Club Amiga de Montreal - CAM/CAM_CD_1.iso/files/374b.lha/stillstore/StillStore.doc

Text File | 1990-04-02 | 17KB | 368 lines

                         STILLSTORE V1.2

Copyright 1989
by Richard Bourne and Richard Murray
Documentation by Richard Bourne

Compiled with The Director by the Right Answers Group.
The compiled version on this disk is freely distributable, as
is the Projector program from the Right Answers Group.
The Director script of the program, which contains many useful
Director subroutines and can be customized, is available as
shareware for $20.00 Canadian, from:

Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT)
1301 16th Avenue NW
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
T2M OL4

Registered users will be advised of updates. The Director is a
commercial copyrighted program available from the Right Answers
Group or your local dealer.

StillStore is a program designed for freelance, corporate and
broadcast television. It loads and displays IFF images of any
resolution interchangeably from a list file or as inputted
directly. The user may easily skip forward or backward one or more
pictures in the list. A "generic" display is always just a few seconds
away. The program can be used "on air" with no concern that a
pull-down menu will suddenly appear in the viewable area. The program also
provides for a precise "cue" for changing windows/screens. While the
major purpose is to load "news windows" of 1/4 screen size, StillStore
can also handle full-sized and overscanned images. Therefore provision
is made to work either from a lower-screen menu (news window mode) or
via voice prompts using Amiga speech! Other features include three slide
show modes, and a screen positioning feature.

THIS DOCUMENTATION IS IN TWO PARTS:

    I. Specific instructions for StillStore.

    II. A general description of still store usage, and the
broadcast environment in which StillStore evolved.

I. STILLSTORE INSTRUCTIONS

   A. INSTALLATION:

Be sure to install erase.font within your "fonts" directory. You
will also have to make a subdirectory called "erase", and copy
the file on this disk named "8" to it. If you would prefer not to
do this, you must assign fonts: to the directory you install
"erase" and "erase.font" in for the program to work!

You also must have "black", "N0000" and "HRWindows" in the same
directory with StillStore. Projector may either be in the same
directory or in your default "c" (command) directory.

The "voice" mode requires the AmigaDos "say" command to be
available. StillStore looks for it in Sys:Utilities, and copies
it to RAM: for faster access.

   B. PROCEDURES:

      1. In a typical news production session, Broadcast News
reporters prepare Amiga order forms requesting that particular
shots from their ENG stories be digitized as an "elements"
(window displays). As an alternative, they may select from our
library of over 700 images already prepared for this purpose,
some of which are very "generic" (environment, the courts, fire,
disaster, etc.)

      2. Our graphics "majors" (5 students of a class of 30) are
shifted to the Chyron/Amiga position in rotation. The person on
duty grabs the images using FG software and the FrameGrabber. We
set up the screen format to 640 x 400, dithered for crisp images
with the smoothest color blending, and specify 1/4 screen size.
The resulting pictures are almost perfectly-sized for our window,
needing only slight trimming! All raw images are saved onto the
hard drive.

      3. Now we quit FG and run Deluxe Paint III in 640 x 400
16-color mode. We jump to the "Scratch" screen and load
"HRWindows". This is a set of white borders on a black
background, positioned exactly where we want our windows to
appear, with sports graphics framed in left screen, and news
graphics in right screen! The white frame is a stencil, so that
it will not be affected when a brush is stamped on it. (A copy of
hrwindows is included on this disk).

      4. Next, we load a framegrabbed image on screen 1. We pick
it up as a brush, jump to the Scratch screen, and paste it within
the appropriate window of HRWindows. A stencil turned on for
color 1 ensures that we don't damage the window borders while
stamping a picture in place. We use a filled rectangle and the
right mouse button as an eraser to wipe away anything which
spills beyond the frame.

      5. The Amiga cue sheet book contains a set of cue sheets
for each "Format Disk" for news, sports and weather. We look for
the next available number (eg N0599), and the disk it should be
recorded on, then save it with that filename. At the same time we
note on the cue sheet the number, picture description, creator's
name and date.

      6. The format disks each contain six directories, labelled
simply "A" to "F". Each directory holds six pictures.

      7. Once all pictures specified on the graphics order form
are found or created, we use CLIMate to transfer them into the
proper directory on the hard drive, so that we can load them
speedily during the live production.

      8. We decided when we began our picture database that each
picture would be given a number and name, such as "N0077-
AttackHelicopter". The hyphen and name is a safeguard against
misprinted numbers. However, we still have to strip the hyphen
and name so that we can use just the first five characters as the
load name!

      9. Finally, we may use a text editor to prepare a file
called "piclist", which is a list of all the pictures you wish to
use within a production. If you don't prepare such a list, you
can still use StillStore, but the list commands will not
function.

      10. Just prior to rehearsal, we run StillStore. The way to
do this is to "cd" to the directory in which the StillStore files
are located. Then type:

Projector StillStore.film [Return]

      11. Once StillStore (.film) is running, you'll see a
selection of menus at the bottom of the screen. Each choice
requires a one-letter shortcut.

At any time, you may simply type a five-character (one letter,
four digits) picture identifier and press RETURN. Even fairly
detailed hi-res images load in about 3 seconds. You get a
"[picname] loading" and "[picname] waiting" prompt. Another
RETURN displays the picture precisely when you wish it, or when
you are "cued".

[F][RETURN] (FORWARD) will display the name of the first picture
from "piclist" the first time you push it. Each subsequent time
you enter [F][RETURN] you'll get the next picture in "piclist". A
second RETURN confirms your choice as though you had typed the
name, and the picture will load! An error message will display if
you try to go past the end of the list.

[B][RETURN] (BACKWARD) will step backward through the list and
display the name of a picture. Pressing RETURN again will load
the picture, or you can continue to press F-Return as many times
as you wish. You'll get an error message if you try to back up
before picture 1 in "piclist".

[R][RETURN] (RESET) will reset you to the start of "piclist", so
that the FORWARD command will give you picture 1.

[V][RETURN] (VOICE) will turn off all screen menus, and prompt
you entirely with Amiga speech. Due to DMA problems in hi-res and
overscan, the speech may suffer from a severe sore throat at
times, but you can learn to understand it. A set of mini-
earphones can preserve the sanity of your control room crew.
Voice would be preferable when you wish to display full-screen
pictures with no menu overprinting them. Remember, Voice mode
will not work unless the "say" command is in Sys:utilities when
you start StillStore.

[S][RETURN] (SCREEN MENUS) will disable speech and turn on the
screen menus.

[P][RETURN] (POSITION) will allow you to use your cursor keys to
position screens or windows. It is very useful for various sizes
of overscan, which will require re-centering. Press Escape when
you are done.

[T][RETURN] (TOGGLE) will swap between the normal screen position
and the one you have set up with the POSITION command.

[G][RETURN] (GENERIC) will copy a standard news/sports logo from
s fast ram buffer and await a press of RETURN to display it. Very
handy when you suddenly can't find a custom picture, or a late
story breaks. You will not lose your place in the "piclist".

[Q][QUIT] (QUIT) is the one command which never requires
documentation!


C: BUGS AND PROBLEMS:

1. In order to handle very large hi-res overscan pictures, I
limited the number of buffers to two, in chip memory.
Unfortunately, as a series of pictures are loaded in, memory is
used and reclaimed, with the usual fragmentation. This is
aggravated by intermixing overscanned with regular pictures, or
worse, by mixing various reolutions. Eventually, rather than
crash, Director/Projector will abort to WorkBench or CLI. The
only cure I can see is a modification in new versions of these
two programs which would set aside a fixed amount of memory for
each buffer, larger than the maximum size of picture to be
loaded. This memory would be re-used again and again, and never
freed until you quit the program.

2. Director/Projector are very good at cleaning up as they quit.
However, some memory fragmentation always remains. Our operators
like to do a reboot sometime within 10 minutes of showtime, to
avoid cumulative problems with this annoyance.

3. I had some difficulty getting keyboard input into StillStore
without having it type on the screen. The INCLI command didn't
seem to work for me, so I invented a solution: "erase.font", the
font that isn't! Every character is a blank, so you can type an
input in the Voice mode and it won't appear on screen!

3. The problem with garbled speech has already been mentioned. I
guess it is unavoidable in hi-res due to DMA interference.
Amazingly enough, it sometimes disappears in certain overscan
sizes, such as 674 x 444!

4. Otherwise, the program is quite friendly, and will advise you
if it can't find a file. I have disabled mouse ABORT, so that the
Q command is the only way out.


II. GENERAL DESCRIPTION

   A. INTRODUCTION:

    In broadcast jargon, a "still store" is a device capable of
storing video images on magnetic or optical media, and recalling
them in sequences or randomly. Examples of such units
would be the Abekas A42, Leitch Still File or Ampex ESS-3. These
units start at prices many times higher than a lavishly-equipped
Amiga system. In fairness, however, they generally digitize in at
least 8-bit color (256 colors from 16.7 million) and some handle
24-bit color (16.7 million colors, ALL on-screen at once!) Most
are capable of digitizing and storing up to several hundred
frames per hard drive (they can also store twice as many single
fields, but with only half the vertical detail of a frame). Other
features range from removable hard media and tape streaming to
multi-image browse capability, digital resizing, reshaping and
motion effects.

    At SAIT, where 150 students study broadcast production in
the Cinema, Television, Stage and Radio Program, the Amiga has
become the machine of choice for character generation, digital
effects, animation and still storage. STILLSTORE's beta version
was written by Richard Murray, a second-year TV student, in 1988.
It was an instant hit on "Newsfile", a half-hour weekly show
produced for local cable by TV and Broadcast News majors.

    Stillstore is a program written in "The Director", a BASIC-
like high-level compiled language marketed by the Right Answers
group. The Director has some tremendously powerful graphics and
sound capabilities, and yet is as easy to use as BASIC. Some,
including myself, would argue that it has most of the power left
out of AmigaBasic, particularly in IFF picture, font and sound
loading and displaying. The Right Answers group have authorized
free distribution of "The Projector", which can play back
compiled programs. This disk therefore contains StillStore.Film,
the compiled version, and "The Projector" which allows program
execution. These may be freely distributed and used as long as
the preamble accompanies the materials. The scripted program is
available from me for a shareware fee of $20.00, and your written
agreement to credit the original authors in any revisions, as
well as to provide me with a sample of such updates. The disk
also contains a generous number of IFF windows which have been
used on "NewsFile" news and sports stories, and a few sample
weathermaps as well.


   B. WHY "STILLSTORE"?:

    Some people in the Amiga community have suggested that
useful commercial software already exists for storing and
displaying images, in such programs as L!C!A!, TVShow, Aegis
VideoTitler SEG and others. I have tested them all, and find that
none of them allow RANDOM ACCESS to pictures without disturbing
the screen display via a pull-down menu. Many are quite effective
at displaying sequences, however, and I encourage commercial
software developers to incorporate the features of StillStore
either in new versions of existing slideshow software or in
entirely new products.

    Potential users of StillStore would include cable companies,
broadcast training programs, corporate video departments,
production houses, and smaller-market broadcast stations.
When we see 8-bit and higher-quality video boards for Amy, the
appeal will be that much greater, though of course we will then
require a software revision to use them.

   C. HARDWARE CONFIGURATION:

    The main Amiga system at SAIT consists of an Amiga 2000 with
2090A card and 40 meg Seagate hard drive, a 2 meg memory
expansion (total memory, 3 megs.), a Magni 4004 genlock (2
internal cards plus external remote control unit), and a
Progressive Peripherals Framegrabber. The Amiga sits beside a
Chyron RGU character generator on the production desk in our main
control room.

    The Magni genlock is fed a black burst signal from a Leitch
slave sync generator, so that the color output of the Magni will
arrive in time and phase at a video input which feeds all five
busses (selection rows) on our Central Dynamics CD-480-5
switcher. We can therefore wipe or fade to the Amiga signal full-
screen, or set up a "Split Screen Window" to display Amiga images
beside a news or sports anchorperson. Everything can be previewed
before we put it "on air". The Amiga also occupies an input on
"Key 2", where we can "externally key" logos and animations over
background video.

    Unlike desktop video, wherein you pass video through the
genlock and it synchronizes Amiga video and overlays it
(downstream keying), we take TWO Amiga signals into our switcher
and let it do the keying. The Magni has a "key out" signal, which
is just a black & white video "silhouette" of all non-color-0
Amiga colors. The white areas trigger the keyer in our switcher
to display the MAGNI's color video ONLY in the areas that aren't
color 0. We can also switch the Magni to send a key signal
derived from the BRIGHTNESS of the Amiga's colors, but this is
not used much except with Video Effects 3D, which seems to
totally confuse the Magni about what is color 0!.

    Using a switcher to do the keying allows us to fade or WIPE
Amiga keyed logos onto background video, or to use the switcher's
key border generator to instantly achieve black, white or colored
outline or drop-shadowed borders on Amiga text.

    There are many sources for background video to be used with
the Amiga ... including two Sony BVH 2000 1" Type C machines, and
a Sony 5850 U-Matic. All VTRs are "time-base corrected", meaning
that they are perfectly timed with other signals at the switcher,
and do not suffer from any "jitters". We also use three studio
cameras, a Chyron RGU for simple titling and backgrounds, a frame
synchronizer which can freeze one frame of video, and a
background color generator which can provide a full screen of any
imaginable video color. Having multiple VTR's allows us to
"layer" Amiga images, to achieve more colors in the final screen.
This is done by recording an Amiga background picture, then
playing it back through the switcher and keying another Amiga
element. The multi-generation quality of 1" broadcast tape allows
us up to half-a-dozen overlays if necessary.

    The input to the Framegrabber is fed from a routing
switcher, so that we can instantly select any source for
digitizing. All Amiga input and output signals are also available
on our video and audio patch bays.

   D. SUPPORTING SOFTWARE:

    The software workhorses for all of our production graphics
are CLIMate, a mouse operated "DOS helper" which helps us keep
our graphics disks in order; Deluxe Paint III, our paint system
of choice, and a very fast creator of animations as well;
FrameGrabber "FG" software, which controls the capturing of
images, and StillStore, which calls the stills up for airing as
required.

    We have many other useful programs which are not quite as
central to regular production, including both Pro Video Gold and
Broadcast Titler for character generation; Sculpt Animate 4D for
3D animation/rendering; Pixmate, for recoloring, special effects
and changing screen formats of images; and Video Effects 3D for
the smoothest ADO-style effects we have found. All of the above
programs are commercial copyrighted software.