Copyright: Copyright (c) Ulead Systems, Inc. December 1999


Ulead MediaStudio Pro 6.5 Readme Trial

August 2001

This Readme file outlines the new features of MediaStudio Pro 6.5. It also includes last minute information that is not in the manual or online help. Click on a topic below to find out more about this version.

Installing MediaStudio Pro and drivers

Tips and troubleshooting

Video Editor

Video Capture

Audio Editor

Video Paint

CG Infinity

More tips and information

Ulead COOL3D 3.0 support

Ulead DVD Plug-in

Digital Video (DV) support

Upgrade tips for MediaStudio Pro 5.x users

Special note on capture cards

Using Adobe Photoshop plug-in filters

Copyrights


Installing MediaStudio Pro and drivers

To install Ulead MediaStudio Pro, click the Install button on the initial screen that comes up after you insert your Ulead MediaStudio Pro CD in the CD-ROM. This automatically installs the program as well as the necessary drivers. It is recommended that you install the selected drivers, as they will optimize the way Ulead MediaStudio Pro works with your system’s hardware. The unselected drivers are optional. You can choose to install them at the same time or at a later date by using the Install Drivers option.

What are these drivers?

DirectX 8.0a - Driver from Microsoft that improves the format support of Ulead MediaStudio Pro and its overall performance. DirectX also provides support for special 3D effects. You should install this driver unless you have a later version.

DirectX is for Windows 95 and Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 2000 Professional and Server. It does not work on Windows NT4.0. You can download Service Pack 6 from Microsoft, which includes DirectX 3.0a for Windows NT 4.0. For more information, visit Microsoft's Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/directx.

Apple QuickTime 5.0 - The latest video format from Apple for creating and playing back movie files such as MOV and QT file formats.

Windows Media 7.0 - Drivers from Microsoft that allow you to create WMV streaming video files. It is recommended that you install this unless you have a later version. For more information, visit Microsoft's Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia.

Windows Media Player 7.0 - This is the latest player from Microsoft for playing a variety of formats, such as AVI, MOV, MPEG, and WMV. It is recommended that you install this program unless you have a later version. For more information, visit their Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/mediaplayer/download.

RealPlayer 8.0 - This is the latest player from RealNetworks for playing Real Video and Real Audio files from the Internet.

Indeo Video Software 5.1 - This is the latest release of  Indeo video compression and decompression software. It features greatly improved visual quality, better compression, and playback performance enhancements for MMX™ technology and the Pentium® III processor.

Acrobat Reader 5.0 - This is the latest version of Adobe’s Acrobat Reader and is used for viewing the Ulead MediaStudio Pro’s electronic manual.

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Tips and troubleshooting

Here are helpful tips on how to make full use of MediaStudio Pro's features. Solutions to common problems which users might encounter are also provided in this section. (For the latest information and upgrades on MediaStudio Pro, please visit Ulead's Web site at http://www.ulead.com.

Video Editor

You can press the Shift and the Left arrow or Right arrow keys to scroll through the Timeline one unit at a time.

When scrubbing and doing an 'on-the-fly' preview, you can use the following hotkeys:

Press the Ctrl key while dragging the Vertical Preview Line to go to a certain timecode without rendering. You can then press F8 to refresh the Preview window.

Press the Shift key while dragging Vertical Preview Line to preview the video only.

Press the Alt key while dragging the Vertical Preview Line to preview the audio only.

MediaStudio Pro 6.5 has redefined two keyboard shortcuts. Press the Space key for “Play from Mark Out” and press the Shift + Space keys for “Play the Preview Range.”

In the Preferences dialog box, place preview files in a fast and large disk drive for better preview performance.

Although you can insert a UCG file (CG Infinity project file) and UVP file (Video Paint project file) into Video Editor directly, sometimes it will be better to create UIS (Ulead Image Sequence files) with alpha channel in CG Infinity and Video Paint to get the best performance, especially when the contents are very complex.

If, under certain conditions, you are having display problems when playing back MOV files with certain display cards, please go to the Control Panel and change QuickTime's 'Video Settings' to 'Safe Mode'.

You can use hardware playback plug-ins to play back or preview the project. To install playback plug-ins for preview, you have to copy the plug-ins to a specific location in your hard drive first. Then, add the following entries to the Ulead32.ini file found in your Windows directory:

[Playback]

Playdll[n]=c:\pathfolder\mpb_plugin.dll

where n is the plug-in number ranging from 1 to 9, c:\pathfolder is the path where you saved the plug-ins, and mpb_plugin.dll is the file name of the plug-in. Users need not specify the full path if the playback plug-in is located in the MediaStudio Pro program folder. The program will find the right playback module from Playdll1 to Playdll9.

Moreover, the default playback plug-in settings provided by MediaStudio Pro 6.5 are as follows:

[Playback]

PlayDll7=U32mpb.dll

PlayDll8=U32mpbm.dll

PlayDll9=Upbplug2.dll

If you play a preview range containing fewer than 5 frames in an MPEG-2 project, “Multiple file playback error” or a data error message may appear. The current MPEG-2 playback engine cannot play back clips of a very short duration.

When creating MOV files, the audio codec "QDesign Music 2" will not function properly due to the restriction in coding information.

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Video Capture

If you want to perform batch capturing using a device control, please make sure your video device can provide frame accurate controls. Otherwise, the captured video file may have incorrect mark-in positions. If you are capturing several DV files from a DV camcorder and cannot find the correct frame, you can add the following string in the msdevctl.ini file found in your Windows directory:

[MainSec]

ToleranceFrames=60

After finishing the capture operation, it is better to close the Video Capture program to avoid some hardware driver problems. Because some video capture boards provide the capture and Codec drivers in the one driver file, they may sometimes have some repaint or lock problems if both drivers are open.

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Audio Editor

The cue information can be saved to a WAV file only. In other words, if the user sets up cues and then saves the edited file to, say, an AVI file, all cue information will be lost.

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Video Paint

When creating a project, please use mark-in/mark-out options to select a proper video working duration. That is, although the project files will be compressed by a loss-less compression method, they will still take a lot of memory and disk space.

The Filmstrip displays images in 'Normal' display mode only. After you apply painting, retouching or cloning effects to an image, Video Paint pauses for about 3 seconds when updating the image in the Filmstrip.

When using the Power Duplicate command, there are some pre-created image files you can use as a mask. You can find them inside the MediaStudio Pro program folder under \Samples\Mask.

Video Paint cannot playback DV or MPEG-2 files on its MCI window after they have been created. However, you can use Windows Media Player to play them back.

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CG Infinity

The background you choose for a CG project will not be used when you insert the project into Video Editor. However, if you create the video and image files inside CG Infinity, the background will then be included in the created file.

Once objects have been grouped together their styles cannot be further changed nor can they be modified by the Adjust Tool, Envelope Tool, or Text Tool. Moving paths originally assigned to objects will also be lost upon grouping and ungrouping them. So make sure that objects are in their final edits before grouping them.

CG Infinity cannot playback DV or MPEG-2 files on its MCI window after creation. However, users can use Windows Media Player to play them back.

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More tips and information

SONY ViSCA MCI Device

MediaStudio Pro supports SONY ViSCA MCI device. However, when capturing with SONY ViSCA MCI device, if there is any negative value (e.g. -00:00:01:00) in the marked in and marked out selection area, the capture operation will fail. Press the Reset button on your camcorder, and mark in and mark out at a positive position.

Video files and compression schemes

If you are working with video files, you may experience an "Unable to compress video" writing error message. This commonly indicates that the compression/decompression driver (Codec) you are using cannot support the current frame size or color depth. Try another Codec or decrease the frame size and/or color depth accordingly.


Ulead COOL3D 3.0 support

MediaStudio Pro 6.5’s Video Editor now supports import of Ulead COOL3D 3.0 project file (c3d as the file extension) as a video file. In order to import c3d files into Video Editor, both MediaStudio Pro6.5 and Ulead COOL3D 3.0 must be installed in the same platform. You can drag a c3d project clip to an Overlay track and set the Overlay type as Alpha channel to make the background transparent and merge it with the video clips in the upper tracks.

You can also use Ulead COOL3D 3.0 to create a video file with Alpha channel and import it into Video Editor. To create a video file with Alpha Channel in Ulead COOL3D 3.0, the file format used must be AVI, the compression must be set to “None," and the Data type must be 32bit RGB.

If you have Ulead COOL3D 3.0 and the above functions are not supported, one reason is that you may have an older version of Ulead COOL3D 3.0, please download the COOL3D 3.0 patch program from the Ulead Website to update your Ulead COOL3D 3.0.

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Ulead DVD Plug-in

Overview

Ulead® DVD Plug-in is a DVD authoring tool designed for users who want an easy and affordable way to share high-quality video on CDs or DVDs. A wizard type workflow and customizable templates let users create their own VCD, SVCD and DVD titles with scene menus, navigation buttons, and video introductions. Unlike current DVD authoring solutions, Ulead DVD Plug-in can be directly integrated into Ulead video products to provide fast and easy DVD authoring to users.

Troubleshooting

The Ulead® DVD Plug-in may not run when used with DVD/VCD/SVCD files created before the plug-in was installed.

For MPEG files created using previous versions of a Ulead video product or other video software, you may have to re-create the file in order to use the Ulead DVD Plug-in. In order to make sure you can create DVD/VCD/SVCD title successfully, please re-create these files to be DVD/VCD/SVCD compliant. In MediaStudio Pro, you can re-create the files through File: Create - Video File in the Menu bar.

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Digital Video (DV) support

To support DV, it is recommended that you use a hard disk with a sustained transfer rate of over 3.6 MB per second. SCSI and UltraDMA hard disks are recommended. If your system supports DMA transfer, please enable it by following these steps (for Windows 98, Windows 98 SE and Windows ME):

1.	Open the Control Panel.

2.	Double-click the System icon.

3.	Click the Device Manager tab.

4.	From "Disk Drives", select "GENERIC IDE DISK TYPE46" then click the properties button.

5.	Click the Settings tab, and then select the DMA control.

6.	Click OK to exit.

If you are using an OHCI IEEE-1394 card, you must use  Windows 98 Second Edition (or later version) or Windows 2000.

Other DV cards such as Canopus DVRex-M1, DVRaptor, FAST DV Master and Pinnacle DV300 have their own proprietary drivers which can work in other OS environments.

To transmit or record DV files back to a DV camcorder through OHCI IEEE-1394 card, please make sure that you select the type-1 format (this is the default setting) when creating a DV file.

Try to avoid mixing SP and LP modes on the same tape. It will affect the accuracy of the Batch Capture function in Video Capture.

There are several possible causes preventing you from recording DV files to your camcorder:

1.	The DV tape is write protected.

2.	The IEEE 1394 connection cable is loose.

3.	The camcorder battery is low. It is recommended that you use an AC-DC power adapter.

4.	The camcorder is not powered on or it is not in VTR/VCR mode.

5.	Some early DV camcorder models do not allow the recording of DV files in VTR/VCR mode. Please refer to the DV camcorder user manual.

6.	If the cause is not listed above, turn off the camcorder, restart your PC, turn on the camcorder, and run MediaStudio Pro 6.5.

Microsoft defines two methods of storing DV video data in AVI files, namely type-1 and type-2. If you would like to know more about these two DV AVI file formats, please visit Microsoft's Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/desinit/dvavi.htm.

If you are using an LP tape (90 minutes), please change the following line in the msdevctl.ini file to the following:

[MainSec]

OnlySPMode=0

Note: We recommend using SP tapes for superior performance.

The DV SmartPlay feature in MediaStudio 6.5 that allows you to play your project directly from the timeline right out to a DV camcorder or other 1394 device without rendering a final movie file. DV SmartPlay also lets you view your project on an external monitor at any time.

In order to use DV SmartPlay, the audio setting for the DV project template must be a DV audio codec (DV Audio - NTSC or DV Audio - PAL.) In the Template Options dialog box select the DV audio setting that fits your video format; For example, "DV Audio - NTSC, 48,000kHz 16bit Stereo" or "DV Audio - NTSC, 32,000kHz 16 bit Stereo".

Note: You will not see a preview in the Video Editor Preview Window. To see the video in the Preview Window, simply disconnect or turn off your IEEE-1394 device.

MediaStudio 6.5 supports Adaptec AHA 8940 IEEE-1394 cards (PAPI interface) that capture type-2 DV AVIs. To use PAPI capture plugin, add the following entries to the Ulead32.ini file

[CAPTURE_PLUGIN]

CapturePluginPath3=HotPlug.dll

In Video Capture's Setup menu, select Switch Capture Plug-in.

In the Change Capture Plug-in dialog box, select "Adaptec AHA-894x DV" in the Current capture plug-in box to use it as the capture plug-in.

For the latest information on DV capture cards and MediaStudio Pro, please visit Ulead's Web site at: http://www.ulead.com.

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Upgrade tips for MediaStudio Pro 5.x users

Importing customized effects from MediaStudio Pro 5.x to version 6.5

Follow the procedure below to save the customized effects you had in MediaStudio Pro 5.x as a data file and then load them to the Production Library of MediaStudio Pro 6.5.

1.	Run Video Editor from MediaStudio Pro 5.x.

2.	Start selecting the customized folders from the various galleries, such as Video Filters, Transition Effect, Moving Path and Media Library, that you want to export to the respective galleries in MediaStudio Pro 6.5's Production Library.

3.	Right-click on the CUSTOM folder that you want to export to MediaStudio Pro 6.5.

4.	Select the 'Save' menu command. Then, specify the destination and file name in which to save the selected folder.

5.	Repeat steps 3 and 4 to save the CUSTOM folders from the other galleries.

6.	Close the Video Editor program.

7.	Run Video Editor from MediaStudio Pro 6.5 and open the Production Library. Start importing the files into the respective galleries.

8.	Right-click on the root folder of a gallery.

9.	Select the 'Load' menu command and locate the previously saved file which contains effects that can be imported to the selected gallery.The customized effects in the file will then be added to the Production Library.

10.Repeat steps 8 and 9 to import customized effects from the other files.

You can use the above procedure also for Video Paint and CG Infinity.

Note: Third party plug-ins should be re-installed in MediaStudio Pro 6.5.

Customizing MediaStudio Pro 5.x project templates for use in version 6.5

Project templates from MediaStudio Pro 5.x projects can be customized for use in MediaStudio Pro 6.5. All you need to do is to save them as new templates in MediaStudio Pro 6.5.

1.	Run Video Editor from MediaStudio Pro 6.5.

2.	Select File: Open [Ctrl+O] to open the DVP project file which was previously created in MediaStudio Pro 5.x.

3.	Select File: Project Settings [Alt+Enter] to check and modify the project settings.

4.	Select File: Save Project Template to save the settings as a new project template.

Another way of creating project templates in MediaStudio Pro 6.5's Video Editor program is by selecting File: New [Ctrl+N] and then clicking the Create button on the New dialog box. You will be prompted to save your current project settings as a new project template.

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Special note on capture cards

Matrox Rainbow Runner and Matrox G450

MediaStudio Pro 6.5 uses the OpenDML AVI file format and the newly enhanced SmartRender technology which will directly read the audio portion of a video file without rendering if the audio format is the same as the project setting. However, the original multiple file playback plug-in, icutlist.dll, may not support this OpenDML format and may not directly read the audio part of a video file. We recommend you  add the following strings in the Ulead32.ini file found in your Windows directory:

[HardwareAcc]

NotSaveOpenDML=1

[Playback]

RenderAudio=1


Using Adobe Photoshop plug-in filters

Video Editor and Video Paint support Kai's Power Tools and other Adobe Photoshop (APS) 32 bit compliant plug-in filters. Follow these steps to install them:

1.	Install the APS plug-in filters according to their accompanying documentation.

2.	Add the following to the Ulead32.ini file. (This file is in your Windows directory.)

[PLUG IN]

PLUGINDIR1=C:\APS\KPT

where C:\APS\KPT is the folder where Kai's Power Tools is installed.(If you are using another APS compliant plug-in filter, use the folder name of that filter.) If you have multiple APS plug-in filter directories, add a new line for each according to the example below:

[PLUG IN]

PLUGINDIR1=C:\APS\KPT

PLUGINDIR2=C:\APS\EFFECTS

3.	After modifying the Ulead32.ini file, additional folder groups will appear in Video Editor's "Video Filters" gallery and Video Paint's "Video Filters" menu the next time you start these programs. Now you can apply the added special filters to your projects right from Video Editor and Video Paint.

Note: Although Ulead Systems has performed extensive testing with APS plug-in filters, some may not work properly with Video Editor and Video Paint. The reason is that these plug-in filters were originally designed for still images. Ulead has identified and corrected most of the problems found during testing, but cannot guarantee that all filters will behave properly.

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Copyrights

Copyright © 1992-2001 Ulead Systems, Inc. All right reserved. Ulead, the Ulead Systems logo, MediaStudio, and MediaStudio Pro are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of Ulead Systems, Inc.

JPEG Plug-In Module. © 1992-2001 Ulead Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Portions of this software are based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group.

Some of the product names mentioned in this document are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and are used for identification purposes only.

Portions included (RealProducer DLL files) under license from RealNetworks, Inc. Copyright © 1995-2001.

RealPlayer® is used under license from RealNetworks, Inc.

QuickTime™ is used under license from Apple Computer, Inc.

Windows Media™, Windows Media™ Player, DirectX©, and DirectX© Media are used under license from Microsoft Corporation.

Indeo® is used under license from Ligos Corporation.

All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

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