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IRIX Installation Tools & Overlays 2001 May
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SGI IRIX Installation Tools & Overlays 2001 May - Disc 3.iso
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relnotes
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2001-04-16
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18. _M_e_d_i_a__R_e_c_o_r_d_e_r__T_o_o_l
The Media Recorder Tool (invoked from the command line as
_m_e_d_i_a_r_e_c_o_r_d_e_r) is a graphical tool that allows you to record
audio files, movie files or still images from the camera or
other video source, microphone and workstation screen.
Currently, the video capture modes of Media Recorder work on
the following hardware:
+o The O2 workstation
+o The Octane workstation with Octane Video, Octane
Compression, or Octane Personal Video option boards
+o the Indy workstation, including the Indy Video and
Cosmo Compress option boards
+o the Indigo2 workstation with the Galileo, Indigo2
Video, Indigo2 Video for IMPACT, or Cosmo Compress
option boards.
Audio capture is supported on all systems with an audio
input.
See the man page _m_e_d_i_a_r_e_c_o_r_d_e_r(1) or Media Recorder's on-
line help for more information.
18.1 _C_h_a_n_g_e_s__a_n_d__A_d_d_i_t_i_o_n_s
This section lists changes and additions to Media Recorder
since the IRIX 6.2 release.
+o The Media Recorder Tool replaces the old Capture Tool,
found on IRIX 5.x and 6.2. Media Recorder contains
many new features, user interface improvements,
improved reliability and performance compared to the
Capture Tool.
The command name _c_a_p_t_u_r_e and its command line syntax
have been retained for backwards compatibility, but
their use is strongly deprecated. Please refer to the
manual page for _m_e_d_i_a_r_e_c_o_r_d_e_r(_1) and update your
scripts accordingly. Note that _m_e_d_i_a_r_e_c_o_r_d_e_r(_1) offers
new features not supported by _c_a_p_t_u_r_e, which may be
accessed only through the new command line syntax.
+o Media Recorder directly supports motion JPEG
compression hardware, such as the Cosmo Compress board
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and the motion JPEG capabilities built into the O2
workstation.
+o Media Recorder allows you to record movie files from
the workstation screen.
Screen recording via software (the X server) is
supported on all systems. On SGI systems with optional
or built-in video capability, such as the O2
workstation, the Indy/Indigo2 with the Cosmo Compress
option, or the Octane with Octane Personal Video, you
can record QuickTime movies with motion JPEG
compression from the workstation screen.
+o Media Recorder provides greatly improved video
recording performance and audio-video synchronization
as compared to the Capture Tool.
+o Media Recorder is now capable of using multiple disk
volumes at once to achieve higher rate captures, given
the appropriate hardware. See the _m_e_d_i_a_r_e_c_o_r_d_e_r(_1)
manual page for more details.
+o Media Recorder can also take advantage of IRIX
scheduling priorities to achieve better video capture.
See the _m_e_d_i_a_r_e_c_o_r_d_e_r(_1) manual page for more details.
+o Media Recorder fully supports the IRIX Interactive
Desktop(TM). Newly recorded media files appear as
icons right inside the Media Recorder display. You can
rename them or drag them to other applications. You
can also choose the directory in which to record files
by dragging a desktop folder into the icon pocket in
the Media Recorder display.
+o Media Recorder now allows you to choose audio and video
jacks directly from within the application. The Audio
and Video control panels can still be used to set
signal timing (NTSC vs. PAL) and to adjust audio input
levels.
+o There is a new user interface for selecting regions of
the screen, which is improved over that provided by the
Capture Tool.
+o You can now set a time delay before recording starts,
allowing you to grab screenshots of menus and other
mouse-sensitive tasks.
+o The user interface for choosing movie parameters has
been greatly improved compared to the Capture Tool.
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You can now choose from a list of "smart presets"
appropriate to specific recording tasks. You can still
control all aspects of the capture, if you so choose.
+o Media Recorder now supports Copy and Paste to other
applications, include Media Maker and Sound Track.
+o The still image feature now supports several popular
formats, including JPEG, GIF and TIFF. You can also
view captured images in place, rather than in a
separate window.
+o The audio recording feature now supports AIFF and WAVE
file formats. It also supports four-channel and
eight-channel recording.
+o Media Recorder now provides estimates of the amount of
time remaining, based upon data rate and free disk
space, while capture is in progress.
18.2 _B_u_g__F_i_x_e_s
This section lists problems in Media Recorder which have
been fixed since the IRIX 6.4 release.
+o The command line options have been enhanced. You can
now specify compression, color packing, and interlacing
settings for movie files, specify screen recording
options, and direct the tool to record without human
intervention. For more details, see the _m_e_d_i_a_r_e_c_o_r_d_e_r
manual page.
+o There have been several minor user interface
improvements. The Clip Bin has been reworked to look
and behave more like other desktop media applications
such as _m_o_v_i_e_m_a_k_e_r. You can now freely adjust the size
of the Clip Bin relative to the viewing area. More
prompts have been added in areas to help those
unfamiliar with the tool, and Media Recorder now
visually highlights the chosen recording mode (movie,
image or audio) onscreen.
+o There are new new menu options to launch external
editors, players, conversion and info displays on media
files. For more details, see the online user
documenation.
+o Support for Apple's QuickTime Motion JPEG-A format has
been included. This Motion JPEG format is compatible
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with QuickTime running on non-SGI platforms. The SGI
Motion JPEG format has been preserved, for
compatibility with applications running on earlier
releases of IRIX.
+o Media Recorder's ability to perform data conversions
when writing movie files has been enhanced. This allows
you to select movie parameters, such as size, color
space, interlacing, and compression settings, without
regard for the capabilities of your system's underlying
video hardware. Media Recorder will take advantage of
hardware capabilities, such as color space conversion
and Motion JPEG compression, and perform software
format conversion only when necessary.
+o If recording aborts because audio or video was dropped,
you will still get a useful media file. Previous
versions of the tool would discard the file if audio or
video was dropped while recording.
+o Audio recording and waveform display now uses less CPU
time than earlier versions of the tool.
+o The Movie Settings dialog now accurately displays the
dimensions for the final movie file, based upon the
current video signal being recorded.
+o Media Recorder now displays time elapsed as well as
time remaining when recording video and audio files.
+o Fixed startup problems when Media Recorder was invoked
multiple times concurrently on systems equipped with
video.
+o Added support for the Octane Personal Video hardware
option.
+o Other minor bug fixes to improve reliability in error
situations, and with certain video option boards.
18.3 _K_n_o_w_n__P_r_o_b_l_e_m_s__a_n_d__W_o_r_k_a_r_o_u_n_d_s
This section lists known problems in Media Recorder. Also,
please see the _m_e_d_i_a_r_e_c_o_r_d_e_r manual page for more usage
notes.
+o Since the system has limited video resources, it is
best to avoid running more than one application that
uses video. In particular, you shouldn't run Live
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Video Input (_v_i_d_e_o_i_n from the command line) at the same
time as running _m_e_d_i_a_r_e_c_o_r_d_e_r. Nor should you attempt
to run two instances of _m_e_d_i_a_r_e_c_o_r_d_e_r both capturing
video at once.
+o When switching to quarter sized video, it is possible
to make the window so small that the buttons overlap
one another. To work around this problem, make the
window larger.
+o It can take up to a second for video to start or stop
recording after you press the Record button.
+o If you completely fill the disk while recording a
movie, you often cannot get a usable movie file. This
is because there is insufficient temporary disk space
available to create the final movie file. To work
around this problem, set up your scratch disks on a
different drive or filesystem than the one which will
contain the final movie file. Alternately, you can
avoid the practice of recording video right up until
the moment the disk is full.
+o If you are creating JPEG compressed movies on O2, and
you customize the capture "Task Settings" from the
"Tasks -> Show Task Settings" menu, then you must take
care to ensure that the "Advanced Options ->
Interlacing" pop-up menu is set to "Two Fields".
Otherwise, mediarecorder may crash or hang when it
performs its "post-processing" operation. A movie that
is captured with "Two Field" interlacing may be
converted to non-intlaced "One Frame" format by using
moviemaker or dmconvert.