FusionRecorder™, the audio/video capture utility shipped with AV-equipped Macintosh computers, lets you make QuickTime movies with your Macintosh. You can record movies and sound from QuickTime compatible hardware by connecting a camera, VCR or audio source such as a tape deck or CD player to the appropriate input ports of your Macintosh.
Where to get help
The answers to many questions can be found by reading this informational document, as well as the documentation which came with your Macintosh computer. For assistance or more information on our QuickTime products, please call:
Technical Support: (419) 891-1157
Information: (419) 891-1090
FAX: (419) 891-9673
Or write:
VideoFusion, Inc.
1722 Indian Wood Circle Suite H
Maumee, OH 43537
Applelink: VIDEOFUSION, VF.TECH
Please be at or near your computer and have the following information available when calling for assistance:
• Which computer you have (example, “Macintosh Quadra 840AV”)
• Which monitor you have (example, “Macintosh 16” Color Display”)
• How much RAM (memory) is installed in the computer (example, “8 megabytes”)
• What version of FusionRecorder you have (Get Info on the program icon)
• What version of QuickTime you have (Get Info on the QuickTime extension icon)
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FusionRecorder owners can upgrade to the VideoFusion products described below at greatly reduced prices.
Call VideoFusion today at (800)638-5253 for your discounted price!
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2.0 Making movies with FusionRecorder
Hardware Connections
Connect the video output of your camera or VCR to the video input of your Macintosh. To record sound along with your movie, connect the audio output of your camera (or other video or audio device) to the audio input of your Macintosh. If you wish to record stereo sound from a stereo audio source, be sure to connect both the Left and Right audio channels of your audio source. A handy audio cable to have for this purpose is a dual RCA plug to 1/8” stereo mini plug cable, such as Catalog Number 42-2481A at Radio Shack. On newer video equipment, the video and audio output ports are usually color-coded: video is yellow, the right audio channel is red, and the left audio channel is white or black. Please refer to the chapter “Using Video With Your Macintosh” in the “Getting Started” book that came with your Macintosh computer for more information regarding making video and audio connections.
Starting FusionRecorder
1. Double click the FusionRecorder icon to start FusionRecorder. After briefly displaying a start-up or “splash” screen containing contact information for VideoFusion, Inc. and the version number of the program, FusionRecorder will open a recording window and is ready for use.
2. Note that you may display the start-up screen at any time by choosing About FusionRecorder™... from the Apple menu. The version number of the program is displayed in the bottom center of the start-up screen.
Setting the size of your movie
The size of the Record Window determines the size of movie that will be recorded when you click the Record button. Note that smaller movies can be recorded at faster frame rates (i.e. more frames per second) for smoother motion.
1. Choose Record Window Size from the Record menu to set the recording size.
2. You may also drag the resize box in the lower right corner of the Record Window to set a custom recording size. The window size is displayed in the upper right of the Record Window.
Recording your movie
1. Start your video source playing. You should see your video in the Record Window. If the Record Window is a big black square or a very small gray rectangle, check the Video Settings and Trouble Shooting sections later in this document.
2. When you wish to record a segment, click the Record button in the Record Window or press Command-T to begin recording.
3. Click the Stop button, click in the Record Window or press Command-period to stop recording. After a few moments, an Untitled Preview movie player will appear containing the newly recorded video segment.
Playing your movie
The Player view is used to watch your movies and to perform basic editing with cut/copy/paste commands (See Editing your movies below). The Player displays standard controls underneath the movie window to start and stop your movie and to set the sound playback volume.
1. To start your movie click the Play/Pause button once.
2. The Play icon changes to a Pause icon so the next time you click this button the movie will stop.
Saving your movie
Movies are stored as standard files on your Macintosh like any other data format such as word processing documents or drawings. Movies must be saved before they can be copied and edited.
1. To save your movie after recording, choose Save from the File menu.
2. Enter a name for your movie in the standard file dialog. All movies are saved as standard QuickTime files in Self-Contained format. Self-Contained means that all the media (video and sound) needed to play the movies is stored in the movie file and no references to other files exist.
Self-Contained does not mean that the movie will play by itself or that it does not require the QuickTime extension to be present. Others who wish to view your self-contained QuickTime movie on their Macintosh computers will need to have the QuickTime extension and some application, such as FusionRecorder, which can open and play a QuickTime movie.
3. FusionRecorder saves its files as standard QuickTime files. Although the program can open AIFF files in addition to QuickTime files, it cannot save files as PICT, PICS, or AIFF.
3.0 Editing Movies
Opening movie files
To open a movie that you have saved to disk, choose Open from the File menu. Select a movie from the list of files in the standard file dialog. Your movie will be opened in a Player window.
Cut/Copy/Paste
You can combine movies and add or remove sections using standard cut, copy and paste operations in a similar manner to working with text in a word processor. These commands all work with a selection and the Clipboard to allow you to edit your movies. Note that you cannot Copy (or Cut or Paste) from a movie until it has been saved to disk with a name.
Making a selection
To make a selection in a movie, hold down the Shift key while using the slider (or step or play buttons) to move across the portion of the movie you would like to select. The left and right Arrow keys on the keyboard will also move the slider backward or forward a frame at a time.
To Delete part of a movie
1. Select the portion of the movie you want to delete.
2. Choose Cut from the Edit menu. The selection will be removed from the current movie and placed on the Clipboard.
To Copy part of a movie
1. Select the portion of the movie you want to Copy.
2. Choose Copy from the Edit menu. The selection will be placed on the Clipboard and will remain in the current movie.
To Paste a segment in a movie
1. Place a movie on the Clipboard with either the Cut or Copy operations explained above.
2. Move to the portion of the movie where you want to insert the movie that is on the Clipboard.
3. Choose Paste from the Edit menu. If no selection was active, the movie on the Clipboard will be placed into your movie in front of the frame that was displayed. If a selection was active, the movie on the Clipboard will replace those frames.
Note that you cannot Copy (or Cut or Paste) from a movie until it has been saved to disk. Therefore, save any recordings you make to disk before trying to Copy from them.
To create a new movie
Choose New from the File menu.
A new Untitled movie window will be displayed that contains no sound or picture. You may Paste movies into this blank movie window to create new movies.
Get Info
Choose Get Info from the Movie menu to display information about the movie in the current window. This information includes a description of any files referenced by the current movie. These files are necessary for the movie to play back correctly. If you throw these files away, the movie will not play correctly. Movies which do not have references to other files are described as “self-contained.”
Saving movies as self-contained
When using Cut/Copy/Paste to edit movies, file references are created from one movie file to another. All files referenced from a movie must be present for it to play back correctly. These references may be eliminated by storing all of the media referenced by a movie directly in the movie file. This is accomplished with the “Make movie self-contained” option in the Save As menu item. To save a movie as self-contained:
1. Make the movie you want to save the current window by clicking on it.
2. Choose Save As from the File menu.
3. Select the “Make movie self-contained” radio button.
4. Enter a name for the file.
5. Click Save.
All media referenced by the movie will be copied into the file name that you have specified. The new file size on disk may differ from the original movie file size. See the earlier section “Saving your movie” for more information about self-containment.
4.0 Setting up sound and video
Video Settings
The Video Settings dialog controls the input source for your video, the color adjustments of the recording hardware, and the way the movie data is stored to disk. These are adjusted using the Compression, Image and Source pop-up in the upper left of the Video Settings dialog.
Compression
QuickTime uses compression to reduce the amount of disk storage required for your movies. There are a number of compressors each with different trade-offs between picture quality and the amount of disk storage required. Some compressors also play back more smoothly than others. Please refer to the section below on compressors for a more detailed discussion. To select a video compressor:
1. Choose Video Settings from the Record menu.
2. Select Compression in the pop-up in the upper left of the Video Setting dialog. Select the desired compression method in the Compressor pop-up. The different compressors are discussed in the “Compressors” section of this document.
3. Adjust the color depth from the Depth pop-up. Choices will vary according to the compressor selected.
4. Adjust the Quality slider to the desired quality setting. Higher quality settings require more disk storage, and may play back more slowly.
5. Select the desired frame rate by typing in the rate or by selecting one of the preset rates from the Frames per second pop-up.
6. To set key framing, click the check box and enter the desired key frame rate.
7. Click OK to record your settings.
Image: Adjusting the picture
Picture quality may be adjusted by controlling brightness, contrast and color balance. To adjust picture quality:
1. Choose Video Settings from the Record menu.
2. Select Image from the pop-up in the upper left of the Video Settings dialog.
3. Adjust the color control sliders. Any grayed out sliders are not available for your digitizing hardware. The adjustments to your video will be displayed immediately. Click the Defaults button to use the default settings.
4. Click OK to record your settings.
Source: Setting Video Input
Video may be recorded from a variety of hardware sources either built into your Macintosh, or plugged into a hardware slot. To select the source to be used for your video:
1. Choose Video Settings from the Record menu.
2. Select Source from the pop-up in the upper left of the Video Settings dialog.
3. Select the digitizing hardware in your computer in the Digitizer pop-up.
4. Select which video input to use in the Input pop-up.
5. Select the video format (NTSC, PAL, SECAM) in the Format pop-up.
6. Select the Filter: TV, Laser Disc or VCR that corresponds to your input device.
7. Click OK to record your settings.
Sound Settings
The Sound Settings dialog controls where your audio is recorded from, the recording adjustments of the digitizing hardware and the way the movie data is stored to disk. These are adjusted using the Compression, Sample and Source pop-up in the upper left of the Sound Settings dialog.
Compression
Like video, audio may also be compressed to save disk space. Sound requires much less space than video so the savings are typically not as great. To set the sound compression:
1. Choose Sound Settings from the Record menu.
2. Select Compression from the pop-up at the upper left of the Sound Settings dialog.
3. Select a compression method from the Compressor pop-up.
4. Select Speaker Off, On, or Off While Recording from the Speaker Pop-up.
5. Control input gain with the Gain slider. The Level meter displays the current audio level with green and red indicators.
6. Control the volume level with the Volume slider. The volume increases as the slider is moved to the right.
7. Click OK to record your settings.
Source: Setting Sound Input
Sound may be recorded from any audio source in your Macintosh. To set your sound source:
1. Choose Sound Settings from the Record menu.
2. Select Source from the pop-up at the upper left of the Sound Settings dialog.
3. Select the source device from the Device pop-up.
4. Select the input channel from the Input pop-up.
5. Click OK to record your sound settings.
Sample: Adjusting the sound
Sound may be recorded at a variety of rates, depths and in either mono or stereo. The higher the sampling rate the better the sound quality, but the more disk space required for storage. Stereo sound requires twice the storage of mono since there are two channels, left and right, being recorded. Also, 16-bit sound is of higher quality than 8-bit sound but requires twice the storage for each sample. To select how to record sound:
1. Choose Sound Settings from the Record menu.
2. Select Sample from the pop-up at the upper left of the Sound Settings dialog.
3. Select the sample rate from the Rate pop-up.
4. Select the sample size (8 bit or 16 bit) by clicking the appropriate Size radio button.
5. Select Mono or Stereo by clicking the appropriate Use radio button.
6. Click OK to record your settings.
5.0 More Movie Recording Controls
Setting a Crop region
You may record only a portion of the video display by setting a crop region within the Record Window. Drag the cursor anywhere within the Record Window to set a rectangle to control the size and location of the crop region. When you record with a crop region set, only the portion of the movie within the region will be recorded. Click anywhere within the Record Window to remove the crop region and record at the full size of the window.
Record Preferences
Method
There are two methods available for recording your movies. The first option “Record to memory then write to disk” first records your movie to memory, then after you stop recording writes the resulting movie out to disk. This method gives the fastest recording possible because memory is much faster than disk. However, the length of your recording is limited by the amount of memory (RAM) that you have available.
Note that with this method you may choose to Post-Compress by clicking the check box. This option means that your movie will be recorded with no compression (for fastest possible recording) and only after recording has been stopped will FusionRecorder take the time needed to compress your movie data to disk.
Your second option is to “Record directly to disk.” This option allows you to record so long as you have available disk space, but because of the slower speed of disk you will not be able to record as many frames per second as you would if you recorded to memory. Recording directly to disk may result in movies with a slower frame rate that may appear to jump from one frame to the next on playback.
Indicators
Two indicators are available while recording to let you know either how much space is available or how much recording time you have remaining. Displaying these indicators requires some overhead so your recording may be slightly slower than if no indicators are displayed. Select the radio button for the type of indicator you want displayed during recording.
Record To: Where to put the recorded movie
Your movies are stored on disk as soon as they are recorded. The Record To pop-up displays all available disk drives. Select the drive where you want to store your movies during recording using this pop-up menu. Recording directly to floppy disk is not recommended.
6.0 Compressors
Apple Computer provides several compressor/decompressors (CODECS) with QuickTime. The compressors can be “lossy” in that they try to compress the data as much as possible without a noticeable reduction in image quality, or “lossless” which maintains the original data exactly. Each compressor is described briefly below.
VIDEO
The Video compressor is a proprietary Apple Computer algorithm. It was designed to decompress video data quickly so that movies can play back smoothly on your Macintosh. This compressor is best suited for sequences of digitized video data.
ANIMATION
This compressor, also developed by Apple Computer, is best suited to computer graphics and computer generated movies. This compressor is lossless at its highest quality setting and lossy at other settings. Although the lossy mode loses some quality it is often fast enough for movie playback.
GRAPHICS
The graphics compressor is best suited for 8-bit (256 color) still images or when high compression ratios are more important than playback speed.
PHOTO-JPEG
The photo compressor implements a compression technique developed by the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG). This compressor is best suited for still images but may be used for movies. However, due to the decompression speed of this compressor movies generally will not play smoothly.
CINEPAK
Cinepak is software technology that enables each frame of video to occupy less storage space than most other compressors, while retaining relatively high quality. Introduced in QuickTime 1.5 as the “Compact Video” compressor, it decompresses information smoothly and efficiently and is ideal for making final production movies for playback in computer based presentations or CD-ROM applications. It is asymmetric in that it requires significantly more time to compress than to play back.
YUV Codec
A YUV Compressor/Decompressor Component has been added to QuickTime 1.6. It stores data in YUV 4:2:2 format. The compression algorithm is not lossless, but the image quality is extremely high. The compression ratio is 2:1. It does not support frame differencing. It gives better results than the Video compressor with some video input solutions. In addition, it is also useful as an intermediate storage format if you are applying multiple effects or transitions to an image.
FusionRecorder and QuickFLIX! are trademarks and VideoFusion is a registered trademark of VideoFusion, Inc.
QuickTime is a trademark and Macintosh is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc.
7.0 FusionRecorder Registration
Please take a few minutes to register your software to be eligible for technical support and upgrade information. You may mail or fax this form to us at the address or fax number listed below. Thank you.
