LEAD Technologies’ Multimedia Converter
http://www.leadtools.com/
support@leadtools.com

Overview:

LEAD Multimedia Converter is an easy to use, powerful multimedia converter and capture utility. 
It can be used to create multimedia files by capturing from a video/audio source or to convert an existing multimedia file into another format.  Multimedia Converter offers a variety of output formats for converted/captured video and audio data. It also offers many useful video/audio effects filters that can be applied during capture or conversion. Multimedia files can be compressed by any audio and video codec that is installed on your PC and is supported by DirectShow.

Note that not all codecs support all types of input data. The Converter will do its best to use the codecs that have been selected. For example, some video codecs will have restrictions on the width, height or the bits per pixel of the image data.  Additionally, to convert a media file, you must have a codec that supports the encoding of the existing media file. To test this, try playing the media file, see the “To play a video file” & “To play an audio file” topics.

Instructions:

To play a video file:
Select the file to play by clicking the green text box next to the SOURCE VIDEO FILE label.

Upon clicking, a dialog box will appear allowing you to browse to the video file to play.

You can also drag a file from explorer and drop it onto the green text box.

Once you have selected the video file to play, click the play button next to the green text box.

The video file will be played in a pop up window and a small sliding window will show with control buttons for play, stop, pause, fast forward, fast backward and an option of auto repeat.

Video playback will stop when you close the pop up window in which video is played.

To play an audio file:
Select the file to play by clicking the green text box next to the SOURCE VIDEO FILE label.

Upon clicking, a dialog box will appear allowing you to browse to the audio file to play.

You can also drag file from explorer and drop it to the green text box.

Once you have selected the audio file to play, click the play button next to the green text box.

The video file will be played in a pop up window and a small sliding window will show with buttons of play, stop, pause, fast forward and fast backward and an option of auto repeat that will enable you control the playback

Audio playback will stop when you press the stop button in the small sliding window.

To switch between convert and capture interfaces:
Click on the SWITCH button   to switch between the convert and capture interfaces.  You can only switch to capture interface when you have a capture device installed.

To select a video codec:
If you would like to change the video codec used for encoding a video file, simply click the red VIDEO CODEC button  and a sliding menu will appear listing all video codecs available for use.

To select an audio codec:
If you would like to change the audio codec used for encoding the sound in a media file, simply click the red AUDIO CODEC button  and a sliding menu will appear listing all audio codecs available for use.

To change Video/Audio CODEC settings:
1.	Click the VIDEO CODEC button  or AUDIO CODEC button , displaying the codec sliding menu. (Note that the menu can be made wider by clicking the button at the top of the menu).

2.	Right click the codec that you want to and select properties. 

3.	Make your changes.

4.	Click Ok.

To select Video/Audio effects:
Click the “View Filters” button , which is the triangular button found in the middle of the Converter’s window.  Now a sliding menu will appear listing all video/audio effects available. 

In the convert interface, there are two choices:
1. Audio Processors
2. Video Processors

In the capture interface, there are four choices:
1. Capture Properties
2. Audio Format
3. Audio Processors
4. Video Processors

Capture Properties:
Controls the video capturing parameters like brightness, contrast…etc.

Audio Format:
Controls the quality of audio capturing.

Audio Processors:
Will show a dialog with an empty audio processing list initially.  You can add audio processing filters to list in any order to create cool video effects.  For example, try the LEAD Audio Chorus filter.
The following table lists the LEADTOOLS DirectShow Audio filters:
Feature	Comments	
Encryption / Decryption	The filter encrypts and decrypts any type of media. This filter supports the DES-Directshow editing services.	
Audio Chorus	The chorus filter can be used to add a chorus effect. The chorus effect makes one instrument sound like many instruments are being played. It adds some thickness to the sound.	
Audio Echo	The echo filter can be used to add an echo effect. The echo effect reflects a sound wave back to its source with sufficient strength and time lag to be separately distinguished.	
Audio Flanger	The flanger filter can be used to add a flange effect. Flanging has a characteristic sound often described as a "whooshing" sound, similar to the sound of a jet plane flying overhead.	
Audio Phaser	The phase filter can be used to add the distinctive phaser sound. This distinctive sound is obtained by creating one or more notches in the frequency domain that eliminate sounds at the notch frequencies. Notches are created by filtering the signal, and mixing the filter output with the input signal. The flanger, a specific type of phasing, also makes use of notches.	
Audio Volume	The Audio Volume filter allows the user to change the volume of sound samples.	
Audio VU Meter	The VU meter filter can be used to add a VU meter to an audio stream. The VU meter allows the user to retrieve left and right channel audio power levels. The filter can be used to monitor the output level of other filters placed before it in the stream.	

Video Processors:
Will show a dialog with an empty video processing list initially.  You can add video processing filters to list in any order to create cool video effects.  For example, try the LEAD Video Emboss filter.
The following table lists the LEADTOOLS DirectShow Audio filters:
Feature	Comments	
Encryption / Decryption	The filter encrypts and decrypts any type of media. This filter supports the DES-Directshow editing services.	
Video Add	The add filter can be used for enhancing night vision or dropping more light on dark sources to clarify objects. The effect is performed in 2 ways, the first yields a frame rate divided by the number of added frames, while the other almost preserves the frame rate by using previous frames to output each sample. The output is of course not the same from the two methods. The filters functionality is exposed through both user and programming interfaces.	
Video Color	The Color filter provides the ability to change some color attributes of the streaming video. The filter can change the video brightness, contrast, hue, and saturation, in addition to an invert colors option. The above changes can be applied to a selected area (rectangle) only by changing the "Effect Area" attributes in the property page or using SetCropAttributes from the programming interface.	
Video Crop	The Crop filter is used to extract areas from a source movie, a graphical representation is provided to show and modify the desired rectangle position and size. The cropped rectangle can be as small as 1x1. The filter’s functionality is exposed through both user and programming interfaces.	
Video Deinterlace	The deinterlace filter converts interlaced video to make it a progressive scan video. 
Analog, interlaced video is what devices like VCRs, laserdiscs, and game consoles output.	
Video Emboss	This filter offers embossing a video stream providing different parameters to control the effect. The effect can be applied to a selected area (rectangle) only by changing the "Effect Area" attributes in the property page or using SetCropAttributes from the programming interface.	
Video Gamma Correction	This filter performs gamma correction to a video stream. Possible gamma values are between 1 and 500.	
Video Histogram Equalize	This filter performs Histogram Equalization to a video stream. Equalization can be done for a single channel; Red, Green, or Blue, or for all channels; master.	
Video Histogram View	Histogram View filter draws the running histogram of a video stream in its property page. The filter also provides access to the histogram array through its programming interface. The histogram can be viewed for a single channel or for all channels.	
Video Mosaic	Mosaic effect transforms any image into something that looks as though it were created by positioning a number of tiling elements, each of constant color and an approximate size. This filter applies the mosaic effect to a video stream with the ability to set the mosaic square size. The mosaic effect can be applied to a selected area (rectangle) only by changing the "Effect Area" attributes in the property page or using SetCropAttributes from the programming interface.	
Video Resize	The Resize filter is used to change the dimensions of a source movie; the result is a new media, with new dimensions and size. The resize filter offers three types of resizing algorithms; Resample, Bicubic interpolation, and Normal. The user interface, as will as the programming interface, friendly enable the selection of the filter parameters; Width, Height, Keep aspect ratio, etc. In addition to the ability to select any desired size through specifying the width and height, the user can select a ratio size (i.e. 2X, Normal, X/2, ...).	
RGB Converter	This is an RGB color space converter that supports conversion between different RGB formats. The filter supports the following formats: RGB8 (gray and palettized), RGB565, RGB555, RGB24, and RGB32. The input or output format can be set to AUTO, to enable free negotiation with the up or down stream filter. The filter’s functionality is exposed through both user and programming interfaces.	
Video Rotation	The Rotation filter enables rotating a video stream by the standard angles; 0, 90, 180, and 270 in addition to flip and reverse options. The filter’s functionality is exposed through both user and programming interfaces.	
YUV Converter	The YUV converter filter can accept a variety of YUV formats and convert them to RGB. No RGB input is accepted. Currently, neither a user interface is available nor a programming interface.	
Video Color Replacement	The filter replaces a color with another color over the video stream. The filter uses the HSV color space.	
Still Image Reader	This filter allows DirectShow to read any file format supported by LEADTOOLS. (Here is one example of what this filter lets you do: after you register this filter, you can open CMP or TIFF files in Windows Media Player.) The filter registers the following extensions with DirectShow: pict, pct, pic, dib, gif, cmp, png, jpg, jff, jpeg, jtf, fjif, tiff, tif, pcd, but can be customized to register any other (120+) file formats supported by LEADTOOLS.	
Still Image Writer	This filter allows DirectShow to save any file format supported by LEADTOOLS. It can save several single images (like movie0001.cmp, movie0002.cmp, etc.) or it can save all images in one multipage file (like movie.tif).	
LEAD Video Deblocking Filter 	Smooth edges and remove the blocky artifacts present in movies using highly compressed MJPEG or MPEG. This filter can be extremely useful for improving movies created by digital cameras that can take highly compressed, small video clips. Zooming in or resizing these videos make the blocky patterns more evident. This filter will greatly improve the quality of any movie that shows blocky compression artifacts.	
LEAD Video Edge Enhance Filter	When the dimensions of a small movie are increased (even with bicubic interpolation), the image sometimes becomes "washed out". In this case, apply the edge enhance filter for better quality. This filter is similar to Video Unsharp Mask Filter, but much faster.	
LEAD Video Unsharp Mask Filter	Powerful algorithm for edge enhancing. Apply this filter to washed out movies (can be a result of resizing the movie). This filter produces better results than Video Edge Enhance.	
Video Text Overlay filter	This filter allows you to super-impose text onto any movie. You pick the text font, brush and many other options.  In addition, this filter can read XML data which allows it to display different text on different video frames (this feature is very useful for subtitles).	

To convert a media file:
1.	Select the source file to convert by clicking the green text box next to the SOURCE VIDEO FILE label

Upon clicking, a dialog box will appear allowing you to browse to the video/audio file to convert. (The source file will be unchanged and a new file will be created.)

2.	Select the destination file to convert by clicking the green text box next to the DESTINATION label.

Upon clicking, a small dialog titled “save options” will appear,
allowing you two choices for saving a file:
	a.  Single file:
	Converted file will be a single multimedia file.  This option contains all supported 	video and audio formats.

	b. Multi Images or Multi Pages file:
	Converted file(s) will be a series of still images, or a single image file that has	multi pages.  Results will have no audio using this option.

Select the required option and press OK, and the proper save dialog will be displayed.

If Single file is selected, a dialog box will appear allowing you to browse to desired destination folder and choose a file name to be created.

	If Multi Images or Multi Pages file is selected, a dialog box will appear allowing you to 	set a destination file name as well as other options such as image format, multipage, etc.

3.	If the source file has sound, you may choose an AUDIO CODEC by clicking the red AUDIO CODEC button . Upon clicking the button, a sliding menu will appear. The menu will list available audio codecs.

4.	Additionally, you can select the video codec by clicking the VIDEO CODEC button . Again, a sliding menu will present the codecs installed on your system that can be used to encode the video file.

5.	You may also select video/audio effects to apply during converting.  See the “To select Video/Audio effects” topic.

6.	Click the red CONVERT button  to start conversion.

7.	During conversion, the progress is shown as a percentage in the place of the CONVERT button .

8.	When the process is completed, the red convert button becomes a red DONE button .

To capture a media file:
Capturing is just as easy as converting.  After opening the application, click on the SWITCH button  to switch to the capture interface. 
In the capture interface, the source empty box is replaced with "Streaming Video" .

To capture a video file:
1.	Select the destination file to store the capture by clicking the green text box next to the DESTINATION label . Upon clicking the text box, a small dialog titled “save options” will appear, allowing you two choices for saving a file:
	a. Single file:
	Captured file will be a single multimedia file.  This option contains all supported 	video and audio formats

	b. Multi Images or Multi Pages file:
	Captured file(s) will be a series of still images, or a single image file that has	multi pages.  You cannot capture audio using this option.

Select the desired option and press OK.  The appropriate save dialog will appear.

If Single file is selected, a dialog box will appear allowing you to browse to the desired destination folder and choose a file name to be created.

If Multi Images or Multi Pages file is selected, a dialog box will appear allowing you to set the destination file name as well as other options such as image format, multipage, etc.

2.	Select the video capture device by clicking the VIDEO DEVICES button .

3.	Select the audio capture device by clicking the AUDIO DEVICES button .

4.	Select the video codec by clicking the VIDEO CODEC button .

5.	Select the audio codec by clicking the AUDIO CODEC button .

6.	You may also select video/audio effects to apply during capturing.  See the “To select Video/Audio effects” topic.

7.	When you are ready to begin the capture, click the red CONVERT button .

8.	When you are ready to stop the capture, click the red CANCEL button .

9.	Click the play button next to the DESTINATION text box to see what you have just captured .

To Preview from a Capturing device:
In the Capture interface, you can preview video if you have a capture device installed.  Press the preview button found at the bottom of the LEAD multimedia converter window.  A pop up window will appear, with live video from the capture device.  If you have a video codec selected, the preview will show how the video will look like after being encoded.  Also, if you have any video effects selected, they will be applied during capture preview.

To control a VCR device attached to your computer:
If a VCR device is detected, a small sliding window will show in the Capture interface.  This window will contain control buttons for play, stop, pause, fast forward and fast backward.

System Requirements:

1.	This application requires DirectX 8.0 or higher to be installed. For more Information on DirectX, see http://www.microsoft.com/directx/

2.	This application is designed to work under Windows 95/98/2000/Me/XP. 

3.	Because of the animated features of this application, it is recommended that you run it on a system with a Pentium II 400MHz or better processor.