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Appendix A | Appendix B | Appendix C | Glossary | Index | Legal Stuff | License


Chapter 9 - Selecting and Previewing Settings

Setting Options | Creating New Settings | Previewing Your Settings | The A/B Slider | Setting the Checkboxes | File Size Indicator | Selecting the Dynamic Preview Frame

Setting Options

If a feature has a checkbox next to it, checking this box will activate that feature. Once a feature is active, its parameters and controls will appear in the tab. Thus, the interface dynamically adjusts to show you only meaningful options at any given time. To turn off a feature, simply deselect its checkbox.

Features without checkboxes are always active, and you must set a value for them. See Part 4 - Settings Tabs for more details on what each setting does in the various Settings tabs.

This chapter details how to use Settings Groups in general, not the specifics of what each setting does. Please see Part 4 - Settings Tabs for details on the settings within each tab.

All of the parameters that you can change in the Settings window together make up a "settings group." Settings groups are often referred to simply as "settings." By allowing you to easily change and save settings groups, Media Cleaner makes it possible for you to quickly select all your parameters at once. This saves you time, as well as helping you to make sure that your movies are consistent.

Media Cleaner comes with some preconfigured settings groups such as "2x Cinepak" (which is optimized for a QuickTime based, Cinepak compressed, double speed CD-ROM movie).

You can create new groups as well as modify, rename, and delete existing settings.

NOTE: It is not necessary to have a movie open before working with the Settings window. If you do have a movie open, the current settings will automatically be applied and saved to that movie. If you do not have a movie open, the settings you select will not automatically be applied to any movie, but can be saved and retrieved for later use. If you open a movie that has settings associated with it, the settings in the Settings window will change to that movie's settings.

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Selecting Settings

To select a settings group you wish to use or modify, press the "Select" button in the bottom of the Settings window. This will open a selection window that has "groups" of the five formats Media Cleaner currently supports. Each group has a toggle next to it. When the toggle is pointing down, all the settings in that group are shown. When the toggle is pointing to the right, the settings are hidden.

To speed things up, the toggle for the format that you have currently selected in the Settings window is opened by default. You can have multiple toggles open at any time.

NOTE: The settings are sorted into their architecture group alphabetically by name. See "Organizing Settings" below for more details.

To select a setting you wish to use, click on it and press the "Select" button. You can also double-click on a setting to select it.

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Creating New Settings

To create a new settings group, press the "Create New..." button near the bottom of the Settings window. You will be prompted to name your new settings group. The new settings group will have the same parameters as the previously open settings group.

For example, if you have the "2x Cinepak" setting open and decide to make a new setting called "4x Cinepak", the new group will start with the "2x Cinepak" parameters. You may then modify these as you wish.

Starting with the current settings is a way to save you from having to reset every parameter from scratch each time you make a new settings group.

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Modifying Settings

To modify a settings group, first select it with the "Select" button, then change the desired parameters. Changes to your settings are automatically saved as you make them.

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Deleting Settings

If you want to delete a settings group you have previously saved, press the "Select" button near the bottom of the Settings window. Select the setting or settings you wish to delete in the selection window and press the "Delete" button.



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Renaming Settings

To rename an existing setting, press the "Select" button, highlight the setting you wish, and then press the "Rename" button. A dialog will appear for you to type the new name.

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Organizing Settings

Settings will automatically be grouped according to their format. For example, all your QuickTime settings will show up in the "QuickTime" group in the selection window.

Within each group, settings are alphabetically sorted according to their name. If you want a setting to be at the top of the list, you can put a number in front of it ­ lower numbers come first.

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Previewing your Settings

The Dynamic Preview window allows you to see exactly how the changes you are making to the settings affect your image in real-time. Simply select the "Dynamic Preview" option from the Windows menu, and press the "Update" button to see what the current settings look like when applied to your image. You can also press "Command - D" to generate a preview.



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A/B Slider

Underneath the image in the Dynamic Preview window is a slider similar to the Before/After Preview slider. You may move this slider back and forth in real-time to see what any part of your image looks like with processing and/or compression applied to it.


The A/B Checkboxes

On either side underneath the A/B slider are sets of two checkboxes. These checkboxes control how the image is processed prior to display in the Dynamic Preview window.

Process Checkbox
This checkbox controls whether the result displayed on a given side has the settings applied to it, including image adjustments (brightness, hue, gamma, etc.) and filters (Adaptive Noise Reduction, Blur, Static Mask, etc.).

Compress Checkbox
This controls whether the result on a given side is compressed using the parameters set in the "Compress" tab.

NOTE: The image displayed in the Dynamic Preview with the "Compress" option is a keyframe. It is a good indicator of what your final compressed image will look like, but is not exactly the same as the final output. To see the final output, you must start the actual compression and use the Before/After Preview. See Chapter 8 for more details.



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Suggestions for Setting the Checkboxes

You may set either side to whatever combination of checkboxes you like. Generally, people use the Dynamic Preview for three things:

1. To see the effects of the image adjustment

Turn off both checkboxes on the left side, and turn on only the "Process" checkbox on the right. The left is now your original image, and the right is the image with all the filters and processing applied to it. This lets you quickly see how your adjustments look.

2. To correct for a particular codec's artifacts

Some codecs slightly alter the color balance of your compressed image. You can compensate for this by turning off both checkboxes on the left side, and checking them both on the right side. Thus, the left side is your original, unmodified
image, and the right side is your final output, with the codec's changes as well as your own. Simply alter the hue adjustment until the two sides match.

3. To see the results of noise reduction

Turn on the "Compress" checkbox on the left, and turn on both the "Process" and "Compress" checkboxes on the right. This lets you see how processing your image prior to compression improves the compressed image quality as compared to not processing the image before compression.

NOTE: You can set the checkboxes on both sides of the A/B slider to the same setting - this isn't particularly useful, since the image on both sides will be identical. If you wish to see the whole image one way, simply move the slider entirely to one side of the image.

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File Size Indicator

Underneath the A/B slider is the number of Kilobytes of the current frame with the settings applied to it. If the "Compress" checkbox is checked, the size indicated will be an approximation of the final size of that frame when compressed.

NOTE: Since the frame displayed in the Dynamic Preview window is a keyframe, the size indicated is not necessarily the exact size a particular frame will be in the final movie; this file size indicator is only useful as a relative guide. To determine the exact size of any frame, you must actually compress the movie and watch the information under the Output Movie.

NOTE: Some codecs, such as Cinepak, may attempt to keep the image the same size, regardless of your processing. Don't worry if the file size indicator doesn't change with these codecs. Instead of the image getting smaller, the image quality should improve as your settings allow the codec to better compress the image.

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Selecting the Dynamic Preview Frame

The image displayed in the Dynamic Preview window is the same as the current frame in the Source Movie window. To see how your settings will look with any particular frame in the movie, just move the Source Movie controller to the desired point in the movie, and generate a new preview by pressing the "Update" button.

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