm)", in order to scrub the extraneous data out of the WAV file. Many of my WAV editing commands may only load "Canonical WAV" files that are 16 Bit Mono type. The sample rate in some cases may be used by the command, and others not, but generally should be 48000 for motion picture sound track editing, and 44100 for audio CD burning. When you have finished making several tracks with the WAV LINK command you can mix them using your favorite WAV editing software. In some cases you may have more than a hundred tracks to mix. If your WAV editing software does not let you mix, it may let you combine two Mono tracks into a Stereo track. To mix the many tracks together you can just repeat the operation of making a Stereo track from two Mono tracks and saving the result as another Mono track, i.e. track1 + track2 = trackA, trackA + track3 = trackB, trackB + track4 = trackC, and so on. You may need to have the volume in each track at less than 50% modulation (below -6db VU) so that when each of the tracks are combined the result stays below 100% modulation (below 0db VU). Although the focus of WAV editing here is primarily for 24 fps Motion Picture sound, you could also edit 25 fps European TV telecine sound, 25 fps video sound, or 30 fps EIA video sound. NTSC video sound shoud be edited as EIA 30 fps sound even though the actual frame rate is 29.97. When editing sound the audio frames need to all have the same number of audio samples, and the number of audio frames needs to correspond to the number of image frames. At exactly 30 fps the number of samples per frame taken from a WAV take recorded at 48000 samples per second would be 1600. But if the video camera is running at 29.97 the number of samples per frame recorded would be greater than 1600, maybe 1601 for some frames and 1602 for others. To correct this NTSC issue you need to resample the recorded audio to make it a little shorter, edit the audio, then resample the edited audio to make it a little longer before doing an audio overdub onto the video running at 29.97. To extract the video for editing you would extract all of the video frames (as BMP files), dropping none, since like film editing the frames only assume a frame rate from the projector or play back device, while editing the frame files are just static numbered files of picture and sound that correspond to the film picture and magfilm or optical track film frames. You should be able to in this way record double system audio and video with a MiniDisk or DAT recorder using your NTSC, PAL, or SECAM camcorder, MiniDV, HD, or other crystal locked video system if you clapper board slate each shot so that you have a video frame with the slate and an audio frame with the clapper board slate slap. If you have edited single flash frames (or frames that say head sync and tail sync in a title) into the head and tail image leaders such that those frames coraspond to the head and tail beep frames in the tracks you should be able to adjust the resampling of the audio tracks to make the head and tail beeps align with the head and tail flash or sync title frames, at least for audio tracks that only lasts 10 minutes or so, for longer projects you may have problems depending on how constant the crystals are in your equipment. You can generate 60Hz pilot tone on a second track of a stereo WAV, and use an oscilloscope to check the phase of the audio playback to the video fields by taking the video signal and filtering it to get a 59.94Hz sine wave, you then put the filtered video into the X axis of the scope and the playback of the resampled 60Hz pilot tone audio off the second track of a stereo WAV where the first track is the video audio for the overlay into the Y axis of the oscilloscope. You should see a circle on the oscilloscope screen, the circle may rotate on edge and look like a line part of the time, if the circle rotates in the same direction more that three rotations over the full playback time you are more than a frame out of sync, if you have trouble telling if the circle is rotating in the same direction you can reduce the filtering of the video so that wiggles in the circle displayed give you a clue as to the direction of the phase shift. You do not want to generate 59.94Hz pilot tone, since the point of using the pilot tone here is to check to see if you have resampled the audio track enough to stay in sync with the video after editing, so the audio running at 30 fps and the 60Hz pilot get resampled shorter to play back on a machine running at 29.97 frames per second (59.94 fields per second, NTSC has two interlaced fields per frame). Do not record the pilot tone, you need to generate it so that it will be in absolute sync to the length of the audio frames, if you record pilot tone or time code there will be small timing errors due to the crystal clocks not running at exactly the right frequencies resulting in phase drift over time, that may put you one or more frames out of sync after 20 minutes. If you record SMPTE time code on the video tape generated from the edited image frame files (using third party tools), and sync lock the playback of the WAV file's WAV player by using a SMPTE to MTC time code converter through your sound board's MIDI port you may be able to lock the phase of the video recorder during audio overdub so that the computer automatically adjusts to match the video recorders actual frame rate, in which case the resampled pilot tone shown on the oscilloscope should stay in phase over an "unlimited" WAV playback duration. You can record the audio portion of double system sound for making cine film movies or videos on video on a VCR or camcorder, such as Hi-Fi VHS, and ignore the frame rate of the video signal, just play back the audio into your sound board and sample at 48000 samples per second. In other words, you can use a VCR or camcorder just as an audio recorder, and not use the picture recorded, the video signal source can just be a good NTSC test pattern or a signal from a NTSC camera with the lens cap on. Do not use tube type video cameras as the video source since some of the older cameras may produce random interlace or have the vertical sync locked to the line AC power frequency, rather than the 59.94 Hz used for NTSC video recorder playback, which could cause the playback to be the wrong speed. The VCR or camcorder has a crystal so the audio plays back at the same speed as the audio was recorded, more or less. You may want to point the video signal source camera at the actors mouths zoomed in so that you can use the video tape later if you need to ADR loop dub the actors to make a better recording. Using a network broadcast as the video source may give a more stable recording speed than using a video tap camera or some low quality video source, since the VCR locks its tape speed while recording to the video source sync. Black and White cameras, such as used in a video tap, may run at EIA 60 Hz fields, but the VCR will almost certainly play back such Black and White video at the NTSC 59.94 field rate, so using a NTSC color video tap may be a better idea if you want the video tap image on your audio recordings so as to not pitch and time shift your audio. Using a Hi-Fi VCR to record sync double system audio for film or video should work about as well for the lip sync as Minidisk, DAT, or direct computer recording in PCM except for slightly lower audio fidelity, just be sure that the recorder starts a few seconds before the slate clapper board is slapped to be sure the recording speed is stable. Do not try recording audio on a "wild" tape recorder unless you use pilot tone or time code to resolve the tape speed fluctuations later. For film shooting you need to use a crystal sync or AC sync motor on the camera in order to use a crystal sync audio recorder without sync signal wires between the camera and audio recorder in a double system arrangement, if your Movie camera does not have a Crystal or AC sync motor, then you need to install a pilot tone generator on the Movie camera and resolve the audio before you can generate the separate audio frame shot take files to be chopped up by using WAV FRAMIZE command Mode 1. A general problem with numbered file sets is that you need to have a continuous set of files of consecutive numbers, if files are missing you will probably get an error and the macro or the command may be interrupted. Another problem can arise when you have saved a file set of the same name before and write a new file set over the old one, to save time some of the commands only check the first file in a set, and then assume the other files are like the first one in type, size, and such. If you partially overwrite a set of one type with another and use the same name, when the second set is read the program will read past the last file of that set into the previous files, resulting in an error report, or scrambled data being loaded. To avoid such problems, always delete or erase files in a set before writing a set to the same directory with the same name as the previous file set. The maximum file name ranges alowed by the Long, Short, and Divided filename types does not reflect the actual range of filenames that may be stored on a disk under a particular OS, since the range and total number of files that any given OS alow may vary from one particular OS to another. Also the speed of access for file sets may vary by the number of the file in the set and the place the files in the set are stored on the disk drive, as well as the OS used at the time the files are read or written. Windows 98SE (tm) may give higher disk access speeds than DOS for very large file sets, but you will need to do your own testing since your hardware may also influnance the file access times. Under Windows 98SE (tm) sub-directories may be limited to 65534 files. The number of files you can store in the root directory may be limited to around 511 or 65365 in some OS. Files in large file sets may access faster from the rood directory, or when the Divided filename type is used in place of the Long filename type. --- DESCRIPTION OF NEW MACRO COMMANDS See the general description of the new Macro commands and their menu equivalent commands given above. Here the particulars of the values passed to these new Macro commands is discussed. WAV FRAMIZE currently has two modes, the first mode chops a WAV audio sound file into frame size chunks so that a range of frames can be selected with the second mode to make a WAV file with the sound for a shot in a Movie or Video. The number of samples in each frame chunk needs to be the same so that you can edit a cut between any two frames. WAV files sampled at 44100 samples per second do not divide evenly into 24 frames per second and so would need to be resampled to 48000 samples per second or 88200 samples per second before being chopped up. 44100 can be divided evenly by 25 frames per second to give chunks 1764 samples long. WAV files sampled at 48000 samples per second can be chopped into chunks of the same number of samples at 24, 25, and 30 frames per second giving chunks of 2000, 1920, and 1600 samples. 96000 sample per second files are also usable for 24, 25, or 30 frame per second editing, but the frame chunk files would be twice as large. In the initial release of the WAV FRAMIZE command only 16 bit Mono WAV files are supported because dialog for each actor, sound effects, and other sounds are usually edited on separate tracks. If you need to edit stereo or multi track WAV files, break them into Mono files and framize them into separate sub-directories. Pilot tone would normally not be framized since the phase of the pilot tone would change at each shot transition, rather after the RAW audio frame files for all the shots is put together with the WAV LINK command you would generate new Pilot tone or time code and combine the full audio track of audio shots from the WAV LINK command with the new Pilot tone or time code into a stereo WAV file for playback to record the audio onto Magfilm or the Optical sound negative using the pilot tone to operate the sync motor on the Magfilm or Optical film recorder. The WAV of the Pilot tone or time code should be phase locked to the exact length of the frame chunk in samples, if you have no other way to lock the phase, you can edit the WAV of the Pilot tone or time code in a WAV editor and add or subtract a few samples to the wave form here and there to keep the starts lined up, e.g. for 60 Hz Pilot tone the zero crossing after each cycle should occur about every 800 samples in a 48000 sample per second WAV file, checking to see that the zero crossing happens at multiples of 800, such as at about sample 48000 for the start of the second second, 480000 for the tenth second, 4800000 for the hundredth second, 48000000 for the thousandth second and so on. The Waveform generator in your WAV editing software may be able to create Pilot tone in perfect phase to the sample count. The frame chunks are stored in RAW wave data without the WAV file header to possibly reduce file size, improve speed, and simplify the code written to work with the frame audio chunks. If you need to listen to one of the chunks you may be able to import the chunk into your WAV editor by selecting "All files" as the type, and selecting "16 Bit Little Endian (PC) Mono" from the untyped wave data dialog if your program has one. If your WAV editor does not support "16 Bit Little Endian (PC) Mono" you can use the WAV FRAMIZE command to convert just one RAW frame into a WAV file by selecting the starting and ending frame as the same number as the number of the RAW frame you want to listen to. To get the first frame (frame number zero) of audio data for a shot take to have the clapper board slap in the audio frame file numbered zero you can edit the shot take WAV file in your WAV editor to delete the head of the shot take WAV file before the clapper board slap sound wave form before you use the WAV FRAMIZE command to make the numbered audio frame chunk files (the clapper board slap being numbered frame file zero for each shot and take), otherwise you can write a macro to rename all the RAW frame chunk files for a shot so that the clapper board slap sound is in frame file number zero, the frame after that numbered one, and so on see the FILES RENAME, NAME, LONG_NAME, and DIVIDED_NAME macro commands. Once you have the clapper board slate's slap in audio frame file zero, you can use the selected frame numbers of the film start and end image frames you want included counting from the clapper board slate slap frame (slate on image frame number zero also) as the range for the first and last frames to have WAV FRAMIZE command to turn the audio frames for the shot take back into a single WAV file for that shot take, and so, if you change your desired edit points you can just edit the starting and ending frame numbers passed to the WAV FRAMIZE command in your automatic output macro file and run that macro to generate new shot take WAV files with the new selected audio frames included or omitted, WAV link can then generate the WAV track file blopped and ready to transfer or use for interlock projection, and such. If you select the maximum frame number range for WAV FRAMIZE Mode 1 and the source WAV file is too short to make complete frames the end of the last frame will be filled with silence samples to fill out a full audio frame, the error report option can be set to ignore that the WAV file was short and the last frame may have been padded this or report that the WAV file was short of the entered last frame number. Vales used for Mode 1 (chop) are: WAV FRAMIZE 1 IN_file_set_type IN_filename OUT_file_set_type OUT_filename first_frame_number last_frame_number samples_per_frame report_short_error WHERE: IN_file_set_type...= U (unit file, not a set), just one 16 Bit Mono WAV IN_filename........= *.WAV 16 Bit Mono WAV, 48000 samples/second normally. The WAV files input here are audio tracks that run the full length of the camera takes generally. If possible you should delete any samples in the source WAV file before the clapper board slate slap with your WAV editor so that the first audio frame (frame number zero) will be the clapper board slate slap or electronic slate beep if you have an electronic slate. It might also be a good idea to trim off the tail of the source WAV file to the length of the image frames that will actually be used in order to conserve disk space by not having more frame files generated than you will need. To keep the source take WAV files in order and to batch process them you may wish to number them, in that way a macro using the NAME, LONG_NAME, or DIVIDED_NAME command can process a sequence of files automatically. OUT_file_set_type..= L S D for Long Short or Divided Long = C:\SUB\1.RAW to C:\SUB\65534.RAW Short = C:\SUB\MYXXXRAW.1 to C:\SUB\MYXXXRAW.999 Divided = C:\RAW0\1.RAW to C:\RAW511\999.RAW OUT_filename.......= For Long and Short the name entered is the same as what the file is saved like, but for Divided type you enter the Long style name and the program splits the Long number and makes the sub-directories first_frame_number.= 0 or 1 for the full range, normally the clapper board slate slap frame, or some other number to insert a range of audio frames into a set, i.e. overwrite some frames with silent frames, room tone frames and such. Note that declicking or blopping is not done between frames, if you want blopping between ranges of frames it is better to join groups of frames joined with WAV FRAMIZE Mode 2 with the WAV LINK Mode 1 command rather than using single frame inserts or overwrites. last_frame_number..= For Short 999 or for Long and Divided 99999999 for the full length of the source WAV file, or a number of frames for the length of the picture frames in the shot samples_per_frame..= This must be equal to the samples per second of the shot's source WAV file divided by the frame rate is such a way that all the audio frames have the same number of samples, for 48000 sample per second WAV files and editing 24 frames per second you would normally select 2000 samples. If you wanted to edit the sound in quarter frame lengths you could select 500 samples, but all the audio frame numbers would be about four times the picture frame numbers, i.e. picture frame 1 (first frame after the clapper board slate frame) would be audio quarter frames 4, 5, 6, and 7. report_short_error..= This lets you have the program warn you that it has padded the last audio frame with silence, something you would normally not want since it will break the a macro running, but in menu mode it lets you know if the room tone is going to drop out in the last frame so you can edit the source WAV to add some more room tone if you are going to need it up to the end of the last audio frame. Here is an example macro using the WAV FRAMIZE Mode 1: VERSION v3.7N WAV FRAMIZE 1 U UNEDITED\3.WAV L 3\1.RAW 0 99999999 2000 0 { End WAV FRAMIZE chop } Values used for Mode 2 (join) are: WAV FRAMIZE 2 IN_LSD_type IN_name OUT_LSD_type OUT_name first_frame_number last_frame_number sample_rate WHERE: IN_file_set_type...= L S D for Long Short or Divided Long = C:\SUB\1.RAW to C:\SUB\65534.RAW Short = C:\SUB\MYXXXRAW.1 to C:\SUB\MYXXXRAW.999 Divided = C:\RAW0\1.RAW to C:\RAW511\999.RAW IN_filename........= For Long and Short the name entered is the same as what the file is saved like, but for Divided type you enter the Long style name and the program splits the Long number and makes the sub-directories OUT_file_set_type..= U (unit file, not a set), just one 16 Bit Mono WAV OUT_filename.......= *.WAV 16 Bit Mono WAV, 48000 samples/second normally. When saving the output WAV files for each shot, cut to the frame length of the used picture frames, you should number the WAV shot files consecutively so that the WAV LINK command can automatically load the audio shots in the correct order, e.g. C:\FILM6\REEL4\TRACK9A\327.WAV first_frame_number.= 0 or 1 for the full range, normally the clapper board slate slap frame, or some other number to insert a range of audio frames into a set, i.e. overwrite some frames with silent frames, room tone frames and such. Note that declicking or blopping is not done between frames, if you want blopping between ranges of frames it is better to join groups of frames joined with WAV FRAMIZE Mode 2 with the WAV LINK Mode 1 command rather than using single frame inserts or overwrites. last_frame_number..= For Short 999 or for Long and Divided 99999999 for the full length of the source WAV file, or a number of frames for the length of the picture frames in the shot samples_rate.......= This must be equal to the samples per second for the result joined WAV file. This does not resample the WAV data in the initial release, it just tells the WAV player at what speed the WAV data should be played. This would always be the same as the sample rate of the WAV file that was chopped with WAV FRAMIZE Mode 1 unless you want to make a half speed result WAV file for recording the Optical sound track on film at half speed for better high frequency response and more exposure for a given light valve lamp current. You might want to run the Optical sound on film recorder at half speed, or less, to record directly on the print stock (print stock has a lower film speed than sound recording film), i.e. electro-print the sound. If you play the edited WAV at speeds slower than normal the low frequency output of the Sound Board or CD player may need to be equalized since 20Hz would then be 10Hz or less. You need to manually enter the sample rate because the RAW wave frame chunks are not saved in any particular sample rate, just a sample length, so to make a WAV file of the right sample rate you need to enter that rate with this value, which would normally be 48000. If you want to play a CD-R of your sound track into your Optical sound recorder, you can use your WAV editing program to make a "high quality" resample of the 48000 sample per second WAV file into a 44100 sample per second WAV file that can be played from an audio CD player, but it might be better to play the 48000 sample per second computer WAV file directly from the Sound Board or other audio PCM device. Here is an example macro using the WAV FRAMIZE Mode 2: VERSION v3.7N WAV FRAMIZE 2 L 3\1.RAW U 3.WAV 88 736 48000 { End WAV FRAMIZE join } The WAV LINK command has two modes in the initial release, the first mode takes the (manually numbered with the shot order) WAV files generated by WAV FRAMIZE Mode 2 command and joins them in order together automatically blopping the pops and clicks out at the shot to shot edits into a WAV file track with start and end markers, start and end beeps, and start and end silence padding that allow you to align the track markers and or beeps in your audio WAV editing software to make sure the start and end of the WAV tracks are in sync before you do a Mix of the various Audio tracks, of which you might have a hundred or more to mix in different ways to make Mono, Stereo, or Multi track mix downs with dialog in various language versions. If the tracks start and end marks do not match in length because you put one of the tracks out to an analog recorder for doing sound effects (as a template to insert or overdub on) you can try to use the resampling or other editing commands in your WAV editing software to adjust the length of the track and to align the start marks. The second mode puts beeps at the start of each shot instead of blopping the start using the tail beep frequency and duration so that the head beep can be a different frequency from the shot to shot beeps. The beeping track could be of use for looping, dubbing, over-recording sound effects, recording the music track, and such where you would be playing the audio track many times not from the start so that you would want to hear the markers where the shot cuts are. The beeps and other unwanted audio could be later flattened out in your WAV editor, or framized and replaced with silence. The WAV LINK command joins audio shots together, which generally means shots of the same number of frames as the image frames in a take. But when you want the audio to run over a splice between two image shots you do not want the audio blopped at the image shot cut. To get around this issue, you can make audio shots that are longer than the image shots for some audio tracks, that is the audio track audio shot numbers do not need to correspond to the image shot numbers, just the total sample count between the head and tail beeps or markers in the finished audio tracks needs to match. If you want to include a track description and or an audio frequency sweep into the head of the linked track you can make a copy of the shot 1 audio shot WAV file, and use WAV LINK to pre-link the track description WAV file and audio frequency sweep before the shot one audio. You can write a macro file to make putting such reference audio shots into all of your tracks automatic. Just be sure that the audio shots you wish to add have been trimmed to start and end on even frame boundaries or else all of the audio frames in your audio tracks may be out of sync with the image frames. The WAV FRAMIZE command Mode 1 can be used to framize the pre-track audio shots and then the desired audio frame range can be selected for WAV FRAMIZE Mode 2 to produce pre-track audio shots that are trimmed to exact multiples of audio frame sample lengths. The first shot number can be a negative value to allow audio pre-shots and still have the first shot in the track numbered one or zero. Values used for WAV LINK Mode 1 (blop) are: WAV LINK 1 IN_file_set_type IN_name OUT_file_set_type OUT_name first_shot_number last_shot_number sample_rate blop_samples pad_head_samples half_head_marker_samples pad_gap1_samples head_beep_half_samples head_beep_cycles pad_gap2_samples pad_gap3_samples tail_beep_half_samples tail_beep_cycles pad_gap4_samples half_tail_marker_samples pad_tail_samples WHERE: IN_file_set_type....= L S D for Long Short or Divided Long = C:\SUB\1.RAW to C:\SUB\65534.RAW Short = C:\SUB\MYXXXRAW.1 to C:\SUB\MYXXXRAW.999 Divided = C:\RAW0\1.RAW to C:\RAW511\999.RAW IN_filename........= For Long and Short the name entered is the same as what the file is saved like, but for Divided type you enter the Long style name and the program splits the Long number and makes the sub-directories OUT_file_set_type..= U (unit file, not a set), just one 16 Bit Mono WAV OUT_filename.......= *.WAV 16 Bit Mono WAV, 48000 samples/second normally. When saving the output WAV files for each track, cut to the reel length you should number the WAV track files consecutively so that they might be mixed in order. first_shot_number..= 0 or 1 for the full range, you can enter negative values of down to -99 for Short shot sets or or down to -9999999 for Long or Divided shot sets in order to add extra audio "shots" before the actual track shots start at shot 0 or 1, this might be of use to insert a talking track audio description (done by the sound engineer through the small intercom mike in his mixing board) as was done on Magfilm so that the track could be identified if the roll was put in the wrong box or lost its label, and you can also add pre-shots with extra calibration tones such as a frequency sweep and noise reduction calibration signal tones as well as extra silence padding and sounds for the SMPTE count down leader, distributor headers, and such. last_shot_number...= For Short 999 or for Long and Divided 99999999 for linking all of the audio shots into a track, no mater what the current number of shots is. If you enter a particular number then WAV LINK will stop at that number unless that file is not found, or there is not a continuous set of files from the starting shot file to the last shot file. Using the maximum range frees you from counting the files total. You can use the start and last shot values to extract a range of shots. If you omit the head and tail padding and tones and marks you can then treat the extracted section as a shot file, something you might want to do if you wish to take all of the audio from each reel's track and make a continuous track for the whole film, so you can watch the film by playing digital sound without reel changes. samples_rate.......= This must be equal to the samples per second for the result joined WAV file. This does not resample the WAV data in the initial release, it just tells the WAV player at what speed the WAV data should be played. This would always be the same as the sample rate of the WAV file that was chopped with WAV FRAMIZE Mode 1 unless you want to make a half speed result WAV file for recording the Optical sound track on film at half speed for better high frequency response and more exposure for a given light valve lamp current. You might want to run the Optical sound on film recorder at half speed, or less, to record directly on the print stock (print stock has a lower film speed than sound recording film), i.e. electro-print the sound. If you play the edited WAV at speeds slower than normal the low frequency output of the Sound Board or CD player may need to be equalized since 20Hz would then be 10Hz or less. You need to manually enter the sample rate because the RAW wave frame chunks are not saved in any particular sample rate, just a sample length, so to make a WAV file of the right sample rate you need to enter that rate with this value, which would normally be 48000. If you want to play a CD-R of your sound track into your Optical sound recorder, you can use your WAV editing program to make a "high quality" resample of the 48000 sample per second WAV file into a 44100 sample per second WAV file that can be played from an audio CD player, but it might be better to play the 48000 sample per second computer WAV file directly from the Sound Board or other audio PCM device. blop_samples.......= When sound from different shots gets joined there can be a click or pop in the playback. To reduce or eliminate such pops and clicks the blop_samples value sets the length of a quick fade out and fade in of the audio at each splice point. Blopping was done with a blop punch or blopping ink on optical tracks, the size of the blop was about a quarter of an inch, or a eighth of an inch on each side of the splice. Since at 48000 samples per second and 24 frames per second 500 samples would be one quarter of a frame, you would enter 250 here because there is a fade out of 250 samples at the end of a shot and a fade in of 250 samples on the next shot, totaling 500 samples. At a sample rate of 96000 samples per second you would enter 500 here, and at a sample rate of 88200 you would enter 458. Longer values may make a noticeable "woop" sound at the cuts, but you can experiment and see what you think sounds best for what you are doing. The value should be 3 or more for anything useful to start to happen. Entering 0 disables the blopping for the most part. pad_head_samples...= This puts silence at the head of the audio track, normally at least one second for the sound board to stabilize, the optical recorder to get up to speed, and such, i.e. a preset run-up time. The time is figured in samples so that there are not rounding problems, if your sample rate is 48000 then 48000 samples entered here should give you one second of silence, 480000 ten seconds, and so on. If you are using 96000 samples per second the idea is the same, just double the values. halfheadmarksamples= The head marker is a square wave that has a sharp edge and can be set to as little as one sample. This is used for two purposes primarily, the first is to have a clear mark for the head (and tail with the tail marker) to align the various tracks in audio mixing software, you can see the tracks and the sample count in the wave form display of such programs and align the tracks left and right by adding or subtracting samples to the head silence to get the tracks lined up vertically so the start (and end) markers are on the same sample number. Another use of the head marker is to trigger the start of a device playing the picture frames, this could be a VCR, computer, or Movie projector with a AC sync motor, synchro, or stepper motor. Since some audio sound boards are AC coupled and do not put out DC audio signals the maximum length of the square wave is limited by the low frequency response of the PCM WAV player and audio circuits. Generally, half a frame is the longest the square wave can be held, so the number of samples used here would be equal to about a half of a frame, or 1000 samples for 48000 samples per second and 2000 samples for 96000 samples per second. This value is for one half of the square wave sample, the total time encoded into the result WAV file is twice the value entered, i.e. 2000 samples for the positive part of the wave and 2000 samples for the negative part of the square wave. If you do not want a head marker enter 0 here. pad_gap1_samples...= This lets you put some space between the marker pulse and the head beep. If you want the beep to start at the beginning of an audio frame you should make the sample amounts for the pad gaps, marker, and beep to come out to multiples of the samples in an audio frame. If you want the marker and beep to start at the beginning of seconds from the WAV play start you should subtract the samples in the marker from the gap that follows, and from the beep and the gap that follows. If the marker is 2000 samples wide and you want the start of the marker one second before the start of the beep, and you are using 48000 samples per second then you would enter 46000 (48000- 2000=46000). If you do not want a gap here enter 0 samples. headbeephalfsamples= This sets the frequency of the beep sine wave, the frequency can be an integer value related to the sample rate. At one sample per half wave and 48000 samples per second you would get 24000 Hz, two samples per half wave gives 12000 Hz, three samples per half wave gives 8000 Hz, 24 samples per half wave gives 1000 Hz. Since 48 does not divide into 2000 samples without a remainder, to have the number of 1000 Hz cycles come out to be an whole frame, you can enter 25 samples per half wave which gives 960 Hz. If you really need the beep to be 1000 Hz you can have the beep end a little short of one frame by using 41 full cycles, and increasing the gap that follows by 32 samples. head_beep_cycles...= This sets the number of full cycles of the head beep to be generated. If you make the number of cycles a large number you can generate 50 Hz or 60 Hz pilot tone sync locked to the sample count and therefore the exact audio frame boundaries. Normally you would enter a number of cycles to be equal to an audio frame or the nearest whole number of cycles just short of an audio frame (and fill in the different with samples from the next gap.). If you use 24 samples per half cycle, you would enter 41 cycles here and add 32 samples to the next pad, or enter 25 samples per half cycle and 40 cycles for a beep that comes out one frame long. Since you can generate tones to a WAV file with this option, by setting the gaps and markers to be empty, and loading an empty (or one sample of silence) source WAV file you might be able to build up a frequency sweep. pad_gap2_samples...= This puts some silence between the beep and the start of the source WAV file set of audio shots that make up the track. If the sample rate is 48000 you can subtract the sample length of the beep from 48000 to get one second from the start of the beep to the start of the first WAV file audio shot. If the beep half cycles are 24 (for 1000 Hz) and you make 41 cycles that makes 1968 samples of beep (24*2*41=1968), so 48000-1968=46032 of gap. If you start the audio WAV file shot numbers in negative values you can insert more sounds before the start of the track after this gap. If you do not want this gap enter 0 samples. pad_gap3_samples...= This is a gap of silence after the last WAV audio shot file linked into the track. You can adjust the length of this gap to have the tail beep start on a whole audio frame boundary. If you do not want this gap enter 0 samples. tailbeephalfsample.= This works like the head beep samples per half cycle and can be used for an edit or printing sync marker. You can make a different tone from the head beep, no tail beep, or the same as the head beep. In Mode 2 this controls the start of shot beeps also. tail_beep_cycles...= This works like the head beep full cycles count. Only whole numbers of cycles are supported in the initial release, so only some values come out to a full audio frame size. You can enter 0 here if you do not want any beep at the tail. pad_gap4_samples...= This puts a gap between the tail beep and the tail marker. If the tail beep is less that a full audio frame in length you should make up the difference with this gap. If you do not want a gap you can enter 0 here. halftailmarksamples= This sets the pulse width for the tail marker, generally half a frame in samples, e.g. 1000 samples. If you do not want a tail marker you should enter 0 here. pad_tail_samples...= This gives some run out at the end of the track after the tail marker and can be adjusted over a wide range. You should generally make all tracks that will be mixed the same length so that they can be mixed or made into Stereo or Multi-track WAV files. Here is an example macro using the WAV LINK Mode 1: VERSION v3.7N WAV LINK 1 L WAVLINK\3.WAV U NEWOUT1.WAV 3 99999999 48000 250 48000 1000 46000 24 41 46032 46000 24 41 46032 1000 48000 { End WAV LINK blop mode 1 } Values used for WAV LINK Mode 2 (beeps) are: WAV LINK 2 IN_LSD_type IN_name OUT_LSD_type OUT_name first_shot_number last_shot_number sample_rate blop_samples pad_head_samples half_head_marker_samples pad_gap1_samples head_beep_half_samples head_beep_cycles pad_gap2_samples pad_gap3_samples shot_&_tail_beep_half_samples shot_&_tail_beep_cycles pad_gap4_samples half_tail_marker_samples pad_tail_samples WHERE: IN_file_set_type....= L S D for Long Short or Divided Long = C:\SUB\1.RAW to C:\SUB\65534.RAW Short = C:\SUB\MYXXXRAW.1 to C:\SUB\MYXXXRAW.999 Divided = C:\RAW0\1.RAW to C:\RAW511\999.RAW IN_filename........= For Long and Short the name entered is the same as what the file is saved like, but for Divided type you enter the Long style name and the program splits the Long number and makes the sub-directories OUT_file_set_type..= U (unit file, not a set), just one 16 Bit Mono WAV OUT_filename.......= *.WAV 16 Bit Mono WAV, 48000 samples/second normally. When saving the output WAV files for each track, cut to the reel length you should number the WAV track files consecutively so that they be mixed in order. first_shot_number..= 0 or 1 for the full range, you can enter negative values of down to -99 for Short shot sets or or down to -9999999 for Long or Divided shot sets in order to add extra audio "shots" before the actual track shots start at shot 0 or 1, see the description above for WAV LINK Mode 1. last_shot_number...= For Short 999 or for Long and Divided 99999999 for linking all of the audio shots into a track, no matter what the current number of shots is. If you enter a particular number then WAV LINK will stop at that number unless that file is not found, or there is not a continuous set of files from the starting shot file to the last shot file. See the description above for WAV LINK Mode 1. samples_rate.......= This must be equal to the samples per second for the result joined WAV file. This does not resample the WAV data in the initial release, it just tells the WAV player at what speed the WAV data should be played. See the description above for WAV LINK Mode 1. blop_samples.......= When sound from different shots gets joined there can be a click or pop in the playback. To reduce or eliminate such pops and clicks the blop_samples value sets the length of a quick fade out and fade in of the audio at each splice point. Typically 250 samples here. In WAV LINK Mode 2 the start of each WAV audio shot is not blopped like in Mode 1, rather a beep is overwritten to mark the start of a new shot after a cut. The sound values for the start of a shot beep are controlled by the tail beep samples per half cycle and tail full cycles to generate. If you do not want the tail of the shots blopped enter 0 here. pad_head_samples...= This puts silence at the head of the audio track. See the description above for WAV LINK Mode 1. halfheadmarksamples= The head marker is a square wave that has a sharp edge and can be set to as little as one sample. See the description above for WAV LINK Mode 1. wave. If you do not want a head marker enter 0 here. pad_gap1_samples...= This lets you put some space between the marker pulse and the head beep. See the description above for WAV LINK Mode 1. If you do not want a gap here enter 0 samples. headbeephalfsamples= This sets the frequency of the head beep sine wave. The difference between WAV LINK Mode 1 and Mode 2 is that Mode 2 uses the tail beep half samples and beep cycles to control a beep at the start of each shot, that is each cut between shots. The head beep values work as in Mode 1 which you can read more about above. head_beep_cycles...= This sets the number of full cycles of the head beep to be generated. The head beep cycles in WAV LINK Mode 2 works the same as in Mode 1 which you can read more about above. pad_gap2_samples...= This puts some silence between the beep and the start of the source WAV file set of audio shots that make up the track. See the description of WAV LINK Mode 1 above. pad_gap3_samples...= This is a gap of silence after the last WAV audio shot file linked into the track. See the description of WAV LINK Mode 1 above. tailbeephalfsample.= The tail beep half samples controls the frequency of both the tail beep and the beeps that overwrite the start of each shot. Normally you would make the beep around 1000 Hz and have it last about one frame. The tail beep half sample and the tail beep cycles are the values that are different between WAV LINK Mode 1 and Mode 2. The blop samples does not affect the beep at the start of each shot in Mode 2, but does still affect the tail of each shot (and the head is the blop fade is longer than the beeps. The value entered here is half the samples for a full sine wave, so to get the duration of the beep you need to multiply the half beep wave samples times two times the number of beep cycles. See the description of the head and tail beep values above, and for Mode 1. tail_beep_cycles...= In WAV LINK Mode 2 this controls the duration of both the tail beep and the beeps put over the head of each shot. Normally this would be adjusted to give a beep of one frame's length. See the description of the head and tail beeps above, and for Mode 1. pad_gap4_samples...= This puts a gap between the tail beep and the tail marker. See the description for Mode 1 above. halftailmarksamples= This sets the pulse width for the tail marker, generally half a frame in samples, e.g. 1000 samples. The pulse made will be twice the width as the value entered since a cycle has two halves. If you do not want a tail marker you should enter 0 here. pad_tail_samples...= This gives some run out at the end of the track after the tail marker and can be adjusted over a wide range. You should generally make all tracks that will be mixed the same length. Here is an example macro using the WAV LINK Mode 2: VERSION v3.7N WAV LINK 2 L H:\DC37J\WAVLINK\3.WAV U NEWOUT1.WAV 3 99999999 48000 250 48000 1000 46000 24 41 46032 46000 24 41 46032 1000 48000 { End WAV LINK beep mode 2 } The ANIMATE command has been revised to include some new features. These new features are invoked by replacing the filename for the frame set with the keyword XMODES, so XMODES is not valid as the name of a frame file set. The XMODES keywords stands for extended modes, meaning enhanced capabilities. The principle changes are the ability to display animations that run continuously for more than an hour, and the ability to select a range of frames rather than always starting from frame numbered 1. The frame number range has also been altered to allow displaying frames with negative numbers, and to display frame 0, so that frames before the camera slate is clapped can be displayed, and such. Although not a change directly to the ANIMATE command the new P256 palette for the 8 bpp modes makes the V320P256 Pixel frame files useful with the ANIMATE command for viewing digitized images such as cine or video frames. Values used for ANIMATE XMODES Mode 1 are: ANIMATE XMODES 1 file_set_type delay_ms start_frame last_frame filename WHERE: file_set_type......= L S D for Long, Short, or Divided Long = C:\SUB\1.RAW to C:\SUB\65534.RAW Short = C:\SUB\MYXXXRAW.1 to C:\SUB\MYXXXRAW.999 Divided = C:\RAW0\1.RAW to C:\RAW511\999.RAW delay_ms...........= This sets the delay between loading the Pixel files, and is always less than the frame duration set by the frame rate. Values between 0 and 40 can be used to display the V320P256 frames at rates around 24 frames per second on fast computers with the right OS. How fast larger Pixel files can be displayed depends on how fast your computer is and how much data it can move for a long time. Short frame sets can be played out of the harddisk's buffer and so give a misleading impression that the harddisk can play frames at high frame rates. When you try to display large frame sets the harddisk will slow down after all the frames have been read out of its buffer (when ANIMATE loops short frame sets the second read is done from the harddisk's buffer rather than from the disk.) The ANIMATE command can be used to bench mark various computer's performance. start_frame_number.= 0 or 1 for the full range, normally the clapper board slate slap frame, or some other number to show a range of Pixel frames from a set. Negative numbers are allowed so that Pixel frames before the clapper board slate slap frame can be displayed, the clapper frame would normally be frame 0 for each shot or take. last_frame_number..= For Short 999 or for Long and Divided 99999999 for the full length of the Pixel file set, or the last frame number of Pixel image frames you wish to view from the Pixel frame set. frames_filename....= This is a set of DANCAD3D (tm) Pixel files that are numbered according to the file set type selected, i.e. Short, Long, or Divided. The Divided type may be required to display animations that are longer than a few minutes at 24 frames per second, but how much the Long type slows down can depend on where you save the Pixel files, i.e. root directory or in a sub-directory, and the OS used, as the speed files can be read can vary greatly when different OS are used. A very fast computer, 2.8GHz, a fast 7200RPM harddisk with an 8MB buffer, and Windows 98SE (tm), may be required to display very long file sets at or near 24 frames per second. For Long and Short the name entered is the same as what the file is saved like, but for Divided type you enter the Long style name and the program splits the Long number and makes the sub- directories. Here is an example macro using the ANIMATE XMODES Mode 1: VERSION v3.7N GRAPH_MODE V320P256 ANIMATE XMODES 1 D 38 0 99999999 C:\1.PIX TEXT_MODE The old ANIMATE macro command format is still supported in v3.7N, but the automatic output macro command now codes the ANIMATE command into the output macro files using the new XMODES formatting of the macro values. The Macro GRAPH_MODE command has be updated to support a new P256 palette for the 8 bpp video modes. The P256 palette is better for displaying color photos and movie and video frame images in the 8 bpp video modes. For displaying black and white photos and movie and video images in the 8 bpp video modes you should still use the M256 video mode since it requires less dithering and the black and white images will be more neutral color and less grainy. The P256 palette is not intended for use as a drawing palette, but the drawing commands should operate, so you can use the macro DISPLAY command to draw over photo images loaded using the P256 palette 8 bpp video modes, such as V320P256 or S640P256. All the current 8 bpp video modes support the P256 palette keywords, i.e. V320P256, S640P256, S800P256, S1024P256, S1280P256, S1600P256, S1920P256, and S2048P256. The main reason for using the 8 bpp video modes is for speed in loading the Pixel files during animation. Another reason would be if your video board or monitor only support the 8 bpp video modes at some resolution. Another reason might be to conserve disk space for large Pixel frame file sets, the 8 bpp files are smaller than the 15, 16, 24, or 32 bpp files. For displaying single frames of photos and movie or video frame images the 15, 16, 24, and 32 bpp VESA video modes will give much better images. Do not try to use the C256 palette for converting photo images to Pixel files, the C256 palette is intended just for computer graphics generated with the DISPLAY command or the Main Menu Preview command. Here is an example macro using the GRAPH_MODE P256 palette and LOAD BMP: VERSION v3.7N GRAPH_MODE V320P256 LOAD BMP 48 320X200.BMP LOCATE 1 1 OUTPUT$ "Press [RETURN]." WAIT SAVE PIXEL 320X200.PIX TEXT_MODE In the above example the file 320X200.BMP is a color 24 bpp BMP type file edited to be exactly 320 pixels wide by 200 pixels high. The dithering is set to the high value of 48 to compensate for the low bit count of 3 bpp red, 3 bpp green, and 2 bpp blue in the 8 bits per pixel used in the P256 palette. See Appendix: B for more information about GRAPH_MODE command. The macro LOAD BMP command has been modified to be able to convert 24 bpp BMP files into palettes that can be displayed in the 8 bpp and 4 bpp video modes and saved to 8 bpp and 4 bpp Pixel files. This supplements the conversion of 8 bpp pixel files, and can give slightly better results since the dithering is done directly from a 24 bpp image rather than converting an already limited 8 bpp palette BMP image. The video modes using the M16, M256, and P256 palettes are supported for use with 24 bpp BMP files and the LOAD BMP command. The video modes using the C16 and C256 palettes are not currently supported for use with the LOAD BMP command and 24 bpp BMP files since those palettes do not have enough colors to make such a conversion useful, they can be used with 8 bpp BMP files if you need to use them. See the example above showing the use of the LOAD BMP command with the new P256 palette and a 24 bpp color image file. See Appendix: B for more information about LOAD BMP command. Note that the numerical value used with the LOAD BMP command controls both the palette conversion mode for 8 bpp BMP files, 0=none or 1=convert, and the dithering when converting from 24 bpp BMP files, so be sure that your BMP file is the right type for the use of this value, as the program reacts differently to BMP 8 bpp and BMP 24 bpp BMP image files. A new macro command DIVIDED_NAME has been added so that filenames of the divided type can be generated automatically. The DIVIDED_NAME macro command also takes on the task of automatically creating the needed numbered sub- directories used in the divided filename system. The DIVIDED_NAME macro command works like the NAME and LONG_NAME macro commands, with the addition of some additional functions, the UNHERE, UNNEXT, and UNINPUT values. The DIVIDED_NAME macro command excepts filenames for file sets in the LONG_NAME format and converts them into the divided name format. Some commands, such as ANIMATE, may already do this conversion themselves so for those commands you would need to pass the name of a divided file name set as long type, this is were you would use the UNHERE, UNNEXT, UNINPUT commands. For the other commands that do not format filenames into divided type themselves, such as LOAD PIXEL, you would use the HERE, NEXT, and INPUT values to have DIVIDED_NAME pass the numbered filename in divided name format. See Appendix: B for more information about the NAME and LONG_NAME macro commands. Values used for DIVIDED_NAME are: DIVIDED_NAME i = long_name n WHERE: i.........= Index of name variable, 0 to 15 (up to 16 names at one time). long_name.= Filename in Long format, C:\SUB\1.EXT to C:\SUB\99999999.EXT n.........= Starting file number, -9999999 to 99999999 DIVIDED_NAME i INPUT This returns the filename formatted for Divided type. The filename would be entered in Long format, this converts the filename. DIVIDED_NAME i UNINPUT This returns the filename formatted as entered in Long format. DIVIDED_NAME i HERE This returns the current filename count for index i in Divided format. DIVIDED_NAME i UNHERE This returns the current filename count for index i in Long format. DIVIDED_NAME i NEXT This returns the next filename count for index i in Divided format. This advances the current file number count automatically so that when used in a loop or list the next file in the set is automatically loaded or saved. DIVIDED_NAME i UNNEXT This returns the next filename count for index i in Long format. This is the same as NEXT except for the output formatting. You can mix the UN and regular option values in the same macro, they both affect the current filename at the DIVIDED_NAME selected index. The names held in the LONG_NAME and NAME commands are separate. DIVIDED_NAME i + step DIVIDED_NAME 1 - step WHERE: step......= The integer amount want the filename's number to change by, this can range from 1 to 109999998, but should only be used to produce a number that is within the valid range of filenames that can be saved in the DIVIDED_NAME format. A new file loading macro command has been added to the LOAD OBSOLETE group, the LOAD OBSOLETE OUT macro command. This command loads a plotter data file made using the DANPLOT.PLT (tm) plotter driver in DANCAD3D (tm) into the drawing workspace as a drawing element. This command has three options, to check the first line of the *.OUT file to see if it caries the proper signature, to ignore the first line's values, and to include the first lines values (which would only be used if the first line was missing or the file was non-standard.) Because the *.OUT files only have integer values, the plotted drawing is scaled to make large values to reduce rounding errors. You would probably only need to use this command if you have lost your drawing files for a drawing but still have the *.OUT file plotted for use with DANPLOT.COM (tm). The format of the *.OUT file is four numbers on each line of text with: -1E35 1 0 0 on the first line, and the other lines having numbers for the x1 y1 x2 y2 of line segments. The file ends when there is an I/O Error because the end of the file was reached or the data was bad. Each line must have four numbers, if one number is missing the data from that point may be read wrong. There is no provision for setting the line color or other line attributes in the *.OUT format as made by the DANPLOT.PLT (tm) plotter driver. Values used for LOAD OBSOLETE OUT macro command are: LOAD OBSOLETE OUT modecode Xscale Yscale WHERE: modecode..= 1, Check first line for valid signature 2, Do not check first line, read it and ignore the values 3, Read the first line as data and make a line segment Xscale....= Adjust the size of the lines in the X axis. Negative values can be used flip the X axis. The normal value would be 1 or 0.0001, do not enter values near zero. Yscale....= Adjust the size of the lines in the Y axis. Negative values can be used to flip the Y axis. The normal value would be 1 or 0.0001, do not enter values near zero. The Y axis is flipped normally so that the plotter data in the *.OUT file will show up right side up in the Drawing Editor, and such, so you need to flip it again of you want the sign of the point values the same as in the *.OUT file. Here is an example macro using the LOAD OBSOLETE OUT command: VERSION v3.7N INITIALIZE LOAD OBSOLETE OUT 1 0.0001 0.0001 DPLOT.OUT # 1 LINETYPE 15 1 0 0 LOAD OBSOLETE OUT 2 0.0001 0.0001 DPLOT.OUT # 2 LINETYPE 4 1 0 0 LOAD OBSOLETE OUT 3 1 1 SOMEFILE.TXT ; needs to have valid formatted data # 3 LINETYPE 14 5 0 0 Please see Appendix: B for more information about the related macro commands. Program specifications are subject to change without notice, and various aspects of the programs are in flux, so please report any issues that may turn up. PRELIMINARY NOTES ABOUT REVISIONS TO v3.7N NOVEMBER 25, 2006 The notes about the changes to v3.7N are very preliminary and may not reflect actual functionality in the programs as distributed. You should contact the Author regarding and discrepancies between what is described and what the programs are actually doing. Since these portions of the program have not been formally defined and are undergoing development and change future revisions may vary from what is described, and you may need to re-enter data or otherwise manually correct data sets used between various revisions and versions. In some cases transporting data between revisions or versions may not be possible. Always keep a backup copy of all important files and data, including written records of data you enter manually. Several new commands have been added to the menus in the File Utilities sub- menus of the CAD programs. These new commands are related to using the CAD programs to edit and output "Digital Cinema" and High Definition Video. The WAV FRAMIZE command was revised to speed up the Linking of the WAV track mix that produces a mixed sound track to go with the edited frames made using the Kinema Edit List command. The Files Utilities Set commands are used to rename and manage numbered sets of files, and in particular sets of image and audio frame files associated with the use of the Kinema Structure and Kinema Edit list commands. The WAV CHANNELIZE command has been added to allow the making of and breaking of multi channel WAV files. It would mostly be of use joining two monophonic WAV files into a Stereo WAV file, or dividing a Stereo WAV file into two monophonic WAV files. However if you have a WAV player that can play four, six, or more track WAV files you can make those also. A Mode 3 has been added to the ANIMATE command to allow it to display frames listed in the PFL and PFF files generated by the Kinema Edit list's Link command. This is about the same as the Kinema Edit list's View command, but ANIMATE can be operated from its menu and from a Macro. The Files Utilities Kinema Edit list command has been introduced as a universal frame based video and motion picture editing tool with automatic sound track mixing. See below for more information. The right arrow and left arrow keys now work like [F] and [R] to single step the ANIMATE command forward and reverse, if you hold them down the frames run at the keyboards keymatic rate, you can change the keymatic rate in your BIOS setup usually, so you should set the keymatic rate to its fastest speed, 50 ms corresponds to about 20 fps. --- OVERVIEW OF THEN KINEMA EDIT LIST My CAD programs have worked with image frames from the beginning. It has always been possible to write a Macro file to edit, organize, and display Pixel image frames. With the introduction of the LOAD BMP command it became possible to convert BMP image files into Pixel files for display in the Animate command. With the introduction of the WAV FRAMIZE and WAV LINK commands it became possible to also edit, organize, and combine audio frame files into a finished audio track. Recent revisions to the Animate command allow for synchronized viewing of image frames with accompanying audio frames combined into a WAV file and played from a WAV player on a second computer and synchronized using SMPTE LTC in master or slave mode. To simplify and enhance these useful capabilities of the CAD programs the Files Utilities Kinema Edit list command automates many of the operations required to use the other commands increasing their utility in the production of an editing project and in particular in the production of feature motion pictures to serve as a work-printing, editing viewer, interlock "projection," bookkeeping, sound mixing, and Cine Film Recorder automater. For work-printing reduced resolution Pixel files of the scanned film frames can be viewed at sound speed or single frame to inspect the quality of various takes. As an editing viewer you can select the cut points while you look at the individual frames and then run the shot at sync speed. To work as an interlock projector you can install load the WAV file for the shot into a WAV player that syncs to MTC (MIDI time code) and watch the shot with sync sound on the computer's screen with the View command or hook up a SVGA projector to your video board and watch the digital frames play in sync with the audio on a large screen (sync playback works with reduced resolution image frames, the sound can be full quality and multi channel). The bookkeeping aspect is that the Edit list and Track lists save the values for the editing and mixing so you do not need to pay particular attention to all the values each time you make a change to the editing or shot order, and the Edit list automatically re-computes the total running time for you. The sound mixing is done automatically by the Link command in the Kinema Edit list from the values you enter into the Utrack and Ltrack lists, built in digital peak limiting compressors work for you to avoid clipping distortion, and automatic noise gates can be used to reduce the build up of noise in the tracks as they are mixed, this is roughly equivalent to a film mixing studio running 512 magnetic film players in parallel with 512 noise gates and 32 compressor limiters (how many tracks you can get depends on how many large disks you can use to hold them, how long the tracks are, and how much silence there is in places on the tracks). The Link command can produce a CFL, Cine Frame List, file to operate DANCINEL.EXE v1.01 to directly expose your motion picture printing negative in your custom built Cine Film Recorder such that only the desired frames are exposed, are exposed in the edited order, and the printing negative is made without splices between each shot reducing the chance of damage, dust, scratches, and finger prints. The labor of negative cutting is also mostly eliminated. Enormous cost savings might be realized by using the Kinema Edit list to manage the digital intermediate editing and sound track mixing of your next feature film project, no work-print costs, no screening room costs, no mixing studio costs, no optical printing costs, no master positive film lab costs, no negative cutter costs, and greatly reduced supply costs such as less splicing tape, magnetic film, leader, markers, splicing cement, film cleaner and such. Although intended as a way to edit Digital frame images of Cine Film Frames scanned at high resolution far above what video can render, you can also use the Kinema Edit list as a way to edit de-compiled video frames extracted from video files such as AVI files extracted and de-compiled into BMP files. Once extracted the BMP files of frames can be processed in just about any image editing program to scale the frames up to 2048x1536 for output to Cine film at high resolution. Ideally a camcorder capable of true 24p output would work best, but a PAL camcorder running at 25 fps could be used if you adjust the audio WAV file to stretch it a bit so that the 25 fps frames will play in sync when run at 24 fps in the movie projector. NTSC video requires something called 2/3 pull down to convert from 30 fps to 24 fps which your de-compiler program may support, or you need to "skip" six frames per second, so PAL may look better on fast motion even if it is showing a little slow (just have the actors talk and move a little faster when you shoot PAL so that they come out right later). The Kinema Edit list command contains, organizes, and automates the operation of other commands in the CAD programs, and some specialized internal commands to make editing of feature motion pictures and mixing of their sound tracks semi-automatic. Three spread sheet like forms let you enter the edit points for the shot cuts, and the volume of each sound and what audio channel that sound should go to. There is a reduced resolution visual preview called the Pick command that can be used with or without sync sound playback to pick the starting and ending frames for each shot, the Pick command can operate at sync speed or single frame forward and reverse, it also automatically inserts the picked frame numbers into the Edit list for you. Shots can be moved around in the Edit list like you would mark and move text in a document. Once the shot's end points have been selected the Link command can generate a mixed sound track, and the PFL, PFF, and CFL frame lists so that the View command can be used to view the edited sequence with or without sync sound, and the full resolution frames can be output to film in your Cine Film Recorder by DANCINEL.EXE v1.01 (tm). The Aggregate command can be used to output copies of the edited image frames for merging with the edited sound track file to make an AVI file of the project by using a third party AVI compiler program. The full functionality of the Kinema Edit list can be used when you are going to work using a Digital Intermediate image frame set, or you can just use the Kinema Edit list as a sort of digital work print and a way to mix the finished sound track. If you are using it just as a work-print, you would need to take the values from the Edit list and transfer those to your negative cutter or optical printer operator. To prepare film for use with the Kinema Edit List you should punch a hole in the frame where the head slate clap is, and number the scanned image files of the frames such that the punched frame is numbered zero. If you need to optically print later, such as zero cut printing, the printer operator can zero the counters on his printer at each punched frame and thereby count to the first frame to print. Likewise you should trim the head of the WAV file for each shot so that the WAV file starts with the slate clap sound, and when you Framize the WAV into RAW audio frame files the sound of the head slate clap is in audio frame numbered zero as well. Since it is mostly impossible to display un-compressed 2048x1536x24 image files at 24 fps on the computer, the Pick and View commands need to work with reduced resolution files. Various resolutions of the same frame can be stored in the "I" level sub-directories in the "S" shot directories of the standard structure. The Standard directory structure must be made by the Kinema Structure command on all disk drives that will be used for the project. The structures all need to have the same project ID number to be used on the same project, and should all have the same range of directory values. Because the structure itself takes up disk space, you can select a range of directories that is less than the maximum, it you then find you need more range you can execute the Kinema Structure command again to enlarge the structure. The structure allows for the storage of mixed tracks for reels, reel zero is reserved for the edit encompassing the full length of the project. The mixed audio track WAV file or files is or are located in sub-directory "M" in the reel "R" sub-directory. The "C" sub-directory holds monophonic channel WAV files from the mix and allows you to play each channel separately if you need to hear what is going on in each channel. How many channels are created depends on the settings you make in the Edit list Global install setup command. There are two track lists accessed from within the Edit list, the Utrack list applies to sounds that fit between the cut points for each shot, and the Ltracks list applies to sounds that overlap cut points and run the length of the project. You press L and U in the track list to change between editing the Ltracks and Utracks. Some new commands and command options work with the Kinema Edit list enabling "double system" viewing and editing of digital image frames and digital audio frames that allows working in a manner similar to "interlock" projection of motion picture film and magnetic film sound. The individual audio tracks can be shifted relative to the picture frames in frame increments similar to moving the magnetic film track up or down one perforation. Because the moving pictures and sound are both divided into individual frame files there is a one to one correspondence of picture to audio frame files, and therefore the picture to audio sync is unambiguous. This system can work with image frames of many types and resolutions, although DANCINEL.EXE v1.01 is just set up to output 24bpp BMP image files up to 2048x1535x32 at the point this preliminary documentation is being written (DANCINEL.EXE v1.01 might theoretically output frame images up to 4096x3070x32 but you might have to have a custom VESA BIOS installed on the video board since I do not know of any boards that support that resolution in VBE2.0, nor do I know of any color or monochrome monitors that can be purchased easily that resolve that resolution, check later documentation for additional information on these issues.) Because image files represent each image frame you can derive the image frames in many ways: computer generated 2D and 3D image files, convert SD and HD video to individual image frame by using an AVI extractor, AVI de-compiler, or other program that opens a video file and turns it into individual numbered image frame files (BMP files would be desirable as the output converted from the AVI file, but image conversion programs could be used to convert JPG to BMP frames and such), the image frames can be photographed of processed Cine film using a high quality optical printer or Macro lens using a high megapixel Digital SLR one frame at a time, you can have your Cine film professionally scanned to frame files by a lab, or you can use a flat bed scanner to scan artwork or cut-outs that represent an animated frame sequence, and such. The Aggregate command can make a single numbered set of output frames that can be converted into an AVI file by using an AVI compiler or other program that can merge BMP image frame files and a WAV audio file into a single AVI or other video media file. Such a merged AVI file could then be converted into a MPG file with appropriate third party file conversion software. The audio frames are made by converting the recorded sync audio and other sounds from monophonic WAV files into RAW audio frame files by using the WAV FRAMIZE command. The sample resolution of the audio frames can be selected, but must be divisible without remainders by the frame rate, so 48000 samples per second is the usual choice for 24 frames per second. The number of output channels can be selected from 1 to 16 and can be made up of one multi channel file or a set of stereo and or mono files. To organize the image and audio frame files the "Kinema Structure" command has be created to produce a standard sub-directory set on each disk drive that will be used for a given project. Because of the large number of image and audio frame files you may need to distribute the frame files over several disk drives, but the same standard structure would be used on all of the disk drives so that the file names will be the same except for the drive letter of the disk drive the particular frame file is stored on. This allows you to move and organize the frame files and just change the drive letter in the Kinema Edit list command options to alter the frame's source drive. The commands in the Files Utilities Set sub-menu can be used to rename frame numbered files made with a Digital camera so that they are in my L, S, or D filename formats. In some cases you would need to use third party graphics programs to batch process and or re-size raw images files made by your Digital camera into BMP files which my programs can then read as frames. For the Animate command to be used from the Kinema Edit list's Pick and View commands the high resolution BMP frame files need to be copied and re-sized to the screen resolution. The EGA 640x350x4 monochrome mode seems to work best for the 24 fps display of 16x9 ratio images, so you would re-size copies of the high resolution images, 2048x1536x24, down to 640x350x8 so that those could be converted into my program's 640x350x4 Pixel files. When converting 24 bpp or 8 bpp BMP files into 4bpp Pixel files the dithering should be set fairly high, perhaps 32 or so which makes the individual frames look somewhat grainy, but when running at 24 fps gives a more continuous tone to the image tonal scale. The Kinema Edit list's Pick and View commands can display color images or higher resolutions, but the harddisk space used and the speed with which the frames can be loaded become problems, since color and resolution increase the size of the image frame files. Within the standard directory structure there are a set of levels of image resolution, i.e. I00, I01, I02, and so on, so you can have more than one resolution Pixel frames installed into the structure and change the global resolution to use in order to view the frames in different resolutions or color and mono. All shots should have Pixel frames of the same resolution installed though so that when View is used to look at the edited shots the video mode does not need to be reset between shots. The Files Utilities Kinema Edit list command is a master "spread sheet" motif control that allows you to select the edit points for the various shots that make up your project. Although the system is designed to work at 24, 25, and 30 fps, it is mainly intended to be used at 24 fps for output to a Cine Film Recorder using DANCINEL.EXE v1.01 (tm). Shots in the Edit list have two important properties, first is called the "shot number" which corresponds to the shot directory in the standard structure, the second is the "shot index" which corresponds to the order of the shot in the Edit list from top to bottom. The "shot number" can be the same as the "shot index" until you start moving shots around, then the shot numbers will be out of order, but the shot index is always in order. To see the shot number and shot index press [I] or [S] while in the shot list. If you press [F1] you can get a list of "blind" commands that can be pressed wile the Edit list is on screen. If you press [SpaceBar] while the Edit list is on screen you are brought to a sub-menu, in that sub- menu there are commands that affect the global operation of the Edit list commands, and commands that are automatically focused on the shot that was highlighted in the Edit list when you pressed the [SpaceBar]. In the menu you get when you press [SpaceBar] while in the Edit list the "Pick" command lets you watch the highlighted shot and select the head, key, and tail frames for that shot using the Animate command. The Animate command allows you to run at 24, 25, or 30 fps crystal sync, and to single frame step forward and backward. If you have a WAV file trimmed to match the image frames you can sync that WAV file to play by using the SMPTE Master mode in the Animate command. SMPTE sync generally requires some special hardware modules, and two computers, one for the sound and one for the picture. The other sync methods available in the Animate command can also be used, so you could burn the WAV into a CD and play that on a CD player and manually sync, but the SMPTE is better since the sync is automatic and you can start and stop and restart the viewing and the image and sound to automatically sync up. Since the SMPTE takes one or two seconds to sync there is a pre-run up value in the Global setup to have the SMPTE LTC start about two seconds before the head frame, so when play the shot you will hear the sound start while the first frame is in freeze frame then the shot will run until the tail frame goes into freeze, which the sound may overrun a little since the WAV player and SMPTE LTC to MTC converter module "coast" a little to tolerate dropouts in the LTC signal. When you view the edited shots linked together the sound should cut appropriately at the shot transitions except for occasional delays in the image frames caused by the harddisk getting a little behind from time to time, which is why you want the sound playing on another computer since the image frame computer is struggling to keep up with the vast amount of data being moved at 24 fps. Another important command in the Edit list sub-menu is the "Track list" command, this lets you adjust the audio values for the audio tracks associated with each shot, and with the audio tracks associated with the edited running length. When you first select the "Track list" it opens with the Utracks associated with the shot that was highlighted in the Edit list. If you want to adjust the Ltracks for the project's full length tracks you need to open the Track list for any shot then press [L] on the keyboard. Each shot can have up to 256 audio tracks, Utracks, and the project as a whole can have up to 256 Ltracks, so at any given moment in the audio mix you can have 512 tracks mixed, and for the project structure you can have (10000 * 256) + 256 audio tracks, since there are a maximum of 10000 shots each with up to 256 Utracks, and the additional 256 full project length Ltracks. You will probably not have enough disk space to use the full capacity for all shots, but some shots may use much of the capacity. The program automatically deletes audio frames that contain only silence when you use the Link command to make the audio mix, so that can reduce the amount of disk space required by quite a bit. To ensure that the automatic silent frame removal works you need to silence unused portions of the source WAV files before you convert them into audio frames with the WAV FRAMIZE command by using third party WAV editing software, i.e. mark the parts of the wave form that can be silenced and use the wave editor programs commands to set all the samples in that portion to equal zero. The Mix works with 16 bit resolution audio frames only currently because disk space is limited and increasing the bit resolution would not produce much is any noticeable audio benefit in the theater, especially if you are going to make a 35mm optical track. The sample rate can be selected, but 48000 would normally be used for 24 fps work. If disk space is tight you might use a sample rate of 24000 since for making an optical track the difference would be slight, many optical tracks roll off at about 9000 cycles per second. Using a lower sample rate can speed up the Link command, so you might use 24000 audio frames while working on the Editing and switch to 48000 sample per second audio frames to do the final mix. You can tell if you are adjusting the Ltracks or Utracks by looking at the top of the Track List, Ltrack means "Locked" audio track, this relates to the fact that you cannot add full length audio that crosses shot edits until after you "Lock" the shot edits and will no longer be making changes to the edit points, the Utracks are "Unlocked" audio tracks that are associated with each particular shot and the sound does not run across shot cuts, Unlocked Utracks are worked with before the picture "Lock" has been made, and can also be further adjusted after the picture "Lock" has been made to adjust the combination of the Utracks and Ltracks. The Link command has noise gates for each track to silence some of the hiss and noise that would build up when 512 tracks are mixed together. The Link command also has peak limiting compressors on the mix channels to help reduce or prevent much of the clipping distortion that would result when many tracks are mixed together and add up to more than 0db VU. You can intentionally use the peak limiting compressor to push background sounds down by stetting the gain for the dialog and other important tracks higher than the background sounds then setting the compression gain higher than 1 so that that the gain automatically rides up when the important sounds are not there, and down when the important sounds are there, so that the important sounds will dominate automatically. Sudden loud sounds may clip a little if the compression comes into play, to avoid that you can do a short fade in on sounds when you edit the source WAV files. If you do not want compression, just keep the total gain for all of the tracks at any given moment along the mix low enough that you do not over gain the mixed tracks. The Link command can therefore automatically mix the finished audio track based on the values you enter in the Utrack and Ltrack track lists. Each track has a pull up or pull down frames value to get better sync, a noise gate threshold, and a gain for the amount of that track you want to go out to a particular channel. If you put each sound effect or other audio element on a separate track you can use the track to channel gain values to adjust the individual elements, otherwise you can edit the track source WAV file in your WAV editing software and re-Framize the audio frames for that track. You can select an audio priority for each track such that when you do the mix only some tracks are used, in this way if you have organized the track priority values properly you can generate mixed tracks that only have dialog, or only sound effects, or only music, which a distributor may need if you are going to make versions in different languages. Since you can select the track to channel values, you can have tracks with more than one language going to different channels in the mix, then use those different channels to make prints with mixed tracks in different languages, i.e. 16 language mono channels, 8 language stereo tracks, and so on, in one pass through the Link command. The Link command in the Edit list sub-menu makes three things, first it is used to make a mixed audio track for the current shot end points in the edit list, second it makes the *.PFL and *.PFF files that the Animate command needs to use in order for the Edit list View command to display the current edited shots with the shots trimmed to the selected length, and it makes the *.CFL file for DANCINEL.EXE v1.01 (tm) to expose only the selected frames to make an edited movie project in your Cine Film Recorder. PFL stands for Pixel Frame List, it has an associated PFF file that needs to be in the same directory in order for Animate to make use of the PFL file. CFL stands for Cine Frame List which is an ASCII file name list with the full filename of the high resolution frames, which is meant to be read by DANCINEL.EXE v1.01 (tm), but could be read by some other custom written program if you want to output to film on a laser scanner or some other device. Both the Edit list and the Utrack and Ltrack lists have a Mnemonic command that lets you add a description of each shot and track so that when you scroll up and down on the lists you can see a reminder of what that track has in it. The CAD program's macro language, and in particular the FILES COPY, LOAD BMP, and SAVE PIXEL commands may be helpful in transferring Pixel frame image files into the standard structure for your film project. The macro WAV FRAMIZE command may also be more convenient to use than the menu equivalent since you can make a "script" to process many shots WAV files into audio frames automatically. The Aggregate command in the Edit list sub-menu has another file name format called type "P" for padded with leading zeros. This option was needed since if you want to output copies of the edit image frames to make an AVI file using a Windows (tm) program the Windows (tm) program may sort the frame numbers out of sequence without the leading zeros. So numbered filename format "P" is like "L" but with leading zeros, which introduces a problem if you want to Aggregate a complete 88 minute film project, since limitations in some Windows (tm) versions may limit the maximum number of files in a single sub-directory to a number less that what is required. To get around the number of files issue, you can output each reel and make separate AVI files for each reel, then stitch the reel AVI files together with an AVI editing program, this works since the AVI files combine the frames into a single file, so there is no problem with the disk limits, unless the software you are working with is limited to an AVI of 2.1GB, in which case you might convert the AVI files to MPG and then stitch the MPG files together in an MPG editing program. The interest in making an AVI file is two fold, so you can watch the edited frames with sound in a media player program, and to make a high quality video file for burning a DVD version of your edited project. In the case of using a media player program, the resolution size for un-compressed AVI files limited since the media player program will choke if the resolution is too high and you will not get 24 fps playback. In the case of making a DVD since the AVI file processing is not locked to "real time" the compression of the AVI can probably be set to lower values before conversion to the format that DVD disks use. When the Aggregate command is just copying the frame files without conversion, you may be able to Aggregate frame files of a type other than BMP or Pixel, i.e. for a particular brand of film recorder or frame compiler, and still be able to use the Edit list for editing and audio mixing. If you are going to be going to or from video you may need to stretch or shorten the WAV files used to compensate for the fractional NTSC frame rates. The Edit list is designed to work at exactly 24, 25, or 30 fps. If you shoot video on NTSC equipment the audio length will be slightly off when you de- compile the video file to image frames, or compile the image frames to a video file. When going to or from video rates you need to adjust or re-sample the length of the WAV files. When shooting image frames with a video camcorder always use a clap board, just like when you would be shooting film, since the Edit list is a double system editor, and with out a start mark for both the image frames and audio frames you will waste a great deal of time adjusting the pull up and pull down for each shot. Audio can be recorded on any crystal controlled recorder, such as a minidisk (tm), PCM WAV recorder such as a laptop computer, or a color VCR such as a HI- FI stereo VHS recorder or camcorder. You should always use a clap board like in film work when shooting video so that you have a start frame on the audio that you can see in your WAV editor in order to trim the part of the WAV file in front of the clap before you Framize that shot's audio. When inserting image and audio frames into the standard structure you should number the clap frames frame number zero (0). Image and audio frames before frame zero are not relevant to the Edit list. You should avoid using only a tail slate clap since you then need to shift the clap frame to a number greater than zero, since the first numbered frame in the structure should be frame zero for both the image and audio. If audio frames are missing from the structure the Link command inserts silence, i.e. samples with zero value. To avoid clicks you should edit the source WAV files to fade to silence, true sample value zero, before and after blank parts of the audio, i.e. there should not be a DC offset in the source WAV files since that would prevent "silent" frames from getting erased, what is being talked about here is that you should not manually erase any frames that have a DC offset, and or are part of audio sounds, or you will make clicks in the mixed audio. The Link command automatically "blops" the audio between Utrack shots, and at the start and end of the Ltracks, to avoid clicks. If you are going to Film-to-Film print rather than use a Cine Film Recorder to output your project the Edit list can still be useful since you can use it as a sort of digital work-print, since the edit list can give you end cut frames in order to zero cut on an optical printer, and it will mix your sound track without having to fuss with magnetic film editing. In the case of digital work-printing, you would hole punch the slate clap frame, like otherwise, and scan or shoot the film frames at a lower resolution such as 1024x768x24 or 640x480x8. The whole punch in the clap film frame and the clap sound on the audio track remove ambiguity about how to sync up the audio and picture later, and how to assign the zero numbered frame files. Here is an outline of the Kinema Edit list specifications (untested): 24, 25, or 30 frames per second. Up to 10000 shots numbered 0 to 9999 (films have about 700 to 1500). Up to 256 Utracks per Shot, 2560000 max. total (in theory). Up to 256 Ltacks per project (in theory). Up to 16 channel audio mix. Up to 8000 samples per audio frame, or 192000 samples per second. 16 bit audio with 48 or 64 bits used during mixing. Up to 512 noise gates. Up to 32 compressor limiters. SMPTE master or slave for audio playback while viewing. Up to 2048x1536 (or more?) 24bpp Cine Film Recorder output. Multiple drives C through Z to about 768Gb of files installed. Unlimited removable supported disks for high resolution image frames. Windows 98SE (tm) may be the preferred OS for the sync speed viewing. Even though the Pick and View commands are limited by the harddisk speed, the other aspects of this editing system should be satisfactory for good quality end results. The somewhat grainy 640x350x4 monochrome Pixel files used for the editing display don't look too bad when running, and can be helped by sharpening the same size BMP files used to make the Pixel files. This system is specifically intended for making feature films as a replacement for working directly with film work-prints and magnetic film sound tracks. Sound tracks used in feature films are mostly built up from specially recorded sound effects and not from sync audio recorded at the time of shooting. The main use of the sync sound is as an aid when re-recording the dialog during post production so that you can remember exactly what the actor said, which may be different from what is in the script, and to help the actor perform the re-recorded dialog in order to get the pacing of the words to match their lips in the image frames. To help see if the lip sync is adequate you might make a separate set of Pixel files that have the high resolution frames cropped and re-sized such that the actors lips take up most of the pixel file frame, giving you a close up of the moving lips when the Pick or View commands are used, compensating for the limited resolution of the Pixel files that can run at 24 fps (due to harddisk speed limitations). There are Windows (tm) programs that can crop and re-size image files as a batch job, and you can write a macro to convert those cropped and re-sized BMP files to Pixel frame files for the Pick and View commands to load. Before you get too excited about going to Digital Intermediate you should consider some of the issues regarding image and audio storage. The Pixel files for an 88 minute feature will take up about 115000*(88*60*24)=15GB, so that seems manageable if you have less than a 4:1 ratio of files that need to be randomly accessible, i.e. 64GB of Pixel files on four drives. The audio at 48000 samples per second for 24 tracks add up to about (8192*(88*60*24))*24=25GB, so that also seems manageable if you put the audio on another drive. The 2000 sample 16 bit audio frames use 8192 bytes rather then 4400 because of how the OS works. If you sampled the audio at 24000 and reduce the number of tracks and delete most unused Pixel image frames you might fit what is needed for editing on a single 32GB drive. The output resolution and raw scanned images are another story! Each BMP output frame at 2048x1536 24bpp comes out to about 9.5MB, so you would need to store the output resolution frames on removable disks that can be swapped in and out. The total storage just for the output frames would come to about 9.5MB*(88*60*24)=1204GB, so if you use DVDs to store the frames you might need about 2000 to 3000 disks to hold the raw and processed high resolution frames. When you count in color separations, mates, and other elements you can get a very large number of image file disks to manage. Compressing the output resolution files is not a good idea since 2048x1536 is barely adequate for Cinema projection un-compressed. So that gets you back to thinking that maybe Film-to-Film printing is not so bad, except for the dust and scratches? One answer might be to erase some of the intermediate or raw files rather than keeping all of them, you will have to sit down and think about these issues and work up relative cost estimates. Another idea is to just edit one 2000 foot reel at a time, or just edit the film in 400 foot sections and mechanically splice the 400 foot rolls together after they are output on the Cine Film Recorder. Another serious issue is the time involved. If scanning each frame with a digital camera takes 10 seconds and you have a 4:1 ratio, you get ((4*10)*(88*60*24))/(60*60*24) = 58 days. If it took 100 seconds to scan each frame, making 9 separations of each frame, you would be looking at 1.6 years! The same idea can be used to figure the output speed, getting 10 seconds per frame at the output end is almost impossible when shooting of the monitor using print stock, you might be able to get it with medium speed camera film if you use a f/1.4 lens on the camera, but a f/1.4 lens is not sharp, so if you stop the lens down to f/2.8 you have to increase the exposure to 40 seconds and it would take about 58 days to output to the printing negative. A very serious issue relating to such long time periods is that the line voltage fluctuates so much relative to the frame rate that you can get disastrous flicker in the prints struck from the negative made from the scanned image files. Even if you use very good DC regulated power supplies to operate inverters to power the AC equipment there will still be issues of equipment aging during the long periods of time involved, because you are basically making a time lapse movie of line voltage variations and equipment aging. Optical printers for printing motion picture film might be run at 4 to 8 frames per second, not 1 or 2 frames per minute, so the flicker issues are not as great, but still present even at those speeds. Do some 35mm tests on movie film and take the tests to a real theater to see how they look in a real projection environment before you jump in the deep end and end up with an expensive mess. If you use Magix Music Studio 7 DeLuxe (tm) to play back the mixed WAV file for the project sound track only use the "Import Audio" command, not the other load commands, since the WAV file gets overwritten when you use the Link command in the Kinema Edit list which may confuse the other load WAV commands and cause the loaded WAV file to be disrupted, i.e. the WAV file name stays the same but the WAV file length changes when changes are made to the Edit list and you re- Link the audio mix WAV file. If you have problems loading a revised WAV mix file delete all the files in the "M" sub-directory in the structure that has the mixed track WAV file, i.e. 1.WAV, etc. Magix Music Studio 7 DeLuxe (tm) has playback options that work it SMPTE LTC converted to MTC to lock the sound playback in both Master and Slave modes when used with a module that can do both, such as a J.L. Cooper Electronics PPS-2 synchronizer (tm) with the Plus option (tm) chip upgrade installed. A telcom research T102 (tm) needs to be hooked up to the computer's serial port if you want the Kinema Edit List to Master or Slave to SMPTE time code in v3.7N of the CAD programs. Two computers should be used for SMPTE sync sound playback since the loading of the image frames takes just about all of the computer's capacity, i.e. you run DANCAD3D.EXE v3.7N (tm) on your "fastest" 2GHz+ computer (under Windows 98SE (tm)), and run Magix Music Studio 7 DeLuxe (tm) on another computer of 500MHz or better (under Windows 95 OSR2 or Windows 98SE) to play the mixed track WAV file. To play back 6 tracks you can use three computers and three copies of Magix (tm) with three SMPTE LTC to MTC modules wired in parallel to the LTC output of the telcom research T102 (tm) on the faster computer showing the image frames. You can use a monitor, mouse, and keyboard switch box rather than have each computer use its own since once you put Magix (tm) into SMPTE slave mode and DANCAD3D.EXE v3.7N (tm) into SMPTE master mode you do not need to look at what Magix (tm) is doing, it will automatically follow the SMPTE signals from the telcom research T102 (tm) and play the sound in sync with the image frames (more or less). Do not mix tracks to channels that will play on another computer, just to the two tracks that are playing on a single computer, since otherwise the weave in timing between the computers would cause a changing echo between the same sounds playing on different computers. To output the edited sequence with sound to video tape in addition to the SMPTE LTC to MTC and telcom research T102 (tm) you would need a SVGA to NTSC or PAL composite video converter, such as an AverMedia (tm) AverKey iMicro (tm) which has adjustments for raster underscan and zoom which can help see the edges of the frame on a TV and enlarge the actors lips to help check lip sync when you are re-recording dialog, and it also has sharpness adjustments. The SVGA to composite video converter box goes between your video board and your computer monitor. The composite output from the SVGA to composite video converter then goes directly into the video input of your VCR, or can be feed through a SMPTE "burner" module to overlay the SMPTE time code from the telcom research T102 (tm) before the video is then taken from the output of the SMPTE "burner" module, such as a Horita WG-50 (tm) SMPTE time code play speed reader and window inserter, to the VCR video input. Although the ANIMATE, Pick, and View commands can overlay SMPTE time code or frame numbers while the frame images are running, using a "window inserter" to overlay the actual SMPTE time on the video tape allows you to see if any of the frames displayed with the ANIMATE, Pick, or View overlaid SMPTE time are out of sync with the SMPTE LTC signals, i.e. you would put the two overlays of the SMPTE time code on different parts of the video image and later pause the VCR playback to see if the numbers for the SMPTE time match (you will probably see some drift on some frames since the computer harddisk is a real issue in getting the frames to load on time, anything you can do to speed up the harddisks used to store the image frames may help). Press [W] in the Pick, View, and Animate commands to turn on the internal "window inserter" and locate display the near the bottom of the screen to reduce flicker while the frames are running at sync speed. Here is a quick Q and A format explanation of essential information for operating and making practical use of the Kinema Edit list command. These answers refer to the design of the command in its state when this revision was released, changes in any future revisions may make some operations easier or expand their operation, so check any more recent documentation. These options may be new and still undergoing testing and development, so be sure to report any unresolved issues you encounter. Although the descriptions below sound complicated, if you have the program running while you read them and work through the steps involved you should catch on, basically you just need to put the right kind of audio and image frame files in the right place in the standard directory structure, and the Edit list automatically finds them and does what is needed with them from that point. You can delete or move shot image and audio frames that are not needed any longer with the Windows (tm) file manager, from the DOS prompt, with the Files Utilities Set commands, or from a Macro or Batch file. All specifications are subject to change without notice. Some aspects of various methods of use have not been tested or may rely on third party products that may or may not be available to the user, or the author, and would need to be tested for compatibility. Q: How do I get started working on my film project with the Kinema Edit list? A: From the revised DANCAD3D.EXE v3.7N's Main Menu select Files then Utilities then Kinema then Structure. Enter values in the Kinema Structure command that will make a directory structure large enough to hold all the files necessary for your film project. Feature films generally have less than 2000 shots, and 24 tracks going to 2 channels would be enough for some sound tracks released as optical stereo. You can use the Kinema Structure command if you need to enlarge the Structure. Making the full Structure can take an hour or more even on a fast computer, so do not think the program has crashed right away. The Structure takes up some disk space, so try not to go crazy with the values. You will need to make a structure with the same project ID number on all of the disk drives that you will be using the Edit list with. Several very fast 64GB disks divided into a 31GB primary partition and a 31GB secondary partition may be required to have random access of all shots in your project, depending on your shooting ratio and the number of image resolutions you need to store in the structure all the time. Windows 98SE (tm) may be the preferred OS. You may need to get a patch from the Microsoft (tm) web site for FDISK.EXE (tm) if your disk is larger than 64GB since there may have been a problem with FDISK.EXE (tm) not working as it should on larger disks. It may not be a good idea to format disks under Windows 98SE (tm) to have partitions larger than 31GB since there may be other OS issues that show up when larger partitions are made. Using a solid state hard drive may improve the smoothness of the frame display rate since a solid state hard drive may respond faster. The V320X200M16 and V640X200M16 video modes (in the revised current version) take up less disk space and may load faster since the frame files in those video modes require fewer bytes. Q: How do I insert the sound for each shot into the structure? A: Sound for each shot is held in the Utrack, T001 etc., sub-directories in each shot's, S0001 etc. sub-directory in the project structure. Use Magix (tm) to trim a monaural WAV file such that the slate board clap is at the start of the WAV file, then normalize the sound level to about 70%. Trim the end of the WAV sound to just past the length required so that you do not waist disk space with audio frames that will not be used. Save the WAV file as mono 16 bit 48000 samples per second from Magix (tm) into the "T" track directory in the "S" shot directory for the track and shot number that the audio should be in. If you are using a different drive for the Utracks you should save the WAV into the structure on that drive. Use the Track list's Insert command (added November 27, 2006, see the revision info below) or use the WAV Framize menu command or the WAV FRAMIZE macro command to split up and framize (using the Divided, type [D], filename format) the WAV file you just saved into the WAV file track directory, this will create one or more sub-directories starting with the word RAW that contain the numbered audio frames numbered 0.RAW and up. When using the Framize command you should number the first audio frame 0 and that audio frame should contain the slate board clap sound, of the slate beep if you are using an electronic slate. Keeping original WAV file in the track directory is useful since you can use it for the sound when using the Pick command without having to make a mix using the Link command, also you can easily open that WAV file and make changes with Magix (tm) if you need to adjust the EQ or relative level and such, and then re-Framize the edited original WAV source file. If you do not have room on your disks to hold the WAV files for each track, you can keep them on a CD or DVD, or may be able to reconstitute them by using the join mode in the Framize command to put the audio frames back together temporarily so the can be edited and played in Magix (tm). Be sure you use the Divided filename format for the saved *.RAW audio frames, since that format is what the Edit List Link uses to load the audio frames when making the sound track mix. In the current revised version the Track list Insert command has two modes, 51 and 151, that can insert a WAV sound anywhere along one of the Utracks or Ltracks. You can use the Pick or View commands to find the frame number along the track to locate the inserted WAV at. Q: How do I insert the audio frames for the tracks that run the project length? A: Sound for each full project or reel length track is held in the Ltrack, T001 etc., sub-directories in each reel's, R000 etc. sub-directory in the project structure. The operation for inserting the full length audio tracks, i.e. Ltracks, is like the operation described for inserting the shot tracks. i.e. Utracks, except that you put them in the "R" reel "T" track directory. When in the Track list be sure you press [L] to be in Ltrack mode, then put the cursor on the track you want to insert audio frames into, then press [SpaceBar] then select Insert, and enter the name of the WAV file to insert as RAW audio frames. Since the full length track files are different for each reel, they need to go into separate reel sub-directories. The "R000" sub-directory is for reel zero, which is used for making the full project as one unit without reel changes, this lets you View the full project with full length tracks. You can later extract parts of the full length audio frames into each reel's sub- directory with the Files Utilities Set commands to renumber the audio frame for the start of each reel to be its frame zero. You should silence, zero all samples using Magix (tm) or some other WAV editor, unused parts of the Utracks and Ltracks so that the Link command can delete those audio frames that contain only silence to reduce the disk space used to store the audio frames. In the current revised version the Track list Insert command has two modes, 51 and 151, that can insert a WAV sound anywhere along one of the Utracks or Ltracks. You can use the Pick or View commands to find the frame number along the track to locate the inserted WAV at. Q: How do I adjust the volume of each sound in the audio mix? A: When in the Kinema Edit list you select the shot you want to adjust the volume of then press the [SpaceBar] then select [T]rack list from the menu. When in the track list you enter a gain value for each track in the channel column, this allows you to adjust the volume of a track's sounds that will go to each channel in order to affect placement of the sound when more than one speaker channel is used in the theater. To make a stereo mix only channels one and two would be used, all the other gain values would be zero. You should set the track channel gain to about 0.9 for dialog, 0.5 for effects, and 0.2 for background sounds, then when the mix is made with the Edit list Link command the compression gain should be set to about 3, this will let the background sound float up when there is not dialog, and drop when there is dialog making the track clearer and the dialog easier to make out from the other sounds. You can control the amount of work the compressor does by setting the track channel gains higher or lower, but always have the dialog louder than the other sounds. The sounds for each shot are adjusted when the Track list shows Utrack in its upper left corner, and you need to go back to the edit list by pressing [Escape] and select another shot if you want to adjust the Utrack levels for all the shots. To adjust the Ltrack track to channel levels you need to open the Track list on any shot, then press [L] to switch the track list into Ltrack mode. Effects sounds on the Ltracks should be about 0.4, background sounds about 0.2, and music between 0.5 and 0.1 depending on how prominent you want it to be. Since each Ltrack has just one audio gain value, you should use more than one track if you need different gain values for music in different parts of the full length, you can also open the source WAV for an Ltrack in Magix (tm) and fiddle with the level of the wave-form along the length of that WAV to make some parts louder and others softer, then re-Framize the fiddled WAV file into its Ltrack directory. The compressor limiters automatically ride the volume for you making continuous adjustments to reduce distortion due to over- gaining when all the tracks are summed. If you do not want the compressor limiters to operate set the compression gains to 1 and set the track to channel gain values so that the total of all track to channel gains for the Utracks and Ltracks is less than 1 all the time, i.e. each shot's Utracks total plus the Ltracks total is less than 1 and all the source WAV files have been normalized to 70%. Q: How do I make an audio mix of the sound for the range of shot index I want? A: When in the Kinema Edit list press [I] to change the shot numbers into shot index numbers, note the first and last shot index numbers you want to use for the audio mix, or press [B] for begin block and [E] for end block to mark the range of shot index you want to mix sound for, then press the [SpaceBar] and enter or accept those shot index numbers into the Link command. If you want the full length mix enter 0 to 9999 as the shot index numbers (or a range within the size of the project structure you made, since if you did not make a maximum size project structure you may get errors do to sub directories needed that are not there for the outside range shots or tracks). Remember that you cannot insert and mix the Ltracks until after you have "locked picture" for the edit of your project's shots, i.e. once you start working in the Ltracks you cannot change the edit cut frame numbers for any of the shots any longer. The finished mix appears in the "M" sub-directory of the "R" reel directory you are currently using. If you have set up a special disk drive letter for the Ltrack structure you should look in the "M" sub-directory there for the *.WAV file of the mix. The "C" sub-directory in the "R" reel directory holds the individual mixed channel WAV files, which are not needed, but you may want to use for something, or listen to with a WAV player to hear if each channel is mixed as you like. The final mix files in the "M" sub-directory can be a mono WAV, and stereo WAV, a set of stereo WAV files, or a multi channel WAV file, depending on the settings you picked with the Edit list Link command. When for instance you are mixing a 6 channel sound track, and you do not have a 6 channel WAV player and 6 channel sound board, you can use three computers, e.g. locked to SMPTE, to play three stereo WAV files at once through normal stereo sound boards. Also because of the 2.1GB file size limit for WAV files and DOS programs, you may not be able to hold the full length of the audio for your project in a 6 track WAV file, therefore you would need three stereo WAV files. A 6 track WAV file might work for each reel separately , since the reel is shorter in length, and might fit in 2.1GB. Q: How do I sync up tracks I re-record for dialog, effects, and music? A: In the December 10, 2006 revision the Track list Insert command has had two new modes added mode 51 and 151 which let you insert sounds anywhere along a silent audio track. Mode 51 and 151 can be used as a supplement to the other methods, described below, of re-recording whole tracks. To use Audio frame insert modes Modes 51 and 151 you need to first use the Pick or View command to find the starting frame where you want the WAV file inserted. The WAV file to insert should be trimmed to just have the length of the sound wanted and the head and tail of the WAV sounds should fade in and out to avoid blasting the sound in, unless that is what you want. Modes 51 and 151 blop the head and tail of the inserted WAV to reduce clicks. If you need sounds to pass over cuts between shots insert them into a Ltrack rather than a Utrack. If you need two sounds to cross fade or overlap put the first sound on one track and the second sound on another track such that the last frame of the first sound runs past the first frame of the second sound on the other track. There is a "Beep mode" option in the Edit list menu Global command, this can be set to put a beep on the first frame of each shot in the mixed WAV audio file. You can then use a third computer, minidisk, PCM recorder, or Hi-Fi VHS recorder hooked up such that one channel records the beeped WAV at low -20 to -30 db VU, and the other channel records the new sound from your microphone at normal levels, about -6db VU to -12db VU. You can then make the recorded stereo sounds into a stereo WAV file, load that Stereo WAV file into Magix (tm) and trim the two tracks such that each chunk begins with the start of a beep and ends just before the next beep. These stereo chunks can then be split into two mono WAV files, you discard the one with the beeps, and Framize the recorded one into another Utrack for its shot in the structure. If you need sounds recorded to run over cuts, open the beeped full length mix in Magix and silence the beeps you need to record past, then proceed as described, i.e. record the beeped track from before the part you want to record so that you get the head beep, which will be somewhere along the full track. You then load the full length beeped track back into Magix (tm) and load the recorded section stereo recording with the part of the beep track and the recorded track. Trim the recorded section so that it starts just before the beep and ends after the sound required. Split the trimmed stereo recording into two mono tracks, discard the one with the beep, mark and clip the recorded sound as a block to paste, then paste the recorded sound over the full length beeped track by putting the paste point just before the beep you left to mark the start of the place to record new sound, then overwrite with the pasted sound, then silence the part of the full length WAV and Framize it into one of the Ltrack directories. You could record and paste several sections into the full length Beeped WAV. If you make a stereo beeped WAV you can paste over sections in one channel and keep the other channel with its beeps as a visual reference of the sounds and beeps to keep your place when pasting in replacement recorded sound, and you can play the stereo WAV with the old beeped sound on one channel and the new recorded sound on the other channel and listen for any "Echo" between the audio coming from the left and right speakers that would indicate that you did not paste the recorded sound in the right place, or the sounds were recorded early or late when you were listening to the sync playback of the beeped tack. When you are done re-recording sound for the Utracks and Ltracks you then set the "Beep mode" back to non-beep "blop" mode, and use Link to remix in the full track with the pasted recorded sounds in it. If the sync is bad on some tracks you can use the audio frame pull-up and pull-down value in the Utrack and Ltrack lists to adjust the timing then use Link to remix with those audio frames shifted relative to the other tracks. Q: How do I output the full resolution BMP frames to movie film? A: When you get everything to look and sound good with the View command use the Edit list Global command to select the full resolution film out cine frame resolution level, e.g. 4, also select the correct default drive letter for the high resolution files, then use the Link command to make a CFL, Cine Frame List file for all the frames in the project that you want to go to film. If you are going to record a sub-range of shot index to film, because your recorder only has a 400 foot magazine or something, be sure to backup the full mixed WAV files so that you do not accidentally overwrite them with sub-range WAV files. Quit DANCAD3D.EXE (tm) and run DANCINEL.EXE v1.01 (tm). Enter the name of the *.CFL file you just made for the range of full cine film recorder resolution frame files you want to record in your Cine Film Recorder. The default name for the *.CFL file generated is SHOOTLST.CFL and it is put in the "R" reel directory of the project structure on the main project hard disk. You need to setup DANCINEL.EXE v1.01 to have it display the frames in the correct mode depending on the film stock type you want to expose, if you want three exposures so you can get better color with a filter wheel, if you want to make sequential separations, and so forth. You also need to wire up your computer's parallel port (or speaker) so that DANCINEL.EXE (tm) can operate the Cine Film Recorder automatically since it will take a long time to print off the high resolution image frames. Because removable disks will need to be used to store all the high resolution frames, the drive letter encoded into the *.CFL file by the Edit list Link command may be the letter for your DVD drive, tape drive, or some other kind of drive. On the disks that hold the high resolution frames you need to make the standard structure with the Kinema Structure command and then you need to insert as many high resolution frames as will fit into complete shots, so that DANCINEL.EXE (tm) v1.01 will not stop in the middle of a shot and ask for a disk change, possibly making a slight flicker in the middle of a shot due to the camera being stopped for a while and the voltage to the monitor changing. See DANCINEL.TXT in DANCINEL.ZIP (tm) for more information about setting up and using DANCINEL.EXE v1.01 (tm). See also the documentation at my WEB site about building a Cine Film Recorder. Q: How do I get the full resolution frame images of my Cine Film? A: You can get the full resolution frame images in various ways. When working with motion picture film you can have it scanned professionally (if you are rich!) or build a scanner using a digital SLR and a high quality macro lens. I would not worry about diffraction too much, soft focus is more likely to be due to misalignment of the Digital SLR and the film projector, so setting the lens at f/11 or f/16 may increase the resolution rather than reduce it, at f/22 the sharpness may go soft due to diffraction. Sharpening the digital images can make up somewhat for diffraction loss, but a sharpened image that is partly out of focus due to using to open an aperture looks bad because the sharpness is uneven across the frame. It is best to make three exposures through Wratten filters 98, 99, and 70 in order to reduce de-saturation of the colors, it is better to get good Digital separations rather than introduce noise by masking (turning up the color in a BMP file editor) later. Using a tri-color LED light source may also help the color separation. The Cine film projector needs to be fit with a single frame motor and have good steadiness. You can put a mechanical cam on the Cine film projector with a micro switch wired into the electronic cable release such that each time the projector advances one frame the Digital SLR shoots a photo, or cut three trip indentations into the RGB separation filter wheel and have that set up so that the projector advances, then the RGB separation filter wheel rotates tripping the Digital SLR three times, then the projector advances again, and so on. There may be a busy light on the Digital SLR, which you could tape a photo transistor to so that you could automatically detect when the Digital SLR is busy and hold the filter wheel and projector motors by opening relays until the Digital SLR is ready to shoot some more images. The blue separation noise level in Digital SLR exposures may be very bad (snow, noise, and grain), so you may need to shoot 8 or more exposures through the blue filter and mix those exposures to get a blue exposure with low enough noise to be usable. Appropriate image editing software that has a batch processing mode may work for adjusting the image size and color to get good full resolution image files to use with DANCINEL.EXE (tm). You should use the Digital SLR's RAW image mode rather than some compressed format to reduce image degradation, which can get worse when you manipulate the image contrast and sharpness, i.e. little cubes, blocks and other compression artifacts appear in images that have been compressed. Just say no to compression. Q: Can I use the Kinema Edit list to edit CGI or video? A: It does not matter how you make the full resolution, e.g. 2048x1536, BMP image files so long as they are re-sized to the dimensions supported by the video board used with DANCINEL.EXE (tm) and your Cine Film Recorder, and that you have configured DANCINEL.EXE (tm) to load. Making BMP files from CGI should be obvious, you just number the frame images in the right order. If the CGI is made with DANCAD3D.EXE (tm) you can write a macro to make the image files. If you want to use video in your project, either mixed video and film images or just video images, you can convert the video to an AVI file and then use an AVI de-compiler or AVI extractor program to break the video into individual numbered BMP files. The AVI de-compiler or extractor may work with any video size from SD to HD from NTSC to PAL to DV, as far as the Kinema Edit list is concerned the source of the image files is neutral. The Kinema Edit list can work at 24, 25, or 30 fps, but when editing for film output you would always run the Kinema Edit list at 24 fps. Since NTSC video runs a little slower than 24 fps you will need to adjust the sound a little by re-sampling its WAV file to get the sound is sync with the images being run a little fast. If you shoot PAL the sound needs a greater adjustment since you will be showing the image frames shot at 25 fps at 24 fps and the sound would get out of sync unless you re-sample it in the right ratio. NTSC video also needs to be fussed with to convert its near 30 fps frame rate to 24 fps, there may be no good way to do this conversion since some image data need to be dropped or mixed leaving stutter in motion or image artifacts. My choice would be to shoot PAL and run it at the wrong speed, then re-record the dialog which you should do anyway since quality motion pictures rarely use sync recorded sound, it is just recorded as a reference for the re-recording later. If you can use a new type 24p camcorder you may not have to deal with the frame rate issues of video. What limitations your AVI de-compiler program might have you will have to investigate. If your AVI de-compiler can convert video frame rates, you may what to try that feature and see what its 24 fps image output looks like. You can also shoot claymation, cell animation, titles, and other art work directly with a Digital SLR without using film. You can also use a flat bed or other scanner to make full resolution BMP frame files to cut into your project. Q: How do I make the reduced resolution BMP file for Pixel conversion? A: Any image editing program that will do batch conversion might work, one in particular you might look at is called IrfanView (tm) which can crop, resize, renumber, sharpen, and adjust image tones all in one pass. After you make the reduced resolution BMP files, you can write a macro for DANCAD3D.EXE (tm) to make converted copies of the BMP files as Pixel files. In the December 21, 2006 revision of v3.7N the BMP to PIX conversion was revised to auto-resize the BMP image to the size of the video mode used to make the PIX files. Therefore you select the size of the PIX files to be made by picking the video mode that has the resolution you will make. The video board you use for the Pixel conversion must be compatible with the video board you will be using with the Kinema Edit list since the Pixel files are hardware dependent and are not all transportable between incompatible video boards. The preferred image size for the Kinema Edit list seems to be the EGA E640M16 or VGA V640X350M16 modes (added in the current revision), so quite a bit of dithering during the Pixel conversion is needed to get a good gray scale, this makes the reduced resolution images somewhat grainy when viewer as still images, but less so when running at 24 fps or faster. The numbered Pixel files should have the extension PIX and be in Divided number filename format. In the December 3, 2006 revision a image Insert command was added to the Edit list's sub-menu. This image Insert command can convert same pixel size BMP 8bpp or 24 bpp frames into PIX frame files for use in the Edit list project structure and sync speed viewing with the Pick and View commands. If you are going to want to make an AVI of your edited project, save the BMP files you used to make the PIX files from since using the original BMP frame files may make a better AVI than converting the reduced resolution PIX files back into BMP frames, e.g. insert the PIX files into resolution I11 directories and the original BMP frames into the I10 sub-directories so that you can use the Aggregate command in the Edit list on the I10 BMP files to make the frame set for conversion into the AVI file with your third party AVI compiler. Q: What are the preferred video mode codes for use in converting BMP frames into PIX frames for use with the Edit list Pick and View commands? A: In the current revision there are several modes available when you have selected VGA or SVGA video board and one when EGA video board is selected. For SVGA you can use modes V320X200M16, V640X200M16, V640X350M16, V640X480M16, V320X200M256, and V320X200P256. All of those except V320X200M256 should use dithering from 32 to 64 and be converted from a 24 bpp BMP file when possible. It is also possible to convert from a 8 bpp gray scale BMP for the M palette modes. The V320X200P256 mode can display color frames. When converting to the V320X200P256 mode a color 24 bpp BMP files is preferred since the random dithering will be different on each frame expanding the tone range. If you convert 8 bpp color BMP frames into V320X200P256 PIX frames the results may be a little worse than if you convert from 24 bpp color frames, but the conversion may go a little faster. If you are using an EGA board the E640M16 mode works like the VGA V640X350M16 mode. Any of the other supported video modes can be used since ANIMATE supports all the pixel file resolutions, but the larger file sizes of the higher resolution PIX files may prevent them from running in sync at 24 fps. In the December 21, 2006 revision of v3.7N the BMP to PIX was revised to auto-resize, so you can make the PIX files for use with the Kinema Edit list's Pick and View commands directly from your film recorder resolution (2048x1536 24bpp) BMP files. Q: How do I output my project to AVI or MPG for theater DLP projection? A: Since a whole project worth of the full resolution images when run through a high resolution AVI compiler would take up too much disk space you will need to select a sub-range of shot indexes with the Kinema Edit list's Aggregate command, compile each range of frames with the high resolution AVI compiler using an appropriate compression type, then do another range and so on until you had a set of compressed AVI files that you could stitch together in a high resolution AVI file editor. You would then need a high resolution AVI to MPG converter to convert the huge AVI file into a very large MPG file. From AVI or MPG you could then convert down to some other media file type that hopefully would not be so compressed as to have destroyed the visual quality of your project. In order to make WAV files that match each of the sections you would need to framize the finished sound mix and select a similar sub-range of frames then de-framize that range to make a WAV file that goes with each sub-range of image frames going into each AVI file. You can write a macro to framize and de-framize the mixed sound sections automatically. Q: How do I output my project to AVI or MPG for a media player? A: This is easier than making a full resolution media file since the size of the compressed AVI is much smaller. Even so, you should try to find an AVI compiler program that will make AVI files larger than 2.1GB in case your project runs longer than that. It is best to use reduced resolution BMP files that have a 1:1 pixel aspect ratio, since most media files are watched on computers that have a 1:1 pixel aspect ratio. A media player may not be able to run video at 640x480 resolution at 24 fps due to data flow issues, so you may be limited to using 320x240 or 320x200 or similar sizes. So you may need to make a separate structure on another disk drive and generate special reduced resolution BMP frame images just for making your AVI or MPG media file. If you are lazy or do not have enough disk space the Aggregate command can automatically convert the Pixel image files you have been using with the Pick and View command into an aggregated BMP file set that you can convert into your AVI file with your AVI compiler program. The disadvantage of converting the Pixel files into your AVI file, via BMP files, is that the color or gray scale resolution in the AVI file may be un-necessarily limited by the use of the preferred Pixel resolution having been used because of viewing speed issues in the Pick and View commands. Anyway, after you make the compressed AVI file you can use an AVI to MPG converter program to make a MPG version. The AVI compiler should be able to integrate a WAV file with the BMP frames if you want a sync sound AVI result. You may need to make adjustments to your AVI compiler program if the sound seems to get out of sync as the resulting AVI file plays after being compiled. If you want the 640x350 pixel files to look correct when converted to an AVI file showing on a 1:1 pixel aspect monitor, you should adjust the aspect ratio of the images when you make the reduced resolution BMP images that the Pixel files are made from, i.e. 1:1.83 which is close to the 1:1.85 standard movie aspect ratio, and just a little wider than the 16:9 or 1:1.77 new HD video shape. You could fudge 1:1.77 into 1.1.83 by squeezing the images a little. When you watched the 1:1.77 on 640x350 using the V640X350M16 video mode you would need to adjust the CRT monitor height and width controls to set the with to maximum and the height down until you get a 16x9 raster on the screen. Q: How do I Aggregate image files other than *.BMP or *.PIX? A: There should be a prompt in the Aggregate command Mode 1 that asks you for the file extension you want for the source files. Just about any image file type should be able to get Aggregated so long as there is just one frame in each file. Because you may be loading the Aggregated frames into a Windows (tm) program you should probably make the result set in Padded numbered file name format. Aggregated frames may start with frame number 0, you can renumber numbered sets of files with the Files Utilities Set commands. Because of OS issues with Long and Padded filenames you may not be able to Aggregate the whole project at one time, but since one reel contains about 31680 files you may be under the OS limit, so you probably can Aggregate one reel at a time. Because your cine film recorder may use only a 400 ft magazine, you may need to break the Aggregation of your output resolution files into smaller ranges, 400 ft of 35mm is about 6400 frames. About 450 output resolution frames can fit onto a DVD, so each 400 feet of film would require about 15 DVD disks, 15 DVD disks cost about $4.00 and 400 ft of film costs about $40 to $200, so DVD disks seem cheaper than film, by quite a bit, for storing frames. Q: Aggregate failed to finish when I was outputting my full project to a sub- directory, why, and how can I work around this? A: The OS has a limit on how many files you can put in a single sub-directory, perhaps 65534. If you go over that limit Aggregate will probably report a disk error. To get around this, select a sub-range of shot index and Aggregate to more than one sub-directory. Convert each sub-directory full of frames to a compressed AVI file, then use an AVI editor to stitch the series of AVI files you made from the Aggregated frames together. Q: What file numbering format type should I select to Aggregate frames to an AVI compiler? A: The [P] type or Padded type may work best, it pads the frame number with leading zeros so that Windows (tm) programs are more likely to sort the frame numbers in the right order, if you use the [L] or Long type the frames may be compiled into the resulting AVI file out of order. There may be a limit of 65534 frame files in a single sub-directory under some OS, so you may need to divide your project into reels shorter than that limit. Twenty two minutes at 24 fps is 22*60*24=31680 frames, and so is well within the 65534 limit. The Edit list uses the Divided filename format which is not subject to the 65534 limit, but third party AVI compiler programs may not support the Divided filename format, so you would need to use the Padded file name format with them, and select a shorter range of shots to Aggregate frames from. Q: Do I need to have the SMPTE hardware in order to get sync sound in View? A: Using the SMPTE hardware in Master mode for the Edit list lets you start and stop the View command and the audio will re-sync automatically after the two second run-up. You can also get SMPTE sound in the Pick command if you use the Utrack source file for that shot, or you adjust the the SMPTE offset in Magix (tm) to compensate for the first audio frame not being frame zero. If you do not have SMPTE hardware you can view a trimmed shot by using Link for just that shot and then start the View running manually in ANIMATE trigger mode 1, or automatically by using the simple trigger circuit described on my Web site and ANIMATE trigger mode 2. Using ANIMATE trigger mode 3 is easier since the sync is automatic after you use Link and load the new WAV file from the "M" sub- directory into Magix (tm). ANIMATE trigger mode 4 makes the View command slave to Magix (tm), allowing you to put the sample cursor in Magix (tm) anywhere along the WAV data and use the Magix (tm) play button to start the sound from that point, after a second or so the SMPTE will lock and the corresponding image frames will be displayed. ANIMATE trigger mode 3 is the preferred mode since it lets you use the right and left arrow keys to move around in the shot or edited shots and then restart from anywhere, whereas ANIMATE trigger modes 1 and 2 require you to press the [Backspace] key to return to the first image frame and restart the sound from the beginning. Q: How do I restart the sync display after I single frame in Pick and View? A: Press the [SpaceBar]. Press [Q] to Quit the ANIMATE command. In ANIMATE press [Return] for the ANIMATE pop-up menu of commands. If the commands in ANIMATE do not respond, press the [Control] key before and after the command key since you may be stuck in one of the trigger modes and the program is waiting for the start trigger. Also if the T102 (tm) is not on or working properly, the time base for the frame clock may not be running, so you may need to press [Control] to get out of the serial port read and write interface for the SMPTE time code. Q: The program reports that the SMPTE hardware did not initialize, how do I fix this? A: Make sure that all the SMPTE hardware is connected and powered on before you enter the ANIMATE command, or the Pick and View commands in the Kinema Edit list. Also make sure that you have the serial port settings correct in the Edit list Global command since if the wrong serial port number is entered or the serial port wire is on the wrong port the T102 (tm) cannot be communicated with to initialize. Another problem is that if you open one DOS window under windows then run my CAD program from there, then you open another DOS window and run my program from there, Windows (tm) may hold the COMx port for use by just one of the DOS windows, and the program will report errors when run from another DOS window. If you get a SMPTE hardware initialization fault, try closing all the DOS windows and ant other programs that use the computer's ports and then re-open a new window and try again. It closing the windows does not help, you may need to close all the programs and windows, turn the computer off, turn off the SMPTE hardware, wait a few minutes, and then turn everything back on and open just ONE DOS window and run the program JUST from that single DOS window. Same thing goes, if the program crashes Windows (tm) may think the COMx port is still in use, so you may need to shut the computer down before you can get Windows (tm) to let my programs access the COMx port again. Q: How do I adjust the SMPTE offset in Magix (tm) and the Edit list? A: Click on the small [Sync] button on the play controls and enter the right value in the value box. Because SMPTE does not do negative numbers, the convention is to always start SMPTE at plus one hour, e.g. 01:00:00:00, which for movie use is 60*60*24=86400 frames. Be sure you have the system set to 24 frames at all points or the sync will be off. It is also necessary to have the Edit list SMPTE offset set to plus one hour, or the wrong frames will be displayed, or you will just get the first or last frame displayed over and over since the frame pointer will be out of range. If the starting image or audio frame is not frame zero, you may need to add or subtract from the SMPTE offset value used. Q: How do I display a list of the "blind" commands in the Edit list? A: Press [F1] to get a list of the "blind" commands you can also just press the "blind" command keys while using the Edit list. Q: How do I change a value in the Edit and Track list? A: Move the cursor to the value box for the value you want to change and press [Return] then type in the new value. For drive letters enter the drive letter for a custom drive to be used, or press [=] to have the default drive to be used. The default drives are set with the Global command in the Edit list sub- menu you get when you press the [SpaceBar]. Q: Why would I need to change the default disk drive letters? A: You may need to distribute the files across many disks because of disk size limitations and the enormous number and size of files involved. Q: How do I display the Edit list values in SMPTE time plus frames? A: Press [F4] to display the Edit list in Time plus Frames format. Press [F2] to return to frames only format. Q: How do I display the Edit list values in Feet plus Frames format? A: Press [F3] to display the Edit list values in Feet plus Frames format. Press [F2] to return to frames only format. Q: How do I switch the Edit list display back to Frame numbers display? A: Press [F2]. Press [F3] for Frames plus Feet or press [F4] for SMPTE time plus frames. You select the frame rate and frames per feet with the Global command in the Edit list sub-menu. Q: How do I display the shot index values to find a shot range? A: If you see the shot numbers, then press [I]. You can press [I] a second time to toggle back to shot numbers. Q: How do I display the shot numbers to find the directory it is in? A: If the display is showing shot index values press [S]. You can press [S] a second time to toggle the display back to shot index values. Shot numbers are the numbered "S" directories in the structure, shot index values are the position within the series of shots from top to bottom in the Edit list, that is the order the shots will show in when Linked or Aggregated. Q: Do I need to remember the Shot Index range numbers to use the Link and Aggregate commands? A: You can, but if you use the [B]egin and [E]nd block commands in the Edit list you can mark a range of shots and when you select Link or Aggregate that shot index range will be passed to their prompts automatically. Q: What is this structure you keep talking about? A: You need to put the image and audio frames into the standard structure before the Edit list can use them. You use the Files Utilities Kinema Structure command to make the standard structure on all of the disk drives that you will be using for files that belong to a given project. Each project has a project ID number which all structures for a given project must share, no mater what disk or drive they are on. Q: How do I change the Track list from Utracks to Ltracks? A: When you are in the track list press [L] to work on the Ltracks. You can press [U] to come back to the Utracks for the current shot. The current shot is selected by the shot the cursor was on in the Edit list when you pressed the [SpaceBar] to go to the Edit list sub-menu in order to open the Track list. Q: How do I create a Mnemonic for each shot so I can remember what it is? A: Pick the shot you want to make a Mnemonic for in the Edit list, then press the [SpaceBar], then select the Mnemonic command from the Edit list sub-menu, then type in something descriptive about the unique properties of that shot. The Mnemonic you make for the shot will display when the Edit list cursor is on a value for that shot. If you move the shot the Mnemonic will move with it. Q: How do I create a Mnemonic for each track so I can remember what it is? A: While in the Track list, pick the track you want to make a Mnemonic for, then press the [SpaceBar], then select the Mnemonic command from the Track list sub-menu, then enter a descriptive title about the unique properties of that audio track. The Mnemonic you make for the Utrack or Ltrack will display on the Track list when the Track list cursor is on a value for that track. You must have the Track list in Utrack mode to add a Mnemonic to a Utrack, and in Ltrack mode to add a Mnemonic to a Ltrack. i.e. press [U] or [L] in the Track list before you use the Track list's Mnemonic command. Q: How do I display a list of "blind" commands in the Track list? A: Press [F1]. You can also enter the "blind" commands particular to the Track list while in the Track list without pressing [F1]. Q: How do I delete silent audio frames to make more disk space? A: While running the Link command in the Edit list sub-menu silent audio frames get deleted to increase the free disk space. If the disk you are using to store the Utrack or Ltrack audio frames is filling up, you can try to do a "dummy" mix using the Link command and see if the free disk space increases after. Since you would normally be using the Link command all the time to use View while editing, the Link command would have probably already deleted most of the silent frames you have inserted into the structures. Q: What sample rate should I use for the project audio? A: The sample rate must be divisible in whole numbers by the frame rate. For working with 24 fps film type editing you would use 48000 samples per second giving exactly 2000 audio samples per audio frame. If you record sound at 44100 samples per second or some other rate you need to use a program like Magix (tm) to re-sample the sound to 48000 before you can use the WAV FRAMIZE command to convert the WAV file into RAW audio frames that the Edit list Link command can mix into a finished sound mix. It may be possible to use lower sample rates to save disk space or higher sample rates to think you are getting better quality, but for motion picture work 48000 samples per second is probably the point of diminishing returns, particularly for in theater auditorium presentation. Q: What bit resolution should my WAV files have? A: The Edit list Link command currently only supports 16 bit samples, but processes them internally using 48 bits or 64 bits. If you have some 24 bit or 32 bit WAV files you will need to process them in you audio editing software to re-save them as 16 bit per sample WAV files. Because of the high level of compression used in motion picture sound tracks using more than 16 bits per sample would produce little if any audible improvement and would greatly increase the size of the disk space required for all of the audio frame files, which is barely manageable when using 16 bit 48000 sample per second audio frames. For comparison, 16 bit 48000 sample per second audio frames have more data and are slightly better than so called CD quality you hear from a audio CD. Q: Your program will not read my WAV files, how do I fix this? A: Some programs put un-necessary information into WAV files, my programs do not want this data. To clean your WAV files of extra trash data load them into Magix (tm) Music Studio 7 DeLuxe (tm) and then export the sounds as mono 16 bit 48000 sample per second. Sometimes Magix (tm) is stubborn about saving the WAV file as stereo rather than mono causing my programs to fail loading the WAV file, use the Windows (tm) file manager to highlight the problem file then right click and select properties to see if Windows (tm) thinks the file is mono or stereo, if it is stereo fiddle with Magix (tm) until you get it to save the WAV as mono. Try the "Convert Audio" then "Save in Format" command this brings up a dialog titled "Save in New Format" in Magix (tm), from there you should be able to select Mono 16 bit. If you do not get 48000 samples per second you may need to re-sample the WAV before you save the mono 16 bit file. Sometimes it is better to save just the right or left channel of a stereo WAV since mixing the channels may produce odd cancellation effects in the sound. Q: When I load the mix WAV into Magix (tm) for sync play it is messed up? A: Try the "File" then "Import Audio" command in Magix (tm), the problem seems to come from Magix (tm) making some files in the "M" mix directory, then getting confused when the 1.WAV or other WAV files get overwritten by the Edit list Link command and Magix (tm) thinks the file size is wrong. Try deleting all the files in the mix "M" directory in the (Ltrack) structure before you use the Edit list Link command to make the mixed audio mix of your projects audio. Q: When I try to use Link in the Edit list to make the audio mix for my project I get an error message saying that it could not save the WAV or some other error message, whats wrong? A: If you have enough disk space you may have left one of the WAV files in the reel M sub-directory open in some WAV editor or player. Always close all WAV and image editing programs before you try to use my programs on the same files, since my programs cannot share files with Windows (tm) programs, you will get a load or save file error message. This is not a bug, it is just that some Windows (tm) programs or other programs in other windows using the same file can generate a file sharing error, so you need to close all windows and programs before you run my programs to try to ensure that none of the files my programs will need to use are already being used by some other program. If there is a program crash in one of the programs on the computer Windows (tm) may think that a file is still in use and generate a file sharing error, to fix that problem you need to shut down the computer and restart from a cold boot. Q: How do I turn on the SMPTE sync modes? A: The default ANIMATE trigger mode for the Edit list is mode 0 since not everyone will have the proper SMPTE hardware hooked up, i.e. the default is to use the Pick and View commands in MOS or silent mode. Before you select the SMPTE master mode you should have all the proper hardware hooked up and turned on, the reason is that in SMPTE master mode the external hardware provides the clock for the ANIMATE command and if there is no clock the ANIMATE command gets stuck waiting for the clock to count. Once you have everything turned on and hooked up you can use the Global command in the Edit list sub-menu to select the ANIMATE trigger mode 3 for SMPTE master mode, then Magix (tm) or some other SMPTE compatible WAV player will have the sound follow while you use the Pick and View commands. You may be able to unstick the ANIMATE command by pressing [Q] then [Ctrl] then [SpaceBar] or [Q] then [Control] over and over until you get out, you might also try [Ctrl] then [Escape] or [Ctrl] plus [X] then [Escape] or [Q] then [Control]. Q: I cannot hear the sound playing in sync? A: You need to copy the mix WAV file(s) from the "M" sub-directory after using the Edit list's Link command from the Edit list computer to the computer running Magix (tm) or other compatible SMPTE sync WAV player. In Magix (tm) you need to select the [Sync] button on the play controls and click on Slave mode, then enter the proper SMPTE offset, usually an offset of plus one hour. When Pick and View are in SMPTE Master mode Magix (tm) needs to be in SMPTE Slave mode. To copy the mixed WAV file between the two computers you could use a USB flash drive or a CD-R disk. Do not try to run my programs and Magix (tm) on the same computer at the same time, the CPU and other parts cannot keep up, even on a 4GHz machine. Use a separate computer to play the WAV. The computer that plays the WAV needs a MIDI port, or a 15 pin game port and a MIDI cable for you to connect to your SMPTE LTC to MTC convert module. You can probably find a SMPTE LTC to MTC converter module on e-bay cheep now since people are no longer syncing their MIDI synths to analog tape machines. Be sure you close any WAV player on the computer running my CAD programs before you try to generate WAV files, e.g. by using the Edit list Link command, since if you leave a WAV player open with a WAV file of the same name you are trying to make you may get file sharing errors, i.e. my program will report that it could not save the WAV file (since it was already open in another program). Q: My copy of Magix (tm) does not have a "sync" button, why not? A: I think you may need the DeLuxe version, such as Magix (tm) Music Studio 7 DeLuxe (tm). Q: How do I use the Edit list without SMPTE sync sound hardware? A: Select ANIMATE trigger mode 0 and the Pick and View commands will run off the computer's crystal clock rather than the external SMPTE reader/writer. You can also use ANIMATE trigger modes 1 and 2 for "syncish" sound but those require you to start from the beginning rather than at any point like the SMPTE modes. You can also make an AVI file and watch that in a media player. Q: How do I turn the "Beep" mode on to get markers in the audio? A: The "beep" mode option is in the Edit list's sub-directory's Global command. The "beep" mode puts a one frame beep at the start of each shot and can be used as markers to sync up tracks while doing recording and re-recording of the dialog, effects, and music tracks, i.e. for cues and to visually line up the wave forms in audio editing software. Remember to switch the "beep" mode back to "blop" mode before making the final mix of your projects audio WAV. The first beep is at 100% modulation, but the other beeps coming from the Utracks will be between about 70% modulation and higher depending on the compression gain used, so you should only use the first beep in the mixed track as a level reference. Q: How do I change the default drive letters to split the files onto disks? A: The default drive letters used for the various structures located on the different disks are selected in the Edit list's sub-directory's Global command. When using the Edit list enter [=] to select the default drive letter for a given structure, i.e. image structure, Utrack, or Ltrack structure, or enter the specific drive letter if you want to override the default drive letter. Rather than going through all the shots overriding the default, it is better to change the default, and only override when there is no other choice. Q: How do I move a shot in the Edit list to a different position? A: First put the cursor on the starting shot, then press [B] for begin block, then move the cursor to the ending shot, then press [E] for the end of the block, then move to where you want the block moved, then press [M] for move, then press [A] for above the current shot or [B] for below the current shot. The Edit list Insert command can also be used to physically copy or move frames to another shot directory. Q: How do I delete a shot in the Edit list? A: The delete command does not delete the image and audio frames, you need to do that with the file set commands, but if you change the shot frame length to zero the Edit list Link and Aggregate command will ignore that shot. There is a Delete command that works like the Move command except it just sets the shot frame length to zero for all the shots in the marked block. First put the cursor on the starting shot, then press [B] for begin block, then move the cursor to the ending shot, then press [E] for the end of the block, then Press [D] to "Delete" the block by setting the length of each shot in the marked block to a length of zero frames. The Edit list image Insert command can physically delete image frame files to make free disk space. Q: I do not see channel 16 in the Track list how do I get it? A: You need to move the cursor "past" the right side of the screen while in the Track list command. Q: I do not see resolution 12 in the Edit list how do I get it? A: You need to move the cursor "past" the right side of the screen while in the Edit list command. Q: How do I get the Edit list sub-menu? A: You need to press [SpaceBar] while in the Edit list. Q: How do I get the Track list sub-menu? A: You need to press [SpaceBar] while in the Track list. Q: How do I get out of the Edit or Track list? A: Press [Escape]. Q: How do I get out of Pick or View? A: Press [Q]. If that does not work press [Q] then [Control] then [Return] then [Control] then [Q], keep pressing [Q] then [Control], also try [SpaceBar] then [Control] and then [Control] plus [X] several times. Q: I cannot find a file, where do I look? A: Try the Windows (tm) Find command in its start menu, search all drives that you have been using or have a structure on. Q: What OS should I use for the Edit list? A: Windows 98SE (tm) may be the best if not the only choice since it runs DOS software and can work on computers faster than 1GHz. The computer running Magix (tm) Music Studio 7 DeLuxe (tm) as the WAV player can be running Windows 95 OSR2 (tm). Q: Why is the Edit list in Text mode only? A: Windows (tm) does not like to restore my program sometimes when you pop out using the "windows" key if you are in graphics mode, particularly SVGA graphics modes, it will not let you back into my programs because it cannot restore the screen or mouse properly. This does not seem to happen (as often?) when popping in and out while my programs are running in text only mode. Text mode is also faster generally. You should quit the Pick and View commands (or any other commands in graphics mode) back to the Text mode menus before poping out of my programs if you want to pop back in. Q: What is SMPTE LTC? A: SMPTE LTC is an audio signal going over any quality shielded audio cable that lets you connect two devices and synchronize them to the same frame number. Since I use the SMPTE time plus frame number code to locate the image and audio frame files I am not supporting the screwy drop frame, i.e. DF, format, so do not select DF or drop frame on your SMPTE LTC to MTC converter module. Only select 24, 25, or 30 frames per second. Q: What is MTC? A: MTC is a rough equivalent to SMPTE LTC but is in a special form that can be moved over MIDI cables, in order to connect SMPTE LTC to your computer that is playing the WAV file of the mixed audio for your project you need a converter box that converts the SMPTE LTC signal into the MIDI MTC signal. These converter boxes were expensive, but since they are no longer used to sync MIDI instruments to analog tape you can find them cheep on e-bay. Avoid converter boxes that use software, the stand alone ones are easier to get going. The converter box has an SMPTE LTC in and MIDI out, the MIDI out connects to your computer through a Joy-Stick to MIDI spliter cable. The Joy-Stick port on your sound board doubles as a MIDI port and can be used for input of MTC signals. Some modules also allow you to convert MTC to SMPTE LTC, this lets the audio software act as Master rather than just as Slave letting you pick the starting point in the WAV player and the images that go with it are displayed when you start the WAV player. When the Edit list is in Master mode the sound follows the picture which you start by pressing the [BackSpace] or [SpaceBar]. If you module goes both ways you can have the WAV player or the Edit list master, but having the Edit list master is preferred if only one way conversion is available. Q: What hardware is required for the Edit list computer? A: Right now I am only supporting a telcom research T102 (tm) SMPTE reader/writer module. To connect the T102 (tm) you need two audio cables and a special RS-232 cable. The literature (downloadable?) from the T102 (tm) manufacture describes the cable requirements and DIP switch settings. Use the highest BAUD rate if you can. The operational switch settings might be Up-Up- Down-Down-Down (viewing from the back right side up left to right). Although the T102 (tm) is expensive through retail outlets you may be able to find one used through e-bay.com (tm) or craigslist.org (tm). SMPTE LTC is an older technology so there is a great deal of older equipment laying around not being used any longer, asking around could save you several hundred dollars. Q: How do I make a "window insertion" of SMPTE time code in the image? A: The Pick and View commands use the ANIMATE command which has an automatic time code, feet and frames, or frame number on-screen display while the frames are running at speed. Press the [W] key while in the Pick, View, or Animate commands and answer the prompts to get the type of display format you want. When in ANIMATE mode 3 reading the frame filenames from the PFL and PFF files there are two frame numbers displayed at the same time, one for the cumulative frame count in the edited frames, and the particular frame number within the shot being displayed at that moment. In ANIMATE mode 3 the shot number in the edited sequence is also displayed so you can know what shot you are looking at. In ANIMATE mode 3 the frame number, feet and frames, or SMPTE time and frames display can be Absolute counting from the zero slate board slap frame, or the frame Count from the first frame in the current edit, letting you see the length of each shot or the time each shot plays. You can go into single frame mode in Pick or View and read the frame information off the read-out that pops up in single frame mode. In single frame mode you can also have the [W] command window insert on to see the ANIMATE mode 3 shot frame in two formats at once. If you have a Horita WG-50 (tm) SMPTE time code play speed reader and window inserter, and a SVGA to composite converter, you can route the composite video through the Horita WG-50 (tm) to overlay the SMPTE LTC time plus frames on another part of the screen to act as a backup to check the sync, especially if you are outputting to video tape to use the tape to record or re-record sounds. Q: Can I use video tape to re-record dialog, effects, and music? A: The Insert command in the Track list command can insert WAV sounds anywhere along an Ltrack or Utrack, see modes 51 and 151 in the Track list Insert command (modes 51 and 151 were added in a later revision). Sometimes it is easier to record sound effects on tape, and later Insert WAV files mode from those tapes, there are two methods. Method one is to generate the mixed track with beeps, then record that onto a VHS camcorder's analog track, if you have a SVGA to composite converter you can input the image through the camcorder's composite video input, if not you can point the camcorder at the computer's screen (the quality of the video is not important it is just used as a reference for doing the recording of the new sounds.) You then play back the video tape, find the spot you want to re-record, but the camcorder into audio only over-dub mode, get ready, start the camcorder, and record your sound while looking at the images play on the electronic view-finder or a monitor on the camcorder's video out. You can then rewind the video tape and listen to the recorded sound while you watch the images to see if you did the recording in sync, if not just rewind and try again. You can record in several places along the tape if you are working with the fill length mix. It does not hurt if you record over some of the beeps, this is a good way to record sounds that run over image cuts. After you get your tape recorded over in several places you can play the tape into your computer's sound board and make a mono WAV file. You then make a stereo WAV file from the original WAV mix file and the recorded over WAV file from the camcorder tape, you can then cut and paste the camcorder channel until you get the remaining beeps lined up with the original WAV mix file. You will need to pull the camcorder recording up and down a little in your WAV editing software (with the stereo channels separated) to align it in various places since the computer and camcorder do not run at exact speed. Once you get the camcorder WAV aligned, you can mark and silence all the parts of that recording you do not want, including all the beeps. Then you framize the camcorder WAV into you Ltrack and use it in the mix in place of the original sounds, e.g. set the track to channel gain for the original sounds to zero. The second method is similar, but uses two VHS Hi-Fi VCRs rather than one analog camcorder. You record the picture and beeped audio mix playback from the computer on a Hi-Fi VHS tape. You then play that tape such that one channel of the second Hi-Fi stereo VCR records the beeped mix and the other channel records the live sound. You can then play the first VCR while the second VCR records. The beeped mix can be feed to headphones on one side and the live sound can be feed to the head phones on the other side. The person talking or making effects or music can see the images on the monitor and hear the beep cued sound as well as the sounds he or she is making. You can keep the second VCR running and back up the first VCR to re-do a take. Later you can watch the tape from the second VCR with just the recorded sound playing to see if you got the sync right and which takes to use. You then make a WAV file of the good takes and align them to the original WAV mix in your audio editing software, silence the unwanted parts and Framize the recorder audio into one of the Ltracks. A variation on method two is to record directly to the second VCR from the computers running off the Edit List, in that way you can mark a range and just hit the [Backspace] key to "rewind" and do another take. You would set the range points to include a head and tail beep beyond the recording range in order to sync the recording later against the source beeped mix WAV. A further extension would be to use a third computer in place of the second VCR to do the recording of the beeped WAV and the fresh sound onto the two channels of a stereo WAV file using a WAV recorder program, reducing the loss of quality caused by going out to the VCR. The advantage of the VCR is that you can rewind the tape from the second VCR and play it in sync to check how well you did the re-recording. Q: How do I repeat a shot in two places in my project? A: Insert the shot's frames into two or more shot directories, and use those separate shot numbers. Q: Is there a way I can watch my project in color and with sound without hooking up SMPTE hardware? A: You can use the Edit List in MOS mode if you have good slate clap board marks. Then use Link to generate the WAV for the sound. Then use Aggregate on a set of reduced resolution color BMP frames. Then merge the BMP frames with the WAV sound in a AVI compiler. The compiled AVI can then be converted into a MPG file you can watch on a media player program, or be burned into a DVD and watched on a DVD player. The Aggregate command can work with any resolution BMP frame file, but the OS limits the maximum number of frames in a single aggregation to about 65534, and the speed of the media player limits the frame rate you can get at any given resolution of the BMP frames. How good the end result looks is influenced by the AVI compiler and MPG converter software since the will need to compress the images, my Edit list does not degrade the output frames it just copies them or makes a filename list of where they are. There are issues with how much disk space will be used for image frames of a given resolution, so you may need to make several smaller MPG files and join them in a video or media editing program if your project is too long otherwise. If you are editing with PIX frames in the I11 resolution directories, you could put higher resolution BMP files of the same frames in the I10 resolution directories, then select I10 as the directory resolution to Aggregate frames from without conversion (just copy BMP to BMP) and in that way make a AVI file that is higher resolution than what you see with the Edit list's Pick and View commands. Q: What do I do if something does not seem to work as described? A: If you are a "Beta Tester" you let me know about it, if you are not a "Beta Tester" you should not be using the program in the first place. --- CHANGES TO CAD PROGRAMS V3.7N NOVEMBER 27, 2006 Some changes were made to the Files Utilities Set commands to allow for the Padded numbered filename format. The Padded format is like the Long format except that the filename numbers are padded with zeros going left, it is primarily for use with frame numbers from zero up so that Windows (tm) programs can process the numbered frames in the correct sorted order, the Long filename format does not work well with Windows (tm) programs since the way Windows (tm) sorts the filenames may make some names become out of order. The Aggregate command in the Kinema Edit list was revised to ask for the source file if it is not found, this enables you to feed high resolution image frames in to the Aggregate command from DVD or other removable disks. An Insert command has been added to the Track list sub-menu to insert audio frames into the Edit list structure automatically. The way it works is that you select the shot you want to add sound to in the Edit list, then press [SpaceBar], then select the Track list, then press [U] or [L] in the Track list to get the list you want, then move the cursor onto the track you want to add audio frames to (which would be empty unless you want to overwrite what is there), then you press [SpaceBar], then you select the Insert track command, then you enter the name of the audio WAV file for that track. The Insert track command then automatically framizes the WAV into the Divided filename RAW audio frames for that track. There is an option to erase the source WAV file. Although the Insert track command looks in the same track directory for the WAV file first, you can change the source WAV path and name to find the file anywhere on another disk and such. The track insert command can also de- framize the RAW audio frames back into a WAV file. This option uses Framize mode 3 which can fill in missing audio frames with silent frames, which is needed because the Edit list Link command erases silent audio frames to save disk space. There is an option to delete the source RAW files when de- framizing. You might need to de-framize if you wanted to change the EQ or do other effects on one of the audio tracks and had lost the original WAV file the audio frames were made from for that track. Once you have edited the WAV sound file for your track you just use the Insert command in Framize to put the edited sound back into the track. Be sure that you have selected the right shot number, Utrack or Ltrack mode, and the right track number or your track audio files will get inserted into the wrong track. If you put a track in the wrong place, you can use the Files Utilities Set commands to move or remove the out of place audio frames. The WAV Framize command was revised to have two new modes, mode 3 and 103. Mode 103 is like 3 but erases the source RAW audio frames after making the result WAV file. Mode 3 works like Mode 2 in that they both de-framize, but Mode 3 fills the gaps caused by silent frames being removed with silence, whereas Mode 2 stops at the first gap, so "island" audio frames are not added to the result WAV file. If you need to de-framize tracks from the structure that have been Linked with the Edit list Link command use Framize Mode 3 and not Mode 2. --- CHANGES TO CAD PROGRAMS V3.7N DECEMBER 3, 2006 An image Insert command has been added to the Edit list sub-menu to aid in inserting frame image files into the Edit list directory structure. This Insert command frees you from having to write a Macro to do the BMP to PIX conversion for making the reduced resolution image frame files used by the Pick and View commands. This Edit list image Insert command complements the Track list track Insert command added in the last revision. There is an option to do just one shot at a time, do a range of shots up to the full project, or to do a range marked in the Edit list with the [B]egin and [E]nd block commands. Since the program has no way of knowing how many frames there will be for each shot before they are loaded into the Edit list's structure for the active project it starts at frame number zero and counts up until there is a frame not found, so there cannot be gaps in the image frames numbers, and all shots must be numbered from frame zero. There is an option in Insert image to have the program ask you to insert a disk with the needed source frames on it if you are using removable disks. You need to manually press [D] for Done when all the frames for a given shot are loaded in removable disk mode since the program has no way of knowing how many disks worth of frames you are trying to Insert into the project's structure. If you put the wrong disk in the program will repeat the prompt. If you do not have the correct source disks, you can press [Control] and [X] to abort insertion of the image frames. If you are inserting several shots you would need to press [D] for Done at the end of the frames for each shot in removable disk mode. The file numbering format used for image frames in the Edit list structure is type "D" or Divided type. Since you may be converting and resizing your high resolution frame images down to the dimensions for the Pixel frames using a third party Windows (tm) program such as IrfanView (tm) there is a provision to read other numbering formats including the "P" or Padded numbering format which may sort the frames better in Windows (tm) programs. You may need to use the Files Utilities Set commands to get the filenames for the reduced resolution BMP frame files into "P" or Padded format and to have them start with frame numbered zero. The image frame numbered zero is always the slate clap board slap frame for each shot, even for MOS or silent shots. Once you get the reduced resolution BMP frames into the shot directories, and "I" level 11 directory, you can use the image Insert command to convert all of the reduced resolution BMP frames into PIX files for the Pick and View command to display at or near sync speed. Be sure that the reduced resolution BMP files have the same pixel dimensions as the video mode you want to use the PIX files with. EGA mode E640M16 or 640x350x4 monochrome, or V640X350M16 mode, seems to be the best compromise between disk space used, image quality, and frame loading speed. Any video mode can be used, but higher resolutions and 16 bpp color may not run at 24 fps since there are problems with the harddisk transfer speed and the total disk space required to hold all the image frames and audio frames for a 88 minute feature film. If your disks are large and fast enough you can experiment with the higher resolutions, but the EGA 640x350x4 (E640M16) and VGA 320x200x8 (V320M256 or V320P256) or V640X320M16, V640X200M16, and V320X200M16 resolutions will probably work best. When converting from BMP files to the M16 palette video modes, 24 bpp BMP files allow dithering adjustment, but 8 bpp BMP files are just palette converted, so the end results may look better if the source files for conversion of the reduced resolution BMP frames to PIX frames are 24 bpp BMP files rather than 8 bpp BMP files. There are options in the image Insert command for Copy or Move, Copy makes a new copy of the file, or makes a converted file and leaves the original in place, whereas Move deletes the source file, so if disk space is limited you may wish to use the Move option. There are options in the image Insert command to copy and move files without conversion into and out of the Edit list structure without conversion, these would be used for moving the high resolution image frames around, and for moving the reduced resolution BMP frames into a place where they can be used for the conversion to PIX for the Pick and View commands. Normally you would store all image frames in the standard directory structure on all disks even removable disks so that the shots can be identified and located. The image Insert options that go between the structure and a general directory drive and path are for use only when files to be relocated have not been properly stored in the standard structure, such as RAW files in a camera's memory card and such. When you are going to burn a DVD to store image frame files you should make the standard structure on a hard disk first, and copy the files you want to store in that structure then burn that structure onto the DVD disk, that way the shot frames can be located automatically later since they will be in the proper sub-directories. The image Insert command also has a Delete option to allow you to delete image frame files from the standard structure to free disk space. The block Delete command in the Edit list just sets the shot length to 0, it does not delete the frame files in case you want to resurrect them later, if you are sure you do not need those frames for your project you can Delete them from your hard disk in fact using the Delete option in the image Insert command. To change the CAD programs into EGA video modes use the small menu that comes up when you first run the CAD programs and select Video. The Edit list values for the shot length, head, key, and tail frames should update after you use the Edit list Insert command on PIX frames in the sync resolution "I" directory (normally I resolution level 11). When you Insert or Delete files at other resolutions or other types the Edit list values do not update since the Edit list primarily works with the sync resolution image frames, and the other resolution sub-directories are used temporarily during processing of the image frames for the film output high resolution files which are too large to have the project directory structure hold all of them at one time. Since the reduced resolution sync resolution image frames can be small enough to all fit into the project directory structure (distributed on several disks) at one time the Edit list can report errors if those frames are not present and available for immediate display. In other words if you Insert pixel files for a shot 100 frames long, the Edit list will read a shot length of 100 after insertion, or if you delete a shot's image frames the Edit list will be updated to have its shot length set to 0. Similarly if you move the pixel files from one shot directory to another within the structure the old shot length will be set to 0 and the new shot length will be set to the maximum frame count for that set of pixel frames. Since the Edit list Insert commands operate on all of the image frames in a given shot, not just the sub-range of frames for that shot selected in the Edit list for the selected shot or range of shots, you should use the Files Utilities Set commands to delete the upper range of image frames in each shot if you just need the first part of the shot frames to free disk space. Remember that you always need to have a continuous numbered set of image frames for each shot numbered from zero up in the "D" or Divided numbering format for the Pick and View commands to show the frame range selected in the Edit list. In other words, shot 1 will have a frame zero, shot 2 will have a frame zero and so on. The Aggregate command makes a set of frames from the range of shots starting from frame zero, but the frame numbers Aggregate makes are sequentaly numbered and do not reflect the actual frame numbers in each shot in the range of shots aggregated. in other words frame zero in the aggregated frame set may be frame 452 in shot 6 or anything else. When using the file type conversion mode in the Edit list Insert command and the source file is an 8bpp BMP gray scale file, you should use the Palette conversion mode 1 since my M16 and M256 video modes will not be using the same palette as the third party graphics program you used to make the 8 bpp BMP file with. Converting from 24 bpp BMP image files to PIX files for the Pick and View commands may give better results since you can adjust the dithering value to improve the tonal scale in the displayed frame images. When using the same pixel size conversion from BMP to PIX it is important that the BMP file actually have the same pixel dimensions. Some Windows (tm) programs may be very stubborn about making BMP files that are one pixel off of the requested size, so if the conversion fails use the properties or image information commands in your Windows (tm) programs to check what size the BMP files ended up being in spite of your trying to resize them to the correct dimensions. Always keep a backup copy of the film output resolution frame image files so that you can use that backup copy to restore the film output resolution frame image files to the structure in case you need to resize the reduced resolution files for re-conversion to Pixel files if you have trouble with disk space or getting the frames to run a sync speed when your disk is full, i.e. make smaller size Pixel files to get more space and speed at sync resolution. --- CHANGES TO CAD PROGRAMS V3.7N DECEMBER 10, 2006 The Track list's Insert command has be modified to have three new modes, mode 51 inserts audio frames anywhere along an audio track so that you can insert sound effects, music or other sounds into the Utracks or Ltracks without having to start a fresh track from audio frame zero, mode 151 is like 51 but erases the source WAV file after framizing, and 201 deletes audio frames from one or more track. Mode 201 can read the start of block and end of block from the Edit list and or the Utrack or Ltrack lists and delete a range of audio frames from a range of shots, a range of tracks, and a range of frames. You should be careful when using Mode 201 since it can delete all of the audio frames if you enter the wrong values. To use the Track list's Insert audio frames modes 51 and 151, first view the shot in the Pick command, or the Linked shots in the View command and find the starting frame number where you want the WAV file inserted into the Utrack or Ltrack. Then use Mode 51 or 152 to framize the WAV file into the current track selected in the Track list. Be sure you have the correct shot selected in the Edit list also. When inserting sounds into a Ltrack, remember to link the image frames from the beginning of the reel or project, since the frame offset into the track you will be entering is relative to the start of the reel or project, Linked frames start from zero for those edited shots, which may not be frame zero in the first shot selected. By inserting sounds into the Ltracks you can have sounds cross edits between shots. Be sure that you trim the WAV files that you want to insert, and fade the head and tail of the WAV sounds so that they come in from silence and out to silence before you use the Track list's Insert command. When inserting short sounds into a track the area of the track you are putting the sound into should be silent, if there is already some sound in that section of the track, use another track to insert the sound into. The Track list's Insert command mode 51 and 151 will blop the head and tail of the WAV you are inserting to reduce clicks, but you should not have the WAV at full volume at its head and tail unless you want the sound to blast on and off since it takes the compressor a brief time to adjust the mix volume to level the track mix gain. Its better to have the sounds fade in and out over about a frame width or two. You can fade and trim your WAV files to insert in a third party WAV editing program like Magix (tm). Avoid long silence at the head and tail of the WAV you are inserting since the extra frames may overwrite sounds that are already on the track you are inserting into. You can now mark a block in the Track list by pressing [B] for begin and [E] for end of block. After marking a block you can press [D] for delete block, which does not delete the tracks it just sets the tracks MixP, Mix Priority, to zero so that you can do the audio mix without those tracks. If you really want to physically Delete tracks use the Track list's Insert command mode 201. In addition to disabling tracks if you mark a block in the Track list, and then enter a value inside the marked block you have the option to have the entered value repeated vertically within the marked block, this can be faster than having to enter the value into each track separately. For instance if you want to set the noise gate threshold for Ltracks 100 through 150 to 0.01 you would press [L] then move to Ltrack 100, then press [B] then move to Ltrack 150, then press [E], then press [Return] while in the NGT column and enter 0.01, then answer [Y] when the program asks you if you want the value repeated vertically in the marked block. The vertical repeat for values entered in the marked block has also been added to the Edit list, but there it would mostly be of use when changing the drive letters for the various resolution levels. You can adjust the sync of sounds inserted into tracks by deleting them with Track Insert mode 201 and inserting them again with a different starting frame, or if the inserted sound is the only sound in the track you can use the Pull up and Pull down value in the Track lists. You can also use the Utilities Set commands to renumber the audio frames to shift a range of audio frames to the head or tail as needed in any track. Some other minor changes were made in the course of doing the update. --- CHANGES TO CAD PROGRAMS V3.7N DECEMBER 14, 2006 Some changes were made to the video mode entry to allow three "new" video modes to be used when the CAD programs are configured to use a VGA or SVGA video board (only VGA modes that allow the M16 palette are valid for the "new" modes.) New video mode codes have been added for the VGA and SVGA board types: V320X200M16 = 320 x 200 pixels 16 value gray scale palette (new). V640X200M16 = 640 x 400 pixels 16 value gray scale palette (new). V640X350M16 = 640 x 350 pixels 16 value gray scale palette (EGA only before). V640X480M16 = 640 x 480 pixels 16 value gray scale palette (aka V640M16). V320X200M256 = 320 X 200 pixels 256 value gray scale palette (aka V320M256). V320X200P256 = 320 X 200 pixels 256 value color photo palette (aka V320P256). Some of these codes where there before with different names, but the new names make discussion of the modes likely to be used with the Kinema Edit list a little less nebulous. Previously you needed to re-configure the CAD programs into EGA video board mode in order to use the E640M16 mode code, but now you can use the code V640X350M16 from the VGA and SVGA board type configuration, making it easier to switch video codes while in VGA and SVGA type configuration. The V640X350M16 video mode is the preferred video mode to use with the Kinema Edit list since it has a good compromise between image resolution and file size, and is about the largest frame file that will run at 24 fps without lost frames much of the time. The two new video mode codes, V320X200M16 and V640X200M16 are like the V640X350M16 mode except that they are lower resolution and have smaller frame file sizes, and so may be of use on slower computers, when disk space is limited, and where you need to edit using 30 fps. Here is a comparison of the frame file size for the various video modes, and how much disk space would be required for an 88 minute feature. An 88 minute feature has 88*60*24=126720 frames total. When editing using the Kinema Edit list you might need 3 to 6 times the total number of frames in the finished project because the takes are loaded starting with the slate clap board frame. You can delete unneeded image frames from the tail of the shots as you edit if you need to free disk space. V320X200M16 = 32016 bytes per frame, about 4GB per 88 minutes. (mono) V640X200M16 = 64016 bytes per frame, about 8GB per 88 minutes. (mono) V640X350M16 = 112016 bytes per frame, about 15GB per 88 minutes. (mono) V640X480M16 = 153600 bytes per frame, about 20GB per 88 minutes. (mono) V320X200M256 = 64000 bytes per frame, about 8GB per 88 minutes. (mono) V320X200P256 = 64002 bytes per frame, about 8GB per 88 minutes. (color) Although any supported video mode can be used with the ANIMATE command and its use as the Pick and View commands in the Kinema Edit list, the SVGA 16 bpp video modes generally make video files too large to display at 24 fps, unless you have some computer that is exceptionally fast, and the 16, 24, or 32 bpp mode files are much larger and would take a great deal more disk space. You can experiment if you like by using the video mode code word "LIST" and see if your video board supports 320X240X16 or 320X400X16, that SVGA VESA color mode might look more TV like and be just small enough to run at 24 fps on some really fast computer. You should use heavy dithering with the M16 and P256 palette video modes, perhaps values around 32, 48, or 64. The M256 modes do not require dithering usually. Dithering increases the apparent number of tone values when the image frames are run at sound sync speed. Too much dithering makes the images more grainy. The P256 palette is supported at resolutions higher than 320X200X8 but the 320X200X8 mode does not require "bank switching" of the video memory and so may work faster on some video boards. The video mode codes that start with V do not bank switch and are VGA board compatible, the video mode codes that start with S mostly bank switch and require a SVGA video board. That is you could try video mode codes: S640P256 = 640 X 480 X 8 = 308KB per frame, about 40GB per 88 minutes. S800P256 = 800 X 600 X 8 = 481KB per frame, about 61GB per 88 minutes. S1024P256 = 1024 X 768 X 8 = 787KB per frame, about 100GB per 88 minutes. But I doubt your computer is fast enough for them to run at 24 fps unless you are using a solid state disk drive, i.e. large hardware RAM disk, then the 640 X 480 X 8 mode might have a chance. The SVGA 16 bpp files use twice as much disk space: SVGA 320 X 240 X 16 = 154KB per frame, about 20GB per 88 minutes. SVGA 320 X 400 X 16 = 256KB per frame, about 33GB per 88 minutes. SVGA 640 X 480 X 16 = 616KB per frame, about 80GB per 88 minutes. SVGA 800 X 600 X 16 = 962KB per frame, about 122GB per 88 minutes. SVGA 1024 X 768 X 16 = 1574KB per frame, about 200GB per 88 minutes. I am almost sure you are not going to get the 1024 X 768 X 16 frames to run at 24 fps no matter how fast you think your computer is, but you could use those frames in single frame mode in the Edit list to get a close look at the action stepping frame by frame. You can change the resolution "I" level used by the Pick and View commands with an option in the Edit list's Global command. I did not list the modes above 1024, but 1280 X 1024, 1600 X 1200, 1940 X 1440, and 2048 X 1536 are also supported if your video board is compatible at those resolutions. Anyway, you have a range of video modes, resolutions, and color or black and white options now to use in the VGA and SVGA video board configuration, the V640X350M16 mode is probably the best compromise for speed and resolution, and the V320X200P256 mode is usable if you want to see the shots run at sound speed in color. When running the V320X200P256 frames look better than in still frame since the image details from one frame to the next blend in your eyes, also if you turn the lights off and stand back from the monitor, and maybe squint a little, you may see more detail than when viewing the images close up since when you are too close you see the pixels as little squares rather than part of the image. If you have an electronic SVGA to composite converter video box connected between your computer and computer monitor, you can connect a small 3 inch to 5 inch TV set or composite video monitor and watch the reduced resolution frames on the smaller screen, where they may look better than blow up too large on your computer monitor. When working with a project in 16:9 video ratio or 1.66:1, 1.85:1, 2:1, or 2.35:1 wide screen ratios, you can turn down the monitor height to get the various aspect ratios to display properly. You may need to resize the source BMP frame files to have non-square pixels in order for the resolutions like V640X350M16 or V640X200M16 to come out with the right shape rectangle frame and still show the proper portion of the negative area so that parts of the original frame image are cropped properly. You enter the video mode code words at the video mode prompts when asked for what video mode to use. Not all video boards support all mode codes. Remember that when converting BMP frame files to PIX frame files, you should have the BMP images resized to the exact pixel size for the video mode you want to make the PIX frame files, that is if you want to make 640 X 350 pixel files you would resize your BMP frames to be 640 X 350 pixels before you try to convert them to PIX frames. Some Windows (tm) programs may resize the BMP files one pixel off size causing the conversion to PIX to fail, so check the BMP frame file properties by right clicking on their filenames to try to make sure they are the right size. Converting 24 bpp BMP files may look better as PIX frame files than converting 8 bpp BMP files since the dithering can be adjustable when converting from 24 bpp BMP frame files. Changes were made to the Kinema Edit list's Link command to allow you to set a separate mix priority for the Utracks and the Ltracks. This lets you filter the tracks getting included in the audio mix in more ways. The major reason for this change is to allow you to cut up the mix for the whole project, the reel 0 mix, into parts and insert those parts as Ltracks into the various reel mixes without having the Utracks getting mixed into the individual reel mixes a second time. The Kinema Edit list now asks if you are sure you want to quit, to avoid flying out if you hold the Escape key down too long when exiting the Edit list sub- menu. Some other code was revised and updated. --- CHANGES TO CAD PROGRAMS V3.7N DECEMBER 21, 2006 The 8bpp and 24bpp BMP to PIX conversion that converts BMP image files into Pixel files for display in the ANIMATE, Pick, and View commands has been heavily revised, and now automatically resizes the BMP image to any of the video modes. The program auto-detects if the source BMP file is 8bpp color or gray-scale or 24 bpp and converts the colors or tones as best it can to work with the various video modes. The BMP to PIX conversion in the Files Utilities BMP PIX command and the image Insert command in the Kinema Edit list both use this new capability, as does the LOAD BMP to screen macro command. When the LOAD BMP load to screen macro command is used for conversion of BMP to PIX, the GRAPH_MODE macro command must be used before it to set the graphics mode you want, and the SAVE PIXEL command must used after it to save the screen to a PIX file using that video resolution. In the Files Utilities Kinema Edit list's Insert image command the new auto- resize feature allows you to use as the source BMP files the film recorder resolution (2048x1536 24 bpp) BMP image frames stored on DVD+/-R disks to be read from and converted directly to make the reduced resolution (640x350x4 etc.) sync sound play speed PIX files for use while editing in the Pick and View commands of the Kinema Edit list. This saves you the trouble of making sets of reduced size BMP frame files before conversion of the image frames to PIX files for viewing with the Pick and View commands. Conversion from BMP to the M2, C4, C16, and C256 video palettes was added which lets you view PIX frame images in color on a EGA video board by using the E640C16 video mode, although the results are a bit abstract. On a VGA video board the P256 palette should be used rather than the C256 palette for color image frames, although both will display now. On the CGA board the M2 and C4 palettes can now be used with image frames, but just barely. --- CHANGES TO CAD PROGRAMS v3.7N REVISION SEPTEMBER 4, 2008 Many improvements to the internal code have been made over the last year to improve the speed of the file processing in the Kinema Edit list. These improvements help speed the DI workflow. Some changes to the menu commands and program operation have been made, these are listed in the following. To improve the motion picture frame quality for footage brought into the Kinema Edit list 48bpp 16 bit TIF file support has been added to the Files Utilities Kinema Edit list's image frame Insert and Grading commands. This TIF file support should allow the CAD programs to deliver professional quality results from Color Correction and Editing by using 48bpp TIF 16 bit RGB input from Digital Cinema cameras (like RED ONE (tm), SI-2K (tm), ARRI D-20 (tm), etc.), film scanners and other sources, and then making 48bpp TIF 16 bit RGB output to film recorders, Digital projection, and BluRay (tm), DVD (tm), etc. The 48bpp 16 bit RGB TIF support should work up to 6K+ resolution or more, if you find any issues please let me know by email, you may need to let me have a sample TIF file that works with your workflow so I can see an example to make an evaluation of what the issue might be. I have done some compatibility testing and do not anticipate major issues, my programs should be able to read valid 48bpp 16 bit RGB TIF files that do not have an Alpha, i.e. just three colors in one image, and that have the image data in a block, as most do. This revision does NOT read 8 bit TIF files, you can convert those to 24bpp BMP with third party freeware and import the 8 bit data as BMP. Other programs that read 48bpp 16 bit RGB TIF files should be able to read 48bpp 16 bit RGB TIF files made with my programs, if you have a problem it may be that the image is too large for the other program, or that program only reads 8 bit TIF files, if the program only reads 8 bit TIF files you can output 24bpp BMP rather than TIF. Some internal processing is still done with 14 bit Look Up Tables (LUT) so the 16 bit TIF you import should be Log or video Gamma rather than Linear (lighter rather than very dark and underexposed looking if possible) if you have a choice when you save your scanner or Digital Cinema camera to 16 bit TIF files. If you use Log or video Gamma TIF files for import there should be no noticeable difference between using 14 bit and 16 bit LUT other than the program can process the frames a little faster, perhaps. This may change in future program revisions. For output the 16 bit TIF files would normally be at video Gamma, but you can ALTER the output Gamma value in the KCC file setup in the Grading menu to alter the output Gamma of the 16 bit TIF frames saved that you would send along to the film recorder or Digital Projection, etc. If you are using a MAC (tm) or other OS that names TIF files with a TIFF extension you will need to rename the frames to have just a TIF three letter extension since the CAD programs use the DOS 8+3 character file name system. Related to the 16 bit TIF support I have changed the utility program DCRAWBAT.COM (tm) to use the third party DCRAW (tm) program to convert the *.CR2 files made by a Canon XTi (tm) digital DSLR into 16 bit TIF files rather than 8 bit TIF files, this allows direct import of single 16 bit TIF frames from a film scanner or other DSLR use such as titles, time lapse, claymation, and such. The FUSE option of the Edit list Insert command now supports both 8 bit 24bpp BMP and 16 bit 48bpp TIF files, so to get better quality I changed DCRAWBAT.COM (tm) to just make 16 bit TIF files from the DSLR RAW frames. The new DCRAWBAT.COM (tm) is in the revised DANCINES.ZIP (tm), see also the *.TXT documentation in DANCINES.ZIP (tm) for more information. To be clearer, you no longer need to make 8 bit TIF from the CR2 frames then convert those into BMP, rather you make 16 bit TIF and use those directly with DANCAD87.EXE (tm) or DANCAD3D.EXE (tm). If you are using the third party REDCINE (tm) program to convert R3D footage files into TIF frames you should adjust the string for the numbered filename output so that you get my "Padded" numbered file name type, like 00000000.TIF, since the version of REDCINE (tm) you are using may just output 6 digit filenames you may be able to alter the output filename string to have two extra zeros in front of the filename six digit number like "00#6.E" or something, see the command in the output section of REDCINE (tm). Try making REDLog type 16bit TIF files for your frames. Be sure to select the best de-Bayer settings for making your TIF files, and select 16 bit RGB (48bpp) TIF type as the file type to output. You can do one shot at a time, and adjust the output directory to put the TIF frames directly into my program's project directory shot's image resolution level I01, like path C:\P0001\S0123\I01 as the output path for shot 123 (you can rearrange the shots later when editing in my Edit list, but the files stay in that directory (folder)). When you adjust the trim controls put the head trim point for the shot so that the "slate" slap or beep frame is the first frame, i.e. 00000000.TIF, since the Insert command always assumes the zero frame is the slate frame, like having the head sync on zero frame of a 35mm film synchronizer. Doing it this way lets you use the edit list values if you want to just workprint edit and sound mix with my programs and have your 35mm negative cut to match the edit list values and otherwise make conforming to other systems easier. It is also easier to edit the sound for each shot's track if the sync beep is the first (2000) sample frame in the WAV file. IMPORTANT PLEASE NOTE THIS CHANGE! To reduce the number of dropped frames the sync playback makes when the programs are run under FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) the Divided filename format has been changed, if you are working on a project that uses the old Divided name format you will need to press [~] from the CAD program's Main Menu and select the old Divided name type for source and result files, or the program will report file not found for existing files using the old Divided filename format (old is type 1). Two new Divided filename formats have been added, type 2 limits the number of frame files in a folder to 500 rather than a thousand, this is because DOS has speed problems if there are more than about 511 files in a folder, this change requires using twice as many folders so the project length for playback is half as long or about 2.9 hours before the folder count also gets above 500 folders. The 500 limited "type 2" Divided file name format is easier to read under Windows (tm) file manager since the filenames and folder names are padded with leading zeros, making the filenames sort in order better, this is a big help when you use Windows (tm) to look for a range of files to copy and such. For projects that are longer in playback than 2.9 hours there is a "type 3" Divided name format that works like the old "type 1" Divided filename format, except that is uses leading zeros to improve the sort when being looked at in a directory or folder with Windows (tm), etc. You would select just one of the Divided filename types for a given project by pressing [~] key from the CAD program's Main Menu. This work is on-going so if you have any questions contact me by email. The Format for the file names is like this: LONG PADDED DIVIDED 1 DIVIDED 2 DIVIDED 3 -123456.TIF -0123456.TIF TIF-123\456.TIF TIF0123A\456.TIF TIF0123S\456.TIF -123789.TIF -0123789.TIF TIF-123\798.TIF TIF0123B\798.TIF TIF0123S\789.TIF 123456.TIF 00123456.TIF TIF123\456.TIF TIF0123C\456.TIF TIF0123T\456.TIF 123789.TIF 00123798.TIF TIF123\798.TIF TIF0123D\789.TIF TIF0123T\789.TIF 1.TIF 00000001.TIF TIF0\1.TIF TIF0000C\001.TIF TIF0000T\001.TIF Negative numbers do not work in all parts of the programs, so the examples shown may not be available for all or any command options in this revision. In the original Divided type 1 the numbers were not padded with leading zeros, so when the filenames were viewed with the Windows (tm) file manager the filenames would not sort in the right order. Also under DOS there are issues with mow many files will work fast in a single directory folder, so the first 511 about "proxy" image frame files would read without dropped or lost frames then frames about 512 to 999 in each folder would slow down and drop frames. Under Windows 98SE (tm) this did not seem to be an issue, but in order to use FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) for editing the problem needed to be improved. To improve the "proxy" frame reading by FreeDOS FAT32 (tm), and maybe some other OS using a FAT32 formatted disk, DIVIDED filename type 2 was added. Divided filename type 2 is the new default type, if you are working on a project that uses the older type 1 you should press [~] in the CAD program's main menu and change the Divided name type back to type 1 until that project is finished or you have copied and renamed the files. Type 2 limits the number of frames to 500 in each divided name folder, so you get frames 000.TIF to 499.TIF in folder TIF0000C and frames 500.TIF to 999.TIF in folder TIF0000D. To handle negative values in the future folder names ending in A would be for negative values from 000 to 499 and folder names ending in B would be for negative values 500 to 999. So with type 2 you will see folders with names ending in A, B, C, and D with positive values just in C and D folders, if a frame number has its last three digits less than 500 it will be in a C folder, and if the frame number has its last three digits of 500 or more it will be in a D folder. Keeping the folder name in base 10 makes the reading of the frame numbers easier, frame 1234 would have a full path like: C:\P0001\S0321\I01\TIF0001C\234.TIF and frame 45934 would have a full path like: C:\P0001\S0321\I01\TIF0045D\934.TIF Once you understand how the frame number is split between the directory and the filename part for each folder you should be able to find any frame you want on your harddrives. Note that when you enter the Divided file name in many of the prompts in the CAD programs you enter then like a Long type name and the program figures out the Divided Format from the type you selected with the [~] menu in the Main Menu. If you are working on a new project JUST LEAVE the Divided filename in its default type 2 setting all the time, except if you need to change it for a special use. For the above examples you would enter the Long filename format as: for frame 1234 enter, C:\P0001\S0321\I01\1234.TIF and frame 45934 would enter a full path like: C:\P0001\S0321\I01\45934.TIF And many of the prompts that use Divided filenames will add the folder part, in fact if you put the folder part in the program will not find the file or folder, unless you are in a prompt that is just for full filenames, there is a note on the screen that tells you if it is a formatted filename prompt much of the time. For the most part you only need to deal with the divided folders when you work with the frames from outside the CAD programs. Padded type is the most compatible with Windows (tm) programs and other third party programs (Linux (tm) etc.) but the Padded filenames have a problem in that under FAT32 or some OS you may not be able to get more than about 65535 files in a folder, and the folder will slow down a great deal if you have more than 511 files in the folder, so you can only use Padded filenames for not time critical tasks. The CAD programs seem to run, at least in part, under Windows XP SP3 (tm) with the NTFS rather than FAT32. The main objection to installing Windows XP SP3 in a NTFS partition is that you may not be able to boot your computer with the FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) boot CD and run both OS on the same harddrive that way. Windows XP SP3 (tm) prevents you from formatting a whole 500GB harddrive as FAT32, so you need to format the harddrive FAT32 before you install Windows XP SP3. You may be able to do that with a freeware program called FAT32FORMAT.EXE (tm) by using another computer and formatting the new harddrive as a second harddrive before you move it to the new computer and install Windows XP SP3 (tm). Windows XP SP3 (tm) may have issues with some computers using AMD (tm) CPU, so if the computer you will be using has an AMD (tm) CPU you might want to try SP2 first. It may also be possible to use the FDISK (tm) program from Windows ME (tm) (not 2000) to format large disks FAT32, as well as using the FDISK (tm) replacement used by FreeDOS FAT32 (tm). If you get a message about "fnode" problems the harddisk controller on the mother board or your computer may be too old to work with harddisks as large as 500GB. In that case you will need to replace the motherboard or at lease the harddisk controller. This will probably only be a problem with computers older than five years since newer computers have a harddisk controller chip that works with disks up to 2TB in many cases. For use with FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) and my programs you may need to use 500GB EIDE harddrives rather than SATA harddrives since there may be a memory conflict if the SATA BIOS uses some DOS memory areas up, that may depend on the SATA BIOS and is something I do not have good answers about as I write this, just mentioning that 500GB EIDE drives may work out while SATA may not, but I do not know for sure. A EIDE to SATA converter device may have its own memory since it plugs into the end of the EIDE cable, but one type may work and another not, I have not tested SATA drives as of the time I am writing this, 500GB EIDE drives seem to work on newer computers, and a FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) drive can be mounted as a second drive on a Windows XP SP2 or SP3 (tm) system, and on a SP3 system XP (tm) can copy files from NTFS SATA drives to the EIDE FAT32 drive without observed issues if you make sure the filenames are just 8+3 type, not long filenames. My programs do not work with long filenames anyway, so just don't use them and you should be able to get things to work together. It should also be possible to mount a FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) system disk as a second data disk on a Ubuntu Linux (tm) computer if you want easier network access to copy files on and off the FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) disk. You may also be able to make your FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) disks dual boot with both FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) and Ubuntu Linux (tm) on them, that way you can work with the files under Lunix (tm) and with my programs without copying the frames from one disk to another or moving the jumpers on the drive from master to slave, just reboot the same drive. When viewing image frames in Sync mode using the Pick, View, and Animate commands you can now press [Ctrl] and [W] to toggle the dropped (lost) frame readout on and off, if your harddrive is fast enough for the "proxy" low resolution frames to load on time the dropped (lost) frame readout should show Zero, 0, all the time the frames are running, it will count out of range at the end of the frame range display, until you press [BackSpace] to restart the sync frame display. You can still press [W] to setup the values for the SMPTE start point, the dropped (lost) frame readout, and the frame counter (window dub like readout). The advantage of pressing [Ctrl] and [W] (^W) is that you can toggle the dropped frame readout on and off while the frames are running at sync speed without having to stop the sync playback. Some issues came up when FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) was tested with the CAD programs, an issue with INSTALL.BAT required a change to that file to get the install to work, the FILES=20 should be increased to FILES=40 or so in FDCONFIG.SYS on your FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) system disk (you can press [~] from my CAD program's Main Menu to check that there are enough file handles free there should be more than 9), and some other things like the changes to the Divided file name format. FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) seems to work with 500GB EIDE disks on newer mother boards that still have EIDE along with SATA harddrive connectors. As was mentioned if you get a "fnode" or "Panic" error that may be due to the motherboard being too old to work with 500GB disks without changes. If you have problems with the SVGA video modes under Windows XP Home SP2 (tm) rebooting your system with the FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) CD may let the program work better, but your Windows XP Home SP2 (tm) disk should be formatted FAT32 not NTFS for that trick to work and may need to be EIDE not SATA harddisks. The advantage of FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) over Windows 98SE (tm) is that if your motherboard's harddisk chips are new enough you can use 500GB EIDE harddrives to get enough disk space to work with large 16 bit TIF frame files. Windows ME (tm) may work better than Windows XP Home SP2 (tm) with my programs, but I am looking into various OS and Video board issues. To format large disks FAT32 with Windows XP (tm) you need a freeware program called FAT32FORMAT.EXE (tm) since Windows XP (tm)'s GUI format tool was crippled to 32GB FAT32 partitions, with the freeware program you can format up to 2TB using XP (tm) from the command prompt after you use the GUI tool to make a new drive letter, just DO NOT format using the GUI format tool, look at the screen and do not select the format option in the GUI, see the online documentation for FAT32FORMAT.EXE (tm) at it's Author's Web site. If you have XP (tm) on a FAT32 disk, up to 2TB, you can boot with FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) CD so that things may work better if you have XP (tm) video or other problems. Please read the revised INFOV37N.TXT file in DANCAD16.ZIP (tm) for more information about some of the changes in this major revision of the CAD programs. Since the batch frame processing for color correction in my CAD programs uses Text mode rather than graphics for making output frames for the film recorder, BluRay (tm), DVD (tm), and such you may be able to use SATA harddrives with Windows XP SP3 (tm) and the NTFS along with 2TB harddrives for that batch frame processing work from the Kinema Edit list Insert command. If you have video problems you can use another computer, or swap harddisks and use FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) with my programs to do the Grading for the color correction, once you have configured a *.KCC for the keyframe in each shot you can then batch process the frames without needing compatible video Graphics modes. Problems with graphics under Windows XP SP3 (tm) do not mean that your video board will not work under FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) or Windows ME (tm). If you can boot your computer under FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) your video problems may go away, unless your video board does not support VBE 1.2, 2.0, or 3.0 VESA modes, in which case you may need a TSR program to get VESA video support. Some newer video boards may not support any VESA modes in their BIOS, so you may need to select video board type CGA to get into the CAD programs, this will let you use the Text mode parts of the program for large image frame processing and sound mixing. If your video board does not work, you can try to disable the PCI Express video board and use the on-mother-board VGA video chip. Go into the CMOS setup for your mother board and select the on-mother-board VGA video BEFORE you move the monitor connector to the on-mother-board VGA video connector, or you will just get a blank screen. Most on-mother-board VGA chips support 640x480 resolution, but to use the color correction your chip will need to support 1024x768x15, 1024x768x16, 1024x768x24, 1024x768x32 SVGA modes. For some reason Windows XP SP2 (tm) may force the vertical refresh rate to unusable low Hz like 54Hz or 31Hz so that your monitor will go black or display a out of Hz range for the VHz and or the HHz. I have not found a simple way to override this problem with XP (tm), but under Windows 98SE (tm) and FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) the video should work at the video BIOS default refresh rate and you should see a normal display on your monitor. I spoke to Microsoft (tm) support about this issue and was told more or less that I would not be allowed to speak to anyone with the knowledge required to find out why Windows XP Home SP2 (tm) was doing this to the vertical refresh rate. I have seen a 1024x768 mode display on another computer with another video board running Windows XP Home SP3 (tm) on another monitor, but that monitor may have just been able to sync at lower VHz, if you try the programs under XP (tm) please let me know what Graphics resolution modes you get to work. If you use some SIS video cards (AGP) you should be able to get many modes up to 1920x1440x32bpp to work under FreeDOS FAT32 (tm), the View option in the Grading menu can show your graded frames at 1920x1440x32bpp (24bpp data + 8 unused bits) so you can judge the look of your keyframes on your 22 inch CRT grading monitor. DANCINEL.EXE (tm) can also be used to display selected key frames at up to 2048x1536x32bpp (or more) as a final check before you send your frames out on your film recorder. There may be a video board that works with my CAD programs at 2048x1536x32bpp (or more), but I am still looking into that as manufactures of video boards to not tell what VESA modes their boards support in Banked and Linear memory modes, for the most part, which means you have to purchase a pile of video cards and test them yourself, ouch. To summarize the changes: 1) When outputting TIF frames from REDCINE (tm) try to set the output path to the right frame folder in your film project structure to avoid lost time in copying the frame files later, that can save months of computer time for a feature film. 2) When outputting TIF frames from REDCINE (tm) try to set the filename control string to "00#6.E" or something like that so that you end up with padded filenames that have eight numbers in them, like 00000123.TIF and so on. That is two leading zeros as text, plus the six numbers generated for the frame number, so you get eight numbers in the name part to be like my padded filename type. 3) When converting Canon XTi (tm) *.CR2 RAW image files from your film scanner or other DSLR image capture use the revised version of DCRAWBAT.COM (tm) to make 16 bit TIF files rather than the old version that made 8 bit TIF files, so that you can get higher quality with direct import and use of the FUSE command to fuse 16 bit TIF rather than 8 bit BMP files. The new DCRAWBAT.COM (tm) program is in the revised DANCINES.ZIP (tm) download file. 4) When converting TIFF files for use with my programs rename them TIF before you try to process them with my programs. My programs support only 8+3 filenames do not use long file names with them, or use long folder names. Using long folder names and long file names may cause issues when booting your computer for use with my programs using FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) even though FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) may tolerate them since they will be converted into new 8+3 names and you may get "file not found" errors. 5) When viewing in sync in the Animate, Pick, and View commands you can not press [Ctrl] and [W] to toggle the dropped frame readout on and off to see if your computer's harddrive is fast enough to show the resolution you have made the "proxy" resolution frames at, e.g. the I11 folder frame PIX frame copies. If you get too many dropped frames you can try a Solid State harddrive, or putting the frames into a USB drive or CF card in a reader, etc., or use a RAID harddisk array. To store all the "proxy" resolution frames for editing a feature film you should have a Solid State or RAID harddrive of 32GB or more, but if you edit one reel at a time you might get by with less, the size depends on how many frames you make and what resolution you want the playback at, that is 640x480 monochrome 8 bit takes half the disk space of 640x480 color 16bpp and loads twice as fast. 6) The default video mode for making the PIX "proxy" frames for viewing with the Animate, Pick, and View commands was lowered to 320x200x4bpp monochrome V320X200M16 which should be used with a dither value of 32 or so. This was done so that the sync playback would not drop frames (much) when the CAD programs are run under FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) using a single EIDE harddrive (7200RPM, 16MB buffer, 500GB). You can change the default video resolution for the "proxy" PIX frames to a higher resolution like V640x350M16 if your computer is fast enough not to drop frames and or you are using Windows 98SE/ME (tm) by pressing the [~] key from the CAD programs Main Menu. 7) The default Divided numbered file name Format was changed to a 500 limited files per folder (type 2) Format so that the frames would play back better under FreeDOS FAT32 (tm). If you are working on a project that used the older Type 1 Divided filename Format you will need to press [~] from the CAD program Main Menu and select Type 1 for both source and result Divided filename files. If you have not started a film project or will start a new one leave the Divided filename Format as Type 2 or reset it to Type 2. If your film project will require playback of longer than 2.9 hours you may want to use the Divided filename Format Type 3 for that project, but that would work best with frame playback under a OS with disk I/O faster than FreeDOS FAT32 (tm), maybe, these matters are being looked into, you might want to do some tests with junk data frames to see if you get dropped frames after playback of 2.9 hours. 9) The FUSE command in the Kinema Edit list Insert command now supports both 8 bit BMP frames and 16 bit TIF frames for making HDR (High Dynamic Range) type image fusion from Digital camera source frame and color separation images, such as groups of images shot for each frame off a movie film roll in an optical printer to scan move film for use with my programs to do a DI color correction and edit along with sound mix. 10) When needed the commands in the Files Utilities Set menu can be used to help import numbered frame sets that are not named the way my programs name numbered frame sets. The command in the Files Utilities Set menu are not finished yet, so be sure to backup your frame sets before using any of those commands on them to avoid loss of data. These commands should be considered early "Beta Test" and perhaps "Alpha Test" so be sure to only work on copies of your needed frames. 11) INSTALL.BAT in DANDAD16.ZIP (tm) was revised to correct for a problem when used under FreeDOS FAT32 (tm), so be sure you unzip and extract all the files in DANCAD16.ZIP (tm) if you are installing into a directory folder where your old copy is, and be sure to run the new INSTALL.BAT before you run the revised programs. Also if you install FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) on the harddrive you will run my programs on, you should edit the FDCONFIG.SYS and set FILES=40 in an effort to get more file handles, you need to reboot after saving the edited FDCONFIG.SYS. If my programs report errors with the number of file handles press [~] from the CAD program's Main Menu and see how many file handles are free, you should have 9 or more, under Windows 98SE (tm) it might read 14 or so. You can also try to re-boot from the FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) CD and see if you get a different number of file handles that way. 12) The macro file FRAMES_A.MAC in DANCAD16.ZIP (tm) has been revised to keep the background color, and to work with a buffered set of frames so that it can make large frame sets in order for you to check your harddisk speed to see if you are going to get any dropped frames when you playback hours of edited footage in sync with the sound track mix WAV file. 13) You can select the endian mode for the saving of the 16 bit TIF files by pressing [~] from the CAD program's Main Menu. There are two options, "littleendian" for Intel (tm) processor computers, and "bigendian" for some other computers like older MAC computers. Since most programs have to read both kinds it does not matter which mode is used, but one or the other may process faster in some other programs or on some other computers. The default output is for "littleendian" which should work with most PC programs that read 16 bit TIF RGB 48bpp graphics files. 14) You should not use Windows 3.11, 95 OSR2, or 98SE (tm) with a FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) formatted 500GB harddisk since those OS do not understand large disks and will scramble the FAT that holds the file information making the disk unreadable. 500GB disks formatted with FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) should be compatible with Windows ME, XP SP2, and XP SP3 (tm) so you should be able to copy frames and KCC color correction files on and off the disks to work on the files under all those OS. My programs can run on NTFS disks, but only when the system is booted with XP (tm), if you boot with FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) my programs and the files required should be on FAT32 formatted disks. As was noted above, XP (tm) is crippled so that you cannot format large disks FAT32 BY DESIGN, unless you use a freeware program called FAT32FORMAT.EXE. If you use Ubuntu Linux (tm) or some other OS just be sure you use 8+3 file and folder names, and that the OS can read and write to FAT32 disks LARGER than 32GB without errors, and things should go well. Remember that even if you cannot get XP (tm) to work with graphics modes higher than 640x480 on your computer, it might work better on another computer with XP (tm), and you can process frames under XP (tm) on and off up to 2TB harddrives using NTFS or FAT32 while running my programs under Windows XP Home SP2 or SP3 (tm), it seems. So you best OS choices seem to be: FreeDOS FAT32 (tm), Windows ME (tm) (being looked into), and Windows XP SP3 (tm) (may have some issues with graphics modes on some computers, but can access NTFS disk arrays for processing many TB of frame files.) I do not have a program version for Ubuntu Linux (tm) yet, but you should be able to mount disks with frame files made by my programs (that might have my programs on them along with FreeDOS FAT32 (tm)) on a Ubuntu Linux (tm) computer as a slave drive and use some third party Linux (tm) programs to edit frames in my programs project structure which is always open so you can get to the frame files as needed (do not edit frames while my program might use them or you will cause a file sharing conflict, which my program will probably report as "file not found" since it cannot share files or open files that are opened by another program at the same time.) To edit and DI a feature film you may need between 50 and 400 500GB harddrives. If you use 500GB EIDE work drives in a render- farm made of junk computers, you can use Ubuntu (tm) or XP (tm) to dump frames onto 2TB SATA drives for archive and then re-use the EIDE drives with FreeDOS FAT32 (tm). One advantage of using FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) is that you can move the disk from one computer to another and it will boot and run, whereas both Windows (tm) and Ubuntu (tm) will not work if the computers are different, or at least you will have more problems with hardware. 15) If you use junk computers in your "render farm" running FreeDOS FAT32 (tm) to hold costs down, and you want to generate PIX "proxy" frame files for selected shots so you can use those PIX frames as a sync sound speed "workprint" the video chip or card must be compatible with the video chip or video card that you will use on your "editing computer". Some video chips cards use different memory division for some video modes, and since the PIX files are a memory image they are not transportable to computers that use different video memory divisions. That means you should test each computer in your "render farm" to see if PIX files made in the playback resolution you want to use with the Animate, Pick, and View commands on your "editing computer" i.e. the one with the SMPTE playback hookup to the sound playback computer that syncs to the editing playback so you can hear the sound track mix playback in sync while editing. You can mark which "render farm" computers will work for making the "proxy" PIX frames, and just use the others for making output frames, since the output frame processing does not require graphics modes of the video card. You can make sample PIX frames with the View command in the Grading command in the Kinema Edit list, just be sure to record which computer was used to make which file. 16) Many small changes and adjustments have been made to the CAD programs. Speed improvements over some past versions are significant. Although changes are on-going the programs are approaching practical usefulness in the production of professional quality motion pictures with the addition of 16 bit TIF support for both import and export. You should check the "What's New" section at my Web site often and keep updated about changes if you are using the programs on a project. You should also report any issues you find to me by email so I can know about them. For information on the various changes made over the last year or so check the "What's New" section at my Web site, also. --- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Please visit my Web site On-Line at: http://www.DANCAD3D.com/ for additional information. Please report bugs, mistakes, or other problems with this document or the programs, see SECTION: 8 at the current On-Line version of my Web site for current instructions.

This copy of this page was compiled on or around: Y2009.M01.D14, you might check the "On-Line" version, or come back later, to see if there is a newer compile.