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Chapter 16 - The Tracks Tab

Flatten Only | Handling Tracks | Cross-Platform Track Issues | Dealing With Text and Sprite Tracks | Specifying Unusual QuickTime Tracks

This tab allows you to specify which tracks from your source movie are contained in your output movie. If you have other QuickTime tracks, such as sprites or text tracks, this tab is where you specify how these tracks are included in your movie, or if they are to be discarded.

The Tracks tab also allows you to include an audio or video track from the source movie into your output movie without recompressing it.

You can remove various tracks entirely from your movie with the Tracks tab as well.




Flatten Only

The Flatten only option allows you to flatten a movie without processing any of its tracks. Flattening is a final pass applied to a compressed movie, which ensures that there are no edits remaining in the movie and that data is laid out in a completely linear fashion. It is important that movies are properly flattened prior to distribution.

NOTE: You can also flatten a movie by choosing "Flatten and save..." from the File menu.

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Handling Tracks

You can specify how any given track will be handled. Your options are:



Process

By choosing "Process", the track will have all the adjustments and compression parameters applied to it prior to inclusion in the final output movie. This is the normal behavior for video and audio tracks.


Burn

Some tracks have a "Burn" option, instead of "Process." The term "Burn" is commonly used in reference to sprites and text tracks. Burning a track processes it and includes it into the video track, where it will be compressed with the rest of the image data. A burned track is no longer a text or sprite track ­ it is now just part of the video image. See "Dealing with Text and Sprite Tracks" below for more details on why you might want to burn a track.

It's not possible to process or burn some track types, so "Process" or "Burn" is not always an option.

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Copy

This option allows you to designate tracks that should be copied without processing and compression into the final output movie. Normally this is used for tracks such as text, sprites, etc. However, "Copy" can also be used if you have a video or audio track that you want in the final movie, but you don't want it processed and compressed.

For example, if you had a movie on which you had already finished the audio track, but still needed to compress the video track, you could select "Copy" for the audio, and "Process" for the video.

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Chapter List (Text Tracks only)

If you have a movie with a text track, you can make a "Chapter List" for this movie. This feature creates a list of the chapters defined in the text track of your movie. This list then appears as a pop-up in the standard QuickTime control bar. Viewers may use this pop-up to jump to points in the various "chapters" of the movie, as defined by the text track.

To create a chapter list for a movie with an existing text track, check the "Make chapter list" option in the Text section.

NOTE: To omit a track entirely from the movie, simply deselect the checkbox next to that track.

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Cross-Platform Track Issues

Until QuickTime for Windows 3.0 is released, text and sprite tracks are only fully supported on the Macintosh. QuickTime for Windows 3.0 should bring full support of text and sprites to Windows machines in mid 1997. In the meantime, Media Cleaner allows you to include these data-types in the video track for cross-platform distribution, or copy them for Macintosh-only distribution (see below). QuickTime Music is currently supported on both Macintosh and Windows machines.

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Dealing with Text and Sprite Tracks

Because text and sprite tracks are not supported in QuickTime for Windows 2.1.2, there are three things that you might want to do with them:



1. Burn Text and Sprites ­ cross-platform
The most common approach to text and sprite tracks for cross-platform distribution is to "burn" the track into the video. This means that the text or sprite is actually included in the video track of the movie as part of the image instead of as a separate track.

While burning the track negates the space saving nature of text and sprites by making them into a normal video movie, it does allow your movies to be distributed cross-platform. This approach is a short term "work around" until Apple releases full text and sprite support in QuickTime for Windows 3.0.

To "burn" the text and sprite tracks into your movie, select the "Burn" option next to each track.

NOTE: Since the text and sprites are actually part of the video image when you burn them, video filters (such as Adaptive Noise Reduction, blur, etc.) will be applied to them as well as the rest of the image. It's best to turn off "Stray Pixel" Adaptive Noise Reduction if you have text, as this filter tends to eliminate fine details, such as the dots on "i", etc.



2. Include Text and Sprites ­ Macintosh-only
If you are producing a movie with text and/or sprite tracks for Macintosh-only distribution prior to QuickTime for Windows 3.0, you may want to include them as a separate track instead of burning them into the video track.

To include a text or sprite track but not burn it, choose the "Copy" option next to the data-types your movie contains.



3. Remove Text and Sprites
If you have tracks that you do not want included in your movie in any form, uncheck the checkbox next to each track you want entirely removed from the output movie.

NOTE: RealMedia will have other tracks in the future, but these tracks are not currently supported with Media Cleaner Pro 2.0. VDO doesn't currently have tracks other than video and audio.

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Specifying Unusual QuickTime Tracks

A space is provided to allow for unusual QuickTime tracks not specifically listed in the dialog. If you have a movie with a track type not listed, you must type in the four letter track code. For a list of these codes, please see the "Tips & Info" section of Terran's WWW site.

NOTE: If you type a code into an "Other" box, that track will be copied without processing. If you don't specify an unusual track which is in your source movie, it will automatically be omitted from the final movie.

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