This chapter is broken into part A and part B. Part A details the Video settings of the Advanced Settings. Part B details the other settings (Audio, Compress, Fades, Movie).
Selecting Compression Settings
The Advanced Settings window gives you a high degree of control over the parameters Movie Cleaner will use to compress your movie. With Advanced Settings you can:
窶｢ Change the settings the Movie Expert has created for you
窶｢ Modify an existing group of settings
窶｢ Create settings from scratch
To use the Advanced Settings option, select Advanced Settings from the Windows menu. The Advanced Settings window will appear.
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Advanced Settings Sections
There are five major sections within the Advanced Settings system:
Video: lets you set the parameters for the pre-processing of the
visual component of your movie.
Audio: lets you set the parameters for the audio component of your movie.
Compress: lets you set the parameters for the compression of the
visual component of your movie
Fades: lets you select audio and video fade in and/or fade out, as
well as times to hold the first and last frames.
Movie: lets you set such parameters as flattening, basing compressed
frames off of the previously compressed or uncompressed frame,
and setting palettes.
Each section box displays the current settings for that section. If you are creating new settings, the initial values displayed will be the defaults, or the last opened setting. To edit the settings, click on the icon within the section you want to work on, and a dialog box will appear in which you can change parameters for that section.
You have three cropping options for your video: no cropping, manual cropping (with or without constraints), or numeric cropping. Choose your cropping option from the pop-up at the top of the cropping sub-section.
None: Manual Selecting "None" leaves the image uncropped.
Manual: Select the desired constraints, then dismiss the Video dialog and simply click and drag on the Source Movie window to create your cropping rectangle. While you are cropping, the dimensions of your cropping rectangle show up in the tool bar. To get rid of a cropping rectangle, click without dragging.
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Depending on the options you select, the rectangle may be constrained as follows:
Aspect Ratio: To keep the cropping rectangle the same ratio as the output movie, click on the "Aspect Ratio" box. When you click and drag on the Source Movie window, the cropping rectangle will be the same proportions as what is specified in the scaling sub-section for the output movie. This is very handy if you are trying to remove edge noise, but don't want to distort the final image by making it too tall or wide.
Multiples of 4: You may check the "Multiples of 4" box to keep your cropping rectangle multiples of 4 pixels in each direction. This is useful if you are going to crop a movie and not scale it, because QuickTime is optimized for movies with both dimensions that are multiples of 4.
NOTE: Manual cropping only applies to the specific movie that you have clicked and dragged on - other movies with that setting don't have a cropping rectangle defined until you click and drag on each one. The cropping rectangle is automatically saved with the source movie for future use.
Numeric Cropping: To numerically crop your movie, select "Numeric" from the pop-up at the top of the cropping sub-section. Select the number of pixels that you would like removed from each edge. After you dismiss the Video dialog, you can scroll through the movie with the QuickTime controls underneath the Source Movie to make sure the cropping is correct for the whole movie.
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If you have a large number of movies in a batch, it is often easier to numerically specify a cropping setting that works for all of them, rather than manually crop each movie. Also, if you have a capture card that consistently introduces a fixed amount of "edge noise," you can make one setting that always removes just the noise, so you don't have to worry about it in the future. Numeric cropping is great for automation.
NOTE: "Numeric" cropping will be applied identically to each movie processed with a "Numeric" setting. Unlike "Manual" cropping, "Numeric" is not specific to each movie - it is a global setting, just like a Fade or Blur. If you want to process several movies with identical settings, but need to crop each differently, the "Manual" option is usually the best solution.
Scaling Options
You have three options with scaling : "None," "Original," and "Numeric." To select a scaling option, use the pop-up menu at the top of the Scaling sub-section of the Video section.
None: If you want to crop a movie but not scale it, simply select the "None" option. Whatever is inside your cropping rectangle will be your final movie at its current size.
Original: The "Original" scaling option scales the movie to the same size as your source movie. This is very useful if you are using cropping and scaling to remove edge noise, but want the final movie to be the same size as the original.
Numeric: The "Numeric" scaling option allows you to set the size of your output movie numerically. The source movie will be scaled up or down to the size you specify.
NOTE: You may introduce distortion into the image if you select a ratio that is not the same ratio as the original, and you do not crop your movie to compensate. To avoid this distortion, manually crop the movie with the "Aspect Ratio" option on after you have set an output size. The resulting cropping rectangle will be the same proportions as the specified output size.
Scaling quality
You may select your scaling quality with the "Scale" pop-up in the Processing sub-section of the Video section. You have a choice of "Fast", "Normal", or "Accurate" scaling.
Fast: "Fast" scaling uses a nearest neighbor method, and is useful for quick previews, especially on 68K machines.
Normal: "Normal" scaling uses a sub-pixel interpolated, bicubic method that is recommended for scaling up to 2x (either scaling up or down).
Accurate: "Accurate" scaling uses a sine-algorithm method that gives significantly better results than "Normal" when scaling greater than 2x (either up or down). "Accurate" is slower than the "Normal" or "Fast" method, but is the highest quality scaling method. It tends to produce sharper images than the "Normal" method when the image is being scaled more than 2x.
NOTE: You don't always need to use "Accurate" - if you are scaling 2x or less, "Normal" is usually just as good, and significantly faster.
Blur
You may apply various levels of Gaussian blur to your image with this option. The blur is applied after the adaptive noise reduction filter. See Chapter 9 - Video Filters for more information on blurring
Deinterlace
If you are capturing full screen at 60 fields per second, you may need to deinterlace your image to remove the image's interlacing. See Chapter 9 - Video Filters for more information on deinterlacing.
Gamma Adjustment
You may adjust the brightness of your image with the gamma adjustment. This is useful for lightening movies to compensate for the darker monitors of Windows machines. See Chapter 9 - Video Filters for more information on gamma adjustment.
Adaptive noise reduction
Movie Cleaner Pro offers an adaptive noise filter which selectively smoothes out "flat field" noise, as well as removes "stray pixels." See Chapter 9 - Video Filters for more information on the adaptive noise reduction filter.
"Talking Heads" Filter
The "Talking Heads" filter allows you to specify an area as static, which improves compression. See Chapter 9 - Video Filters for more information on the "Talking Heads" filter.
First/Last Frame High Quality
First/last frame high quality forces the frame to be a higher data-rate (and hence higher quality) than it normally would be. This is useful for movies that stay on the screen before or after they are played.
