CameraMan is a screen movie capture utility for your Macintosh computer. Although you are probably familiar with screen capture utilities, the concept of a screen movie capture utility is probably new to you. Rather than capturing a static picture of your screen, CameraMan captures everything that takes places on your screen in real-time to a movie. Because CameraMan supports all standard Macintosh animation formats (such as QuickTime and PICS), you can use your screen movies in any multimedia or presentation package as well as the growing numbers of products such as word processors, etc. which are supporting playback of QuickTime™ movies.
How CameraMan Works
CameraMan installs as an extension to your Macintosh Systems and waits, behind the scenes, until you tell it to start recording via one of our user-defined function keys. It then repeatedly takes a capture of the screen at a rate that you set, and saves the result into either a QuickTime or PICS movie, or as a series of PICT files. Anything that happens on the screen is recorded. Menus, cursors, dialogs, whatever! You then stop recording with another function key. You now have a screen movie. It’s that easy!
CameraMan can also be used as a screen capture utility, providing you with a few options that you won’t find in your typical screen capture utility, such as being able to capture menus and cursors. While it may not be a replacement for your favorite capture utility, it can be a handy addition to your collection of graphics tools.
About This Manual
You can get started with CameraMan in a very short time. This manual is relatively short, so we recommend that you take the time to read it or at least skim through it.
Sharing Your Movies With Others
CameraMan records its movies into standard animation formats so that they can be played back by a variety of applications. However, to ensure that you have a method of playing back movies, we have included an application, MoviePlay, which can play back your QuickTime movies. You can give away MoviePlay with your QuickTime movies free of charge (a license is required for commercial distribution - call for details) so that the person you give your movies to has a way of viewing them. MoviePlay will play any QuickTime movie, whether created by CameraMan or not.
System Requirements
CameraMan will provide different levels of capabilities depending on what your machine configuration supports.
The recommended configuration is a QuickTime capable Macintosh meaning a Macintosh running 32-Bit Color QuickDraw (although not necessarily a Mac with a color screen. For example, the SE/30 counts as a color Macintosh) and either System 6.0.7 or System 7.0. We recommend at least 2MB of memory.
If you run CameraMan on a Classic, Plus, SE, or the equivalent, you will not be able to use the QuickTime capabilities because QuickTime is not currently supported on those machines. You will be, however, able to create PICS movies.
Installing CameraMan
Installing the CameraMan Files
Drag the CameraMan™ Extension Demo file to your startup System Folder.
Drag the CameraMan App file onto your main drive. The Finder will copy the files to your main drive.
If you have QuickTime 1.0 or better installed already, restart your Macintosh and go to the next chapter. Otherwise, use the following directions to install QuickTime™.
If you don’t have QuickTime installed and you are using System 7:
Open the QuickTime folder of the CameraMan disk
Drag the QuickTime extension file to your startup System Folder.
You will probably get the following dialog:
Click OK so that System 7 places the QuickTime extension in the correct place.
Restart your Macintosh
If you don’t have QuickTime installed and you are using System 6.07:
Open the QuickTime folder of the CameraMan disk
Drag the QuickTime extension file to your startup System Folder.
Open the System 6 Init folder which is in the QuickTime folder
Drag the FS6Patch extension file to your startup System Folder.
Restart your Macintosh
Note: System 6 users must have 32-bit QuickDraw installed in order to use QuickTime.
This chapter will show you how to how to operate CameraMan on your system.
CameraMan App - Configuring CameraMan
CameraMan is controlled through settings you configure with the CameraMan App.
System 7 Users: CameraMan App has full System 7 Balloon Help support. If you are in a hurry, or don’t like to read manuals, you might want to skip this section and turn on Balloon Help for context sensitive help with CameraMan App’s features.
Launch the CameraMan App by double clicking on it. System 7 users may want to make an alias of the CameraMan App and place the alias in the Apple Menu Items folder of their System Folder so that the app is available from the Apple Menu.
Settings Window
When you launch CameraMan App, you will immediately see the configuration settings window (show at left). From this window, you can set all the important settings for CameraMan.
These settings are:
On/Off
This checkbox turns on and off the CameraMan extension.
Movie Settings
When you first launch CameraMan, the Settings window will be showing Movie Settings. This is indicated by the Movie Icon (shown at right) being hilited. If it was not, and you wanted to see or change the CameraMan Movie Settings, you would click on the movie icon.
Format
This popup menu allows you to set the format that you want CameraMan to create it’s movies.
PICS is the standard animation format of many animation programs, but tends to produce large files.
QuickTime is Apple’s new standard for animation files, and saves files in a compressed format so that it doesn’t take up much disk space.
Sequential PICTs saves the screen into a standard Macintosh PICT file at the interval you set. This will result is a series of files being produced on your hard disk. This is most useful when you want to produce a series of pictures showing an action on the screen for use with desktop publishing..
Frames/Sec.
This is the number of frames per second captured by CameraMan into your movie. The higher the frames per second, the smoother the animations produced, and the bigger the file. A Mac IIx is capable of a max setting of 4 frames per second, faster Macs are capable of faster frame rates.
Movie Area
This consists of popup which indicates what method to use to determine which area of the screen to capture.
Full Screen tells CameraMan to simply capture the full screen for every Frame of the movie.
Capture Area tells CameraMan to use the area defined by the screen coordinates shown in the settings below. You don’t have to type in these coordinates, however. You can use the Framer tool to frame the area on-screen that you want to use as your capture area. See Using The Framer.
Follow Cursor centers a capture area the size of the rectangle specified, around the cursor. When you play back a movie
Left, Right, Top, & Bottom are the screen coordinates of the capture rectangle. If you don’t think in screen coordinates, use the Framer tool to set these. See Using The Framer.
Key Settings
To set CameraMan’s keyboard settings, click on the Key Icon (shown at right). The keyboard settings will be displayed in the Settings window. When the Key Settings are being shown, the Key Icon will be hilited.
Start Key
This is the key that starts recording. Click on the key box and hold down the key that you want to use to start movie recording.
Stop Key
This is the key that stops recording. Click on the key box and hold down the key that you want to use to stop movie recording.
Pause Key
This is the key that pauses recording. Click on the key box and hold down the key that you want to use to pause movie recording.
Capture Key
This is the key that takes a PICT screen shot. Click on the key box and hold down the key that you want to use to take PICT screenshots.
Configuration Menu
Show/Hide Settings
This shows or hides the Settings window. See Settings above.
Show/Hide Framer
This shows or hides the Framer tool. See Framer below.
QuickTime™ Default Settings
If this is checked, CameraMan will use the default settings for its movie creation. It’s recommended that you leave this checked unless you are very familiar with QuickTime.
QuickTime™ Advanced Settings
Selecting this option will cause the standard QuickTime Compression Dialog to be displayed. If you choose any different options and choose OK, the QuickTime™ Advanced Settings menu item will be checked. You can restore the default settings by choosing the QuickTime™ Default Settings menu item.
Note: It is beyond the scope of this manual to describe the various settings available in the QuickTime Compression Dialog. Please refer to Apple’s QuickTime Reference Manual if you have any questions regarding its usage. Otherwise, use the QuickTime™ Default Settings.
Framer
This is the framer (shown at right).
It can be moved around the screen by clicking and dragging in the drag area.
It can be resized by clicking and dragging in the resize area.
The area you frame with the frame is the area that will be captured by CameraMan. If you have the Configuration window visible, you will see the coordinates of the capture area being set as you position and resize the framer.
Note: The capture area is the area enclosing (including) the framer, not the area enclosed by (inside) the framer. This allows you to include the edges of the screen in your capture area by dragging or resizing the framer against the edge of the screen.
Screen Area Menu
This menu contains preset screen sizes for common Macintosh screens. Only screens which are the same size or smaller than your Macintosh screen are available to you as valid capture areas.
Selecting on of these items will set the capture area to the size of the screen you have chosen. If the framer is present, it will also be resized.
Important Note:
CameraMan cannot record movies of itself. The CameraMan App temporarily turns of CameraMan recording while it is active. To use CameraMan recording, switch out of or quit the CameraMan App before starting recording.
CameraMan Extension - Recording Movies
The CameraMan extension actually does the work of creating and capturing movies. The extension’s behavior is configured by the settings you have chosen with the CameraMan App. This section assumes that you have used the CameraMan App to configure CameraMan to suit your preferences.
Capturing Screen Movies
The following procedure is used to capture a screen movie:
1. Start recording by holding down the Start key (default start key is F13) until you hear a beep. This indicates that CameraMan is rolling. CameraMan will start capturing the screen at the interval specified by the Frames/Sec. setting chosen in the CameraMan App.
2. If you wish to pause recording, hold down the Pause key (default pause key is F14) until you hear a beep. CameraMan is now paused. To start recording again hold down the start key until you here a beep.
3. When you are finished recording, hold down the Stop key (default stop key is F15) until you hear a beep. CameraMan has stopped recording, you can play back the new movie.
QuickTime Movies
QuickTime movies are stored in a compressed file format that allows long movie to be relatively small in size. QuickTime movies can be played back with our MoviePlay app, or within a variety of other applications which support QuickTime.
CameraMan will capture in the QuickTime format when that format has been chosen in the CameraMan App. CameraMan will create the QuickTime movie on your home drive in the root directory.
The size of your CameraMan QuickTime movie will depend on the duration of the movie, the size of the capture area, and the Monitors color setting.
Black and white movies of smaller capture areas and short durations will be the smallest in size. Conversely, full color movies of the full screen and long durations will be the largest in size.
It’s recommended that long movies be shot in black and white, this will give you the greatest space savings. Reducing the capture area (perhaps by using the cursor following mode to capture only the important areas rather than the whole screen) will also payoff in reducing movie size.
The most important factor in the size of CameraMan QuickTime movies is the amount of action taking place on the screen. The secret of QuickTime’s compressed files is that it only stores the differences between frames. This means that if no changes, or only minimal changes (such as a cursor moving across the screen), are taking place, QuickTime can optimize the files to a great degree.
Here are some sample sizes for QuickTime movies:
30 seconds, black and white, full screen (13"), 4 fps, no screen action 24k
30 seconds, 8 bit color, full screen (13"), 4 fps, no screen action 50k
1 minute, black and white, full screen (13"), 4 fps, no screen action 24k
1 minute, 8 bit color, full screen (13"), 4 fps, no screen action 50k
30 seconds, black and white, full screen (13"), 4 fps, lots of screen action 144k
30 seconds, 8 bit color, full screen (13"), 4 fps, lots of screen action 488k
PICS Movies
PICS movies are supported by a variety of multimedia applications, although most new applications will also support QuickTime. However, if you need to make movies for use with older multimedia software or for Macintoshes without QuickTime, PICS is the format to use. PICS movies have no compression, so that their size will be a direct relation to their length, color, and rate. Screen action will have no effect on their size.
Sequential PICTs
This is basically taking a screen shot every so many seconds (or fractions of a second). Each screen shot is saved into a standard PICT files with a sequential number at the end of its name.
Taking A Screen Shot
Hold down the Capture key (default Capture key is F12) until you here a shutter sound. A PICT file of the screen image will be created.
MoviePlay - Playing and Editing Movies
MoviePlay is a simple QuickTime movie playback and editing application. While, it is not meant to be a replacement for your favorite multimedia package or QuickTime editing application, it will provide you with the basic capabilities needed to present your movies or to do simple editing
File Menu
Open - Opening QuickTime Movies
The Open menu item lets you open a QuickTime movie.. When you choose this menu item, you will be presented with the standard Movie Open dialog. You can choose the movie file you want to open and MoviePlay will open the movie in a window.
Close
The Close menu item closes the active movie window.
Save
If you have made any changes to the QuickTime movie, the Save menu item will be active. You will be able to save your changes by selecting this menu item.
Save As…
Use Save As to save your QuickTime movie under a new name.
Quit
Use Quit to exit MoviePlay.
The Movie Window
Volume Control
This control allows the you to adjust the sound volume—clicking on this causes a slider to be displayed that allows you to change the sound volume while the movie is playing (if a movie does not have any sound, the volume control is disabled).
Play Button
This button allows you to start and stop the movie. Clicking the play button causes the movie to start playing; and changes the play button into a pause button. Clicking the pause button causes the movie to stop playing. If you start the movie and do not stop it, MoviePlay plays the movie once, returns to the movie’s first frame, and stops the movie.
Scroll Box
This control allows you to quickly navigate through a movie’s contents. The length of the scroll box corresponds to the length of the movie. Dragging the slider within the scroll box displays the frame of the movie which corresponds to the position of the slider. Clicking along the scroll box causes the slider to jump to the location of the mouse click and causes the MoviePlay to display the corresponding movie frame. Shift-Clicking and Dragging within the Scroll Box allows you to select a segment of the movie for editing with the standard Cut, Copy, Paste, and Clear menu items.
Step buttons
These buttons allow you to advance the movie frame-by-frame, either forward or backward. Holding the mouse down on a step button causes MoviePlay to step through the movie, frame-by-frame, in the appropriate direction.
Movie Menu
Start
This is the equivalent of hitting the play button in the movie window. It will start playing of the movie.
Stop
This is the equivalent of hitting the pause button in the movie window. It will stop playing of the movie.
Rewind
This will rewind the movie to its beginning.
Loop
When this is checked, movies will restart playing from the beginning when they reach the end of the movie. Play will continue in this fashion until the movie is stopped.
Loop Back And Forth
When this is checked, movies will play through the movie forwards, and when the end of the movie is reached, the movie will play backwards until the start of the movie is reached. Play will continue in this fashion until the movie is stopped.
Play Selection Only
When this is checked, only the selected segment of the movie will play when the movies is run.
Play Every Frame
When this is checked, every frame of the movie will be shown when the movie is play, even if QuickTime has to slow movie playback down to accomplish this.
Half Size
This resizes the movie window to half the default size.
Normal Size
This resizes the movie window to the default size.
Double Size
This resizes the movie window to double the default size.
Screen Size
This resizes the movie window to cover the screen and menubar. Menu bar items will still be available but will be hidden by the movie. In order to use menu commands, you will have to either remember where the menu items are or use keyboard equivalents.
Although CameraMan has been tested on a number of machines and configurations, due to the nature of system extensions and unforeseeable interactions between different software products, there is always the possibility of CameraMan being incompatible with some of your existing software. This section will show you how to minimize any such problems.
CameraMan Extension Not Loading
The CameraMan extension has properly loaded if:
1. The extension's icon appears on the screen during system startup.
2. An X does not appear over the extension icon (indicating it has been disabled or failed to load properly).
If the icon does not appear, or an X appears over the icon, then something is interfering from it loading properly.
Try the following
1. Check the incompatibility list and remove any incompatible extensions.
2. Put a few spaces in front of the CameraMan Extension's name and restart. This will cause the extension to load before other extensions.
3. Remove (or disable by using a utility like Extension Manager) any other INITs or extensions and see if this solves the problem..
4. Call Vision Technical Support.
Error Messages When Using Extension
Usually, CameraMan will only interact with you via beeps to tell you when recording is starting and stopping, etc. However, in cases where a serious error occurs when CameraMan is running, a dialog box will be presented on the screen to inform you that recording has been halted due to error.
The most common causes of this will be:
Trying to create a QuickTime movie when QuickTime is not installed.
Running out of memory (too many applications opened, etc.)
Running out of disk space
If you are consistently getting such error messages, please write down any number that CameraMan is displaying in its dialog box, as well as the circumstances involved before the error, and have these at hand before calling Technical Support.
Key Assignments
Many applications reserve certain key combinations as keyboard shortcuts, for example -C for copy. Many extensions (such as CameraMan) use keyboard commands to control their actions. Keyboard macro programs such as QuickKeys and MacroMaker can add another layer of key assignment complexity. We suggest that you be aware of which keys are being used by your different software and avoid assigning the CameraMan control keys to key combinations in use by other software on your system. If you do, by accident or on purpose, assign the same key combination to CameraMan as is used by another piece of software, either that software, or CameraMan may not properly be informed of any keypresses.
Some keybaord macro software, such as QuickKeys or Voice Navigator, may not be able to remap CameraMan’s control keys. If you want to use one of these products with CameraMan, either call Vision Technical Support for compatibility information, or attempt to use your macro program to control CameraMan. If CameraMan does not respond to the keybaord macro, then you cannot use this version of your macro program to control this version of CameraMan .
System 6 Users
System 6 users will encouter difficulties when using CameraMan if their system does not have the following software installed:
System 6.07 or better
32-Bit QuickDraw
FS6Patch
QuickTime
and of course, CameraMan
System 7 Users
System 7 users will encouter difficulties when using CameraMan if their system does not have the following software installed:
