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Chapter 6 - Settings and Batch Processing Tutorial


In this more advanced tutorial, you will create a custom settings group with the Settings window, and set up a batch of three movies for compression.

Starting Tutorial 3


1. The Settings Window

Close the Media Cleaner Wizard window if it is open, and open the Settings window from the Windows menu. Notice the tabs down the left side of the Settings window. These allow you to quickly see the various groups of settings you may wish to alter. For example, if you wanted to change the video compression settings, you would click on the "Compress" tab.

Normally, you start at the Output tab and work your way down until you reach the Summary tab. Choices you make in the various tabs may affect the other tabs. For example, if you choose the "AIFF" audio format in the Output tab, you would be creating an audio-only file, and several tabs would disappear.

Similarly, choices you make within a particular tab may affect other choices within that same tab. To see this, make sure "QuickTime" is selected in the Output tab, then click on the Compress tab. Select "Cinepak" in the "Codec" pop-up. Notice the options available, including keyframe options, spatial and temporal quality sliders, etc.

Next, select "Photo-JPEG" from the "Codec" pop-up. Note how the options change, such as the temporal slider and keyframe option disappearing. This is due to the fact that each codec has certain settings that are meaningful, and others which don't apply. Media Cleaner dynamically adjusts the interface to show you only the features that actually apply to a given setting.


2. Open the Source Movie

Open "Tutorial 3 - Source" by selecting "Open..." from the File Menu, and locating it in the "Tutorial" folder on the Media Cleaner Pro 2.0 CD-ROM.

Notice how the movie is full screen (640x480). If you have a small monitor, you may need to shrink the video to be able to see the information on the bottom of the window. You can make the image display half-size by choosing the "Half Size" option in the Windows menu.

NOTE: The source movie will not play smoothly because it is Photo -JPEG compressed.


3. Settings

All of the particular parameters you select in the settings window together make up what is called a "settings group." You can save these groups for later use, as we will do in this tutorial. You don't have to have a movie open to make settings. However, if you do have a movie open, the current settings will be saved with that movie for future use.


4. Open the Dynamic Preview

Open the Dynamic Preview from the Windows menu. This will allow you to see the results of your parameters while you change them. Make sure the left side of the Dynamic Preview has no boxes checked, and the right side has "Process" checked, but "Compress" off.




5. Select Your Settings

We're going to make a settings group for a cross-platform 2x CD-ROM movie. Press the "Create New" button at the bottom of the Settings window, and title your new settings group "Tutorial 3".

In the Settings window, set the parameters as follows:

Output

Format = QuickTime
Flatten and make cross-platform = on
Fast Start = on
Movie information = on (set the name
and information to whatever you like)
Create HTML = off

Tracks

Video = process
Audio = process

Video

Crop = Manual, Constrain Aspect Ratio
Scale = Numeric, Normal, Width: 320, Height: 240

Try clicking and dragging on the Source movie to set your cropping rectangle. Anything outside the rectangle will be removed. Notice how the aspect ratio is constrained to the ratio that you have typed into the Width and Height boxes. Click anywhere on the image without dragging to deselect the cropping rectangle.

Deinterlace = off
Blur = off
Noise Reduction = Flat fields
Static Mask = off
Palette = Create new, 256 colors


Adjust

Gamma = +30 (this is a good setting to compromise for darker PC monitors)

Set the other settings as you like ­ use the Dynamic Preview window to see the results of your parameters in real-time. Try moving the A/B slider back and forth to see how the various parts of the image are affected by adjustments like black restore. Press the "Update" button to see the results of your settings.

Compress

Codec = Cinepak
Bit depth = Millions of Colors
Spatial quality = 50
Temporal quality = 50
Frame rate = 15 fps
Keyframes = every 15 frames
Compare uncompressed frames = off
Data rate control = Basic, limit to 180 KBytes per second, if limit exceeded add frame anyway

Audio

Codec = IMA
Frequency = 22.050 kHz
Depth = 16 bits
Channels = mono

Begin/End

Video fade in = from black, 1 second
Video fade out = none
Audio fade in = 1 second
Audio fade out = .5 second
First frame hold = off
Last frame hold = off
High quality first frame = off
High quality last frame = on



6. Create the Batch

Close the Source Movie window. Set up a batch by dragging the three movies from the "Tutorial" folder onto the Media Cleaner Pro 2.0 program icon.

Media Cleaner will prompt you to save the batch list ­ make a new folder on the desktop called "Tutorial 3 Results," name the batch file "My Batch", and save it into the "Tutorial 3 Results" folder.

The Batch window will now be open with your three movies listed in it, each with the setting as "default".




7. Set the Default Setting

Press the "Default settings..." button at the top of the Batch window. When the setting selection window opens, double click on "Tutorial 3".

This setting will be applied to any movie that has its setting pop-up set to "default" (which is all three movies in this case).


8. Set Individual Settings

In the Batch window, double-click on the "Tutorial 1 - Source" and set its settings group to "2x Cinepak". Double-click on "Tutorial 2 - Source" and set it to "Tutorial 2". Leave "Tutorial 3 - Source" as "default" ­ it will be processed with the "Tutorial 3" setting you chose for the "Default" setting in Step 7.




9. Open Movies in the Batch List

Option-double-click on "Tutorial 3 - Source" to open the movie. Click and drag on the Source Movie window to set a new cropping rectangle.




10. Start Batch Compression

Press the "Start" button in the Status Bar.

Media Cleaner will ask you to specify the destination for the batch results. Select the "Tutorial 3 Results" folder. Media Cleaner will then start at the top of the batch list and work its way down through the movies one at a time.

You can suspend your compression at any point, and then later resume it. When the compression is finished, a dialog will appear.




11. View the Results

Once it is done, open the "Tutorial 3 Results" folder and view the movies by double-clicking on them.




12. That's It!

Congratulations - you're now well on your way to becoming a compression pro!

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