TealMovie
User's Manual
Program Version 1.01B
Last Updated: December 26, 2000
Description
Contents
Installing
Using the Program
TealMovie Player
Media List Screen
Information
Settings
Controls
TealMovie Encoder
Main Window
Input Fields
Options
Encoding Options
Cropping Options
Audio Options
Encoding a Movie
Tricks and tips
Video
Audio
Appendix A û AVI Resources
Capturing movie footage
Downloading movie footage
Downloading music
AVI Information and Links
Video Processing/Conversion Software
Appendix B û Compatibility
AVI Compression Codecs
Appendix C - Revision History
Appendix D - Credits
Appendix E - Contact Info
Appendix F - Registering
Appendix G - Products
Appendix H - Disclaimer
Thank
you for trying TealMovie.
TealMovie
enables any model Palm handheld to become a player of high-quality video and
animation. It supports features previously unavailable, including smooth
playback up to 25 frames per second, high-quality full screen color or
grayscale imagery, and synchronized sound playback capability. In addition to
providing entertainment, TealMovie greatly extends the usefulness of Palm
handhelds for sales, marketing, training, service, and maintenance operations
for a wide range of industries. TealMovie files can be easily created from any
Windows AVI file using the TealMovie Encoder, which runs under Windows
95/98/2000/NT. Sound playback is available on all Palm handheld models above a
Palm III.
This
archive contains the following files:
Program
files:
TEALMOVI.PRC
The TealDoc player program
MAKEMOVI.EXE
TealMovie Movie Encoder program
Document
files:
MOVIDOC.PDF
This document in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format
MOVIDOC.HTM
This document in HTML format (sans images)
MOVIDOC.PRC
This document in TealDoc format
ASTRONUT.PDB
Sample movie file
REGISTER.HTM
TealPoint Registration form in HTML format
REGISTER.TXT
TealPoint Registration form in text format
Use
the Palm Install Tool in the Palm Desktop to install the program file MOVIDOC.PRC. For it to be useful,
youÆll also need to install some movie files, available on our web site or most
software archive sites like MemoWare.com or PalmGear HQ (http://www.palmgear.com/). A sample movie
file, ASTRONUT.PDB, is included in this package.
You can also create your own movie files
using the TealMovie Movie Encoder MAKEMOVI.EXE.
This program runs on the PC, and does not
need installation.
To run it, simply
double-click on its icon.
This
manual is provided in this archive as the PalmPilot document MOVIDOC.PRC. To read it, install it
using the Palm Install Tool and read it with a Palm doc reader program like TealDoc.
Instructions
on how to use the Palm installer are in the Palm Handbook that came with your
Pilot, PalmPilot, or WorkPad.
You can
find the install tool either as a stand-along program in your Palm install
folder, in the Start Menu with the other Palm programs, or in the Palm Desktop
program as an icon along the left-hand side.
The
TealMovie package consists of two basic components that work together to form a
full-featured multimedia system.
The
first component, TealMovie Player, runs on the Palm.
It plays TealMovie multimedia files with optional sound.
The second component, TealMovie Encoder,
runs under Windows 95/98/2000/NT, and is used to create your own TealMovie
files from standard AVI files.
Run the
TealMovie Player by tapping on TealMovie icon in the Palm applications
launcher.
The TealMovie Media List,
appears when you first run TealMovie. It lists all the currently installed
movie files in the current category. You can select or edit categories by
tapping on the category selection button in the upper right hand corner of the
screen. When you click on a listed movie file, you can either Play the file, to
change its category, rename it, or to delete it permanently from the PalmPilot
memory. You can also bring up further information about the file, including
author information and creation details.
To change the action performed when you tap on a name, tap on the Play,
Loop, Cat, Del, Ren, and Info action-selection
buttons at the bottom of the screen.
When playing a movie file with the Loop action selected, the
movie file with cycle until the screen is tapped, even if the movieÆs
information is not set to ôlooping.ö
If you choose to display the media list (under settings), you can
scroll through a long list of movie files starting in a particular letter by
entering the graffiti stroke for that letter.
The Movie
Information Screen shows the creation information and details for a
selected movie file.
In addition, you
can set whether the movie always loops when played, whether it should be backed
up after HotSync, and whether it should be considered a private movie, meaning
that it will be hidden from the Media List when the PalmÆs secret records are
set to be hidden in the ôSecurityö app.
To adjust various settings, choose ôSettingsö from the Options menu available by tapping on the silkscreened menu button on the Palm to the left of the graffiti input area.
The first items on the settings window help
TealMovie identify the speed and model of your Palm.
This is necessary for correct sound reproduction but not
necessary on a base Palm III or earlier models on which sound is not supported.
For most devices, ôAutoö is the recommended
setting.
If sounds play back
erratically or at the wrong rate, you may wish to explicitly set the CPU speed
here for better results.
This is
particularly true if you are running Afterburner or another turbo utility that
alters the default CPU speed.
Note,
however, that when over-clocking to very high speeds, your actual clock speed
may be less that the speed requested in the turbo program due to missed CPU
cycles, and that ôAutoö may actually give better sound-reproduction.
On
supported Palms, there are four basic sound levels, from ôOffö to ôHighö,
and one special level ôOverö which overdrives the Palm speaker for extra
volume.
The latter is particularly
useful for amplifying quieter movie files.
A bass boost control amplifies low frequencies to give better
sound from the PalmÆs small speakers.
Lastly, a ôSort Media Listö option forces the Media List screen
to be sorted alphabetically.
When you play a selected movie file, you can pause the movie at time by pressing one of the PalmÆs hardware buttons or briefly holding the pen on the screen.
The Pause Window will appear, showing you
the current position in the file along with elapsed time.
This position indicator is not draggable,
however, due to nature of the movie compression used.
Volume controls also appear, if applicable.
Three
playback control buttons at the bottom of the screen, and resemble VCR control
button.
From left-to-right, these
respectively restart the movie, continue playing from the last position, or
stop playing and return to the Media List screen.
Use the
TealMovie Encoder to create your own TealMovie files from standard AVI
files.
Most software that comes with
video-capture cards, web cameras, and other creators of video files support
exporting into AVI format.
See references
later in this document for converting files from other formats.
Run The TealMovie Encoder by
double-clicking on the MAKEMOVI icon.
The main open window will appear.
At the bottom of the window are to preview panes used to show both
the source and compressed image of the current frame during compression.
To the right are buttons for setting cropping,
audio or general options or to start the encoding process.
At the top of the main window are text input
fields for the following:
Locates the source video file for the animation to convert.
Currently, the TealMovie Encoder supports
AVI format files.
This field is
required.
Locates the source audio file to be used as a soundtrack for the
video.
The source file can be a WAV
format sound file, or an AVI video file can be selected, in which case only the
audio track will be extracted and used.
The AVI file specified here can be the same as the Video File
specified in the field above.
If the
soundtrack is longer than the specified video file, the sound file will be
truncated.
This field may be left
blank.
If no sound source is specified,
the movie will be silent.
Specifies the output TealMovie file to create.
It should have a .PDB file extension, which
stands for ôPalm Databaseö, the standard for all program data files for the
Palm.
Specifies the name of the file as it will appear on the Palm and
in the TealMovie Media List.
This does
not necessarily have to match the Output File, which is the name as it
appears on the desktop.
This field is
mandatory, and must be 1 to 31 characters long.
Specifies the authorÆs name as shown in the ôinfoö screen for the
movie.
This field is optional.
Specifies the movieÆs full title as shown in the ôinfoö screen for
the movie.
This field is optional.
Before encoding a movie, you should check the current options and
make any necessary adjustments.
While the encoding process is quite fast anyway, operating almost
in real time on a fast machine.
Occasionally it might be desirable to encode a movie even faster.
When set to ôFast Encodingö, instead of ôHigh
Quality Encodingö, this option sacrifices some image quality for faster encoding
by bypassing some time-consuming compression methods.
All TealMovie files can play on both color or grayscale Palms, so
most files should be encoded in color.
If a file need only play on monochrome devices, or if playing in
grayscale even on a color device is not a problem, then selecting the grayscale
option can result in slightly better looking movies at comparable file sizes,
or smaller file sizes for comparable quality when compared to color
encoding.
Unlike some video compressors, TealMovie gives you complete
control over the compression quality and file size.
The two are linked.
Normal video encodes at 1600 bytes per frame, but you can adjust this
amount upwards to better encode a difficult file or adjust it down to shrink a
movie file down to a more manageable size.
AVI files grabbed from video typically run 30 (NTSC) or 25 (PAL)
frames per second (fps).
Film is often
24 fps.
Both these speeds are usually
faster than necessary for Palm playback and use memory that might instead be
used to hold more or longer clips.
In
fact, due to persistence of the LCD display, increasing the frame rate higher
than 10fps isnÆt noticeable on a monochrome Palm.
When set to Automatically Select the frame rate, the
TealMovie Encoder selects a frame rate from about 10-15 fps that evenly divides
into the source frame rate.
For finer
control, the Encode up toà option can be used, which specifies a frame
rate to use, but wonÆt encode at a higher rate than the source video, of course.
The PalmÆs display screen is a 160x160-pixel square.
This size and shape is unusual for video, so
most source video must be sized or cropped to fit the available space.
If an image is square, it is automatically scaled to fit completely
on screen.
If itÆs rectangular,
however, TealMovieÆs cropping screen allows you to adjust how the image is
scaled to fit on screen.
To use the
cropping option, valid input AVI files must first be specified on the Main
window.
Then click on the Croppingà button
to continue.
At one end of the slider, the Letterbox option sizes down
the movie so that it fits entirely on screen, with two black bars added to
cover up the extra ôun-squareö bits.
At the other end of the slider, the Full Screen option zooms
up the movie so that it just fills the entire screen and the two ends along the
longer dimension are cropped off.
The cropping option, however gives you full flexibility by letting
you choose a size anywhere in between the two end options.
To preview your changes, a horizontal frame
preview slider lets you see how any frame in the final movie will appear.
Most Palm handheld computers have
small speaker which do not reproduce sound well. A notable exception is the
TRGpro. To make the best of the limited hardware, a few audio options are
available.
Audio
Compression
reduces file sizes, leading to significantly smaller movie files.
The tradeoff is a small reduction in sound
quality
Audio
Pre-filter
improves output volume on a PalmÆs small speakers by using a high-pass filter
on the incoming wave data.
This feature
is often useful, but probably should not be used when the important sounds are
low pitched, such as a male narrator on a movie.
Volume
Boost
boosts the volume of quieter sound files to be better heard on a PalmÆs small
speakers.
To encode a movie file, first
obtain an AVI file to convert.
Consult
Appendix A for resources and hints on capturing, converting, or downloading AVI
files.
Fill in the input fields on the
main window with the source, target, and authorship information.
Make sure to set the options properly, and
click ôEncodeö to start creating a movie.
Encoding takes only a few minutes for even a moderately long
movie.
You can watch the progress in
the preview panes at the bottom of the window.
When done, use the Palm Install
tool to install the completed movie file for playback in the TealMovie
Player.
As some movie files can be
large, make sure you have a stable HotSync setup that can sustain the extended
connection needed to install the file.
The TealMovie Encoder works best with clean,
high quality source material.
AVI files
with noise, blurriness, or compression artifacts can create poor TealMovie
files even if the effects in the source AVI seem acceptable.
For best results, use clean source material
larger than the final size on the Palm.
The source material should have dark darks and light lights to best make
use of the PalmÆs color space.
The Palm
IIIc can only reproduce a small number of colors in the dark end of the
spectrum, so adjusting the gamma level of an AVI in a movie manipulation
program can greatly help create better-looking movies, as can a slight
sharpening of the image to bring out important details
Audio is particularly tricky on a Palm,
whose small speakers do not reproduce audio well, except on a TRGpro.
Until sound hardware improves, have
realistic expectations.
When deciding
on a soundtrack for a Movie, note that music reproduces better than speech, and
female voices better than male ones due to the small Palm speakers.
ItÆs usually useful to boost the sound on a
file when recording to make it intelligible on the Palm.
Third party sound manipulation programs like
SoundForge XP by Sonic Foundry Inc, can be particularly useful in manipulation
WAV files.
Most video capture cards and web cameras
come with software which is capable of exporting imagery in AVI format.
When choosing a web camera, be sure to find
one capable of capturing images at a sustained frame rate of 15fps and with
software that supports AVI files.
There
are many sources for AVI files on the Web that you can view and convert.
For most of these, however, you cannot
redistribute the files without permission.
There are a few sources of free downloadable AVI files that you can
legally use and distribute.
The term ôPublic
Domainö is used loosely and usually incorrectly on the Web, so donÆt necessary
trust what a web or ftp site says.
Clips from commercial movies and TV shows are almost never usable.
Governmental agencies are funded by your
taxes, though, so they may be a source of movie files.
A number of companies also sell tapes of
video footage that has been placed or fallen into the public domain.
When
looking for music for a soundtrack to a movie youÆd like to distribute, the
situation is similar to that of video footage.
Most songs are copyrighted, and you canÆt use them for free, even if you
record yourself performing them.
Some
songs have fallen into the public domain, but almost none are contemporary in
nature.
Even if you do find a song that
you can use, you canÆt use someone elseÆs recording of a particular performance.
Almost none of these are free.
Instead, there are many composers who sell
recordings of their original music for use with a one-time free of about
$10-$30.
To find them, search for
ôroyalty free musicö on the web.
The AVI Overview by John F. McGowan, Ph.D., is an excellent document describing AVI the file format, tools, and links. Available at http://www.jmcgowan.com/
Many AVI files can benefit from a little
preprocessing to achieve better results, such as color correction, saturation
adjustment, or levels adjustment.
Most
videos work best with the truly black blacks, completely white whites, and
saturation turned down slightly.
To
perform such operations, commercial software such as Adobe Premiere« is
available, which also imports and exports other video formats including MPEG
and Quicktime.
For a free solution, try VirtualDub,
a freely-downloadable ($30 suggested donation) conversion and effects program
at www.virtualdub.org.
It also converts
files from MPEG format to AVI and performs video capture and simple editing
functions.
The
book "How to Digitize Video" by Nels Johnson, ISBN 0-471-01440-0,
includes a CD-ROM with the program TRMOOV.EXE, which can convert between AVI and
Quicktime files.
The software author
website at http://www.sfcanyon.com
wasnÆt reachable at the time of this writing, but copies of the program can be
found on various download sites on the web, including the Download Recordings
web page at http://www.downrecs.com.
AVI files can also be converted from Quicktime files by SmartVid, which can be found on the Intel Corp. Web page at http://www.intel.com.
The
AVI standard supports and extensible plug-in structure of new compression
methods.
When converting AVI files
created by others, make sure you have the appropriate plug-in compression/decompression
modules (codecs).
The base set of
codecs comes with Microsoft Video for Windows.
Other codecs are available directly from their manufacturers.
If you encounter and error reading or
opening a specific AVI file, you may be able to find the appropriate
plug-in.
Some may be found on
MicrosoftÆs web site (http://www.microsoft.com).
Version 1.01B û December 26, 2000
Version 1.01 û December 15, 2000
Version 1.00 û December 8, 2000
Manual
by Vince Lee and Tex Tennison
TealMovie
by TealPoint Software
⌐1999-2000 All Rights Reserved.
Portions
of code from VirtualDub code library by Avery Lee ⌐1999-2000 All Rights
Reserved.
Used under license.
Audio compression code ⌐1992 by Stichting
Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
TealPoint
Software
454
Las Gallinas Ave #318
San
Rafael, CA 94903-3618
We
look forward to hearing from you.
Please visit us at www.tealpoint.com, or email us at contact@tealpoint.com.
Currently, you may register by
snail mail, electronically through our website at www.tealpoint.com
with a credit card and a secured server, or through PalmGear HQ at
1-800-741-9070. For the first option, the enclosed registration form is
provided for your convenience. You may use this form or simply send the
following to the address above.
º
Product Name
º
E-Mail Address
º
HotSync User ID (Pilot Name Required for
Passkey generation. It can be found on the main screen of the HotSync
application on the Pilot as "Welcome ________" or in the corner on a
PalmIII or higher)
º
Check (drawn off a US Bank) or Money Order
for ($19.95 US) to TealPoint Software
Visit us online for our complete
product line, including:
TEALAGENT
A Palm data converter, installer, and web clipper, TealAgent intelligently formats local, network, and web-resident data for the Palm handhelds, converting them to standard TealDoc, TealMeal, and TealInfo files.
TEALDOC
A Doc format text reader that's nice...
without the price!
TealDoc reads
thousands of free docs and ebooks on the web, and hasexclusive support for
images, link buttons, protected documents, and more.
TEALECHO
Palm text entry as it always should have
been.
Real-time preview in digital ink
lets you see what you're writing, increasing speed and accuracy
TEALGLANCE
Keep the info you need the most at your
fingertips.
Shows date, time, upcoming
appointments, and to-do items at power up.
TEALINFO
The reference library at your
fingertips;
TealInfo lets you make or
browse from hundreds of free interactive TealInfo Folio files, which are mini
information applets with lists, tables, popup windows, and more.
TEALLAUNCH
Lets you quickly launch your favorite apps
and useful system and editing functions.
Powerful button-programming features map functions and apps to hundreds
of keypresses and keypress combos.
TEALLOCK
What the security app should have been:
custom text and images,
graffiti shortcuts for hide privates, show
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TEALMAGNIFY
Never squint at a phone number again.
An ever-ready magnifying glass compatible
with most any program.
TEALMEAL
Answer the day's biggest question... where to go for lunch! A Restaurant chooser and editable database.
TEALMOVIE
Play movies and videos on your Palm with
sound!
Amazing system supports smooth
video, sound playback, and full screen display. Includes windows encoder for
making your own movies.
TEALNOTES
Sticky notes for your PalmPilot!
Draw freehand notes, maps and doodles
directly into your Memos, To-do entries, datebook entries--almost anywhere.
TEALPAINT
The most full-featured paint and sketch program on the Pilot. Includes 16 patterns, 12 brushes, paint bucket, magnified mode, text tool, lasso tool, screen-grabber, color and grayscale support and much more.
TEALPHONE
The better Address book app, with large, easy-to-see numbers, viewing by first, last, or company name, advanced searching, and more!
TEALPRINT
The all-in-one PalmPilot printing
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Print both text and graphics
to Infared, Serial, and Parallel Printers (with adapter), and even any Windows
printer with exclusive 'HotSync' printing!
TEALSCRIPT
Graffiti reinvented;
a replacement for the system text
recognition system that allows you to tune, modify, and add your own strokes
TEALTOOLS
An invaluable collection of pop-up Palm Desk
Accessories, including a pop- up calculator, lock/stopwatch, preferences panel,
editing panel, memopad,
and a file and backup manager.
We at TealPoint Software are
committed to providing quality, easy-to-use software. However, this product is
provided without warranty and the user accepts full responsibility for any
damages, consequential or otherwise, resulting from its use.
This archive is freely
redistributable, provided it is made available only in its complete, unmodified
form with no additional files and for noncommercial purposes only. Any other
use must have prior written authorization from TealPoint Software.
Unauthorized commercial use
includes, but is not limited to:
º
A product for sale.
º
Accompanying a product for sale.
º
Accompanying a magazine, book or other
publication for sale.
º
Distribution with "Media",
"Copying" or other incidental costs.
º
Available for download with access or
download fees.
This program may be used on a trial
basis for 30 days. The program will continue to function afterwards. However,
if after this time you wish to continue using it, please register with us for
the nominal fee listed in the program.
Thank you.