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- Path: sparky!uunet!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-beacon!INTERNET!dont-send-mail-to-path-lines
- From: drapeau@sioux.stanford.EDU (George Drapeau)
- Subject: New Release of the MAEstro Multimedia Authoring Environment
- Message-ID: <9211091634.AA06827@expo.lcs.mit.edu>
- Keywords: multimedia, distributied, RPC, (long)
- Sender: root@athena.mit.edu (Wizard A. Root)
- Organization: Stanford University
- Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 16:34:05 GMT
- Lines: 386
-
-
- The Academic Software Group, Libraries and Information Resources
- division of Stanford University is pleased to announce the latest
- release of the MAEstro Multimedia Authoring Environment. This
- release contains a number of improvements since the last public
- distribution in mid-summer (more on that later in this message).
-
- MAEstro is a Unix-based, distributed multimedia authoring environment
- designed to simplify the process of creating multimedia documents.
-
- MAEstro is freely available to anyone via anonymous ftp from
- sioux.stanford.edu (36.190.0.100), in the directory "pub/MAEstro".
- The full source distribution, containing source code, documentation,
- and other materials, is in the file "MAEstro.tar.Z". There are other
- files in the "pub/MAEstro" directory on sioux; for details, please
- retrieve the file "pub/MAEstro/ReadMe".
-
- There is an electronic mailing list for the discussion of MAEstro,
- both for using the environment for building multimedia documents and
- presentations, and for developing new MAEstro applications. To join
- the mailing list, please send a message to
- "maestro@sioux.stanford.edu".
-
-
-
- How To Read the Rest of This Message
- ------------------------------------
-
- * If you have retrieved a previous version of the MAEstro software,
- you may be interested in reading about the improvements made since the
- last release. The section "New Features" describes these
- improvements, which we think make it worth your while to obtain the
- latest version of the software.
-
- * If you are already familiar with MAEstro (whether you have actually
- used the software or have simply read about it), you may want to skip
- the section "More About MAEstro".
-
- * To find out about what is contained in the current distribution,
- read the section "MAEstro Components".
-
- * To find out how to obtain the MAEstro distribution, read the section
- "Getting MAEstro".
-
- * To find out about future plans for MAEstro development, read the
- section "Future MAEstro Development".
-
-
- New Features
- ------------
-
- This release contains significant additions to and improvements on
- previous releases. They include:
-
- Additions:
-
- * DisplayTool -- a new application to replace the old "ImageEdit"
- application. DisplayTool is more stable than ImageEdit, and
- somewhat simpler to use. DisplayTool is used for presenting images
- as part of multimedia documents. Currently it supports GIF, TIFF,
- Sun Rasterfile, JPEG, and PBM image types.
-
- * MaMA -- a new application contributed to the release (see the
- section "MAEstro Components" for more information). MaMA stands for
- "MAEstro - Maker Association"; its purpose is to let authors use
- Frame Maker documents as part of their multimedia presentations.
-
- Improvements:
-
- * TimeLine now includes a feature for better synchronization of
- documents. Synchronization is a big problem in any multimedia
- system, and MAEstro is no exception. However, the MAEstro protocol
- was designed with some synchronization solutions in mind, and this
- release of TimeLine takes advantage of these solutions. As a
- result, TimeLine documents will tend to perform more "as advertised"
- than before. If you have used TimeLine to create documents, you
- will notice that synchronizing your documents with the new TimeLine
- will make performance seem a little more responsive. Additionally,
- the performance of TimeLine itself is more responsive.
-
- * The VideoObject library now has support for the VISCA protocol, a
- Sony-supported protocol for video device control. It is our belief
- that VISCA will be an important standard for future video-based
- products (tape/disc players, effects boxes, monitors, etc.), similar
- to the way in which MIDI has become a standard for the music
- industry. Our first VISCA driver, included in the current release,
- is for the Sony "Vdeck" (CVD-1000), a Hi-8mm videotape recorder
- designed for cost-effective, low-end editing and video production.
-
- In addition, implementation of several drivers in the VideoObject
- has been improved, the most notable improvement being to the NEC
- PC-VCR driver. The NEC driver is more stable and responsive.
-
- Lastly, two new methods have been added to the VideoObject. Both
- are used by application programmers for recording and editing video.
-
- * The NetworkProtocol has new features to enhance synchronization.
- These features are largely transparent, the interface only shown
- through two functions to enable and disable synchronous messaging.
- TimeLine takes advantage of these new features to achieve a greater
- level of synchronization.
-
- * Various minor error fixes have been made to several applications,
- such as a fix for positioning errors in QuoteMaker.
-
- * Portability is enhanced in this release: the applications have been
- compiled on SVR4 and BSD 4.3 operating systems, and should be easily
- ported to other vendor-specific OS's, assuming XView has already
- been ported.
-
-
-
- More About MAEstro
- ------------------
-
- The primary goal of the MAEstro environment is to make as simple as
- possible the process of creating multimedia documents. Many current
- tools for working with multimedia focus on "courseware" (software
- written for a particular domain of instruction or research), where the
- focus lies in the structured presentation of media. Such tools are
- often oriented toward programmers, making it difficult for a large
- number of "students" (or viewers, if you prefer) to use such
- multimedia tools for their own learning. By focusing on the
- authorship process, we hope to turn students into authors, giving them
- widespread, simple access to a wide variety of media.
-
- MAEstro is really an inter-application messaging system; this release
- includes a suite of applications that use the messaging system to
- create multimedia documents. As opposed to many multimedia authoring
- tools that try to control a wide variety of media from within a
- single, monolithic application, MAEstro was designed to support
- separate media with separate applications. Each medium in the MAEstro
- environment has an application dedicated to the control of that medium
- (they are called "media editors" in the MAEstro environment). For
- example, one of the MAEstro applications is built to control the Sun
- CD-ROM device; the application is responsible for control and editing
- of audio CD's, but not text, graphics, video, or any other medium.
- Similarly, the VideoEdit application is responsible for editing video,
- but not for editing text or sampled audio.
-
- Authorship in MAEstro is distributed; it is distributed in the sense
- that an author chooses which media she will use for her multimedia
- document, then use the appropriate applications to edit those media.
- To combine the separate media into a coherent multimedia document, an
- authoring application is launched. The role of the authoring
- application is to communicate with and coordinate the actions of the
- separate media editors, using the inter-application protocol around
- which MAEstro is designed.
-
- The MAEstro messaging system is built on top of Sun RPC, being
- designed to work in a setting that supports workstations from a number
- of vendors.
-
- The first release of MAEstro was developed on Sun workstations, but
- the protocol has been compiled and tested on NeXT, DEC, and Sony
- workstations. If you are interested in developing applications for
- any workstation platform, we would be interested in hearing from you.
-
-
- MAEstro Components
- ------------------
-
- This release of MAEstro consists of the following components:
-
- Applications:
-
- cdEdit -- Used for annotating audio CD's via the Sun
- CD-ROM drive.
-
- vcrEdit -- Used to annotate computer-controlled videodisc and
- videotape devices. Currently we have drivers for the
- Pioneer4200, Pioneer6000, Sony{1450,1500,1550},
- Panasonic Optical Disc Recorder, NEC PC-VCR, and Sony
- "Vdeck" (CVD-1000 Hi-8mm video deck).
-
- VideoEdit -- An application similar in function to that of
- vcrEdit (actually, VideoEdit is vcrEdit's precursor),
- this is the last release in which VideoEdit will
- exist, since vcrEdit now does everything that
- VideoEdit can do, and vcrEdit does it better.
- VideoEdit supports the same devices as vcrEdit, since
- they both rely on the MAEstro VideoObject library for
- video device control.
-
- vcrDub -- An application used for editing of video materials.
- The most common use is to record edits from one
- videotape player to another, eliminating extraneous
- video material and thereby reducing search time to any
- edit meant to be included in a final multimedia document.
-
- QuoteMaker -- Used for quoting from online texts. QuoteMaker is
- typically used for adding titles or short text quotes
- to a multimedia document. It is not a full
- word processor.
-
- DigitalTapeRecorder --
- An application built around the SPARC audio
- capabilities. Used to record, play, edit, and
- annotate sound files so they can later be used in
- multimedia documents.
-
- ShellEdit -- A "bridge" between applications that speak the MAEstro
- protocol and those that do not. Used to include
- applications in a multimedia document that are not
- normally part of MAEstro. For example, ShellEdit can
- be used to launch a PostScript previewer so that the
- PostScript document can be included in a multimedia
- document.
-
- DisplayTool -- Allows the author to include still images in
- (new for multimedia documents. DisplayTool is a replacement
- this release) for the older and less stable "ImageEdit" application,
- which has been removed from the MAEstro distribution.
- We thank those of you who made comments and
- suggestions about ImageEdit that led to its
- improvement and eventual release as DisplayTool. We
- continue to welcome suggestions on DisplayTool,
- as well as the rest of the MAEstro suite.
-
- MaMA, SaM, -- MaMA is the MAEstro-Maker Association, and application
- OMa that allows authors to include Frame Maker documents
- (new for as part of multimedia documents. This application was
- this release) kindly donated to the distribution by its developers
- at Sun Microsystems in the Netherlands. It is one of
- the most interesting applications in the environment,
- and shows the potential of MAEstro to integrate
- commercial-quality applications into a flexible
- authoring environment.
- For more information about SaM and MaMA, please read
- the file "ANNOUNCEMENT" in the MaMA source directory.
-
-
- TimeLine -- Our current "authoring application" (the application
- that coordinates the actions of the media editors
- above). TimeLine presents the author with a timeline
- track for each currently open media editor, allowing
- the author to temporally arrange media from all the
- applications and play them in rough synchronization.
-
- PortManager -- An application that facilitates inter-application
- communication. It is always running, and should be
- transparent to the author. The PortManager should
- always be running before the other applications are
- launched.
-
-
- Tools:
-
- MAEstro Messaging Library: An ANSI-C library used for
- inter-application communication. All MAEstro applications (with the
- exception of the vcrDub application) use the MAEstro library for
- inter-application communications. This is the core of MAEstro;
- MAEstro at its heart *is* the messaging system.
-
- VideoObject Library: A library of serial-line video drivers, used by
- application programmers to gain device-independent support of a
- variety of videodisc and tape players (and recorders). We welcome new
- drivers to the library in order to make the VideoObject library more
- functional to application programmers who wish to use video.
-
- XView File Browser Object: originally written before XView/DevGUIDE
- 3.0 were available (which included a file browser package), the
- MAEstro File Browser code provides what we believe to be a superior
- file browser in several ways to that of the XView file browser. The
- File Browser provides a set of routines that gives your XView-based
- application the ability to easily browse through filesystems and
- choose files. The Browser can be completely mouse-driven (you needn't
- type anything), or you can use the escape-completion features of the
- Browser (by using the Tab, Escape, and tilde ("~") keys). In
- addition, the Browser will do simple filetype checking (assuming that
- your documents have a header line at the beginning that uniquely
- identifies their type). This allows authors to choose any file name
- they want, instead of always having to worry about using arbitrary
- filename extensions (e.g., ".ras" or ".rs", etc., for Sun raster
- files) in order to do file typing.
-
-
- Documentation:
-
- The User's Guide is a 150+ page document in seven chapters that
- explains in detail how to use the various applications in the MAEstro
- environment to create a multimedia document.
-
- The MAEstro Programmer's Guide documents the MAEstro messaging system
- and instructs programmers on how to write applications for the MAEstro
- environment.
-
- The VideoObject Programmer's Guide shows how you can write
- applications that use video devices such as videodisc and videotape
- players, without having to put a lot of device-specific code in your
- applications. It also shows how to add support for new video devices,
- allowing existing applications to transparently take advantage of the
- new drivers.
-
- There is also a short ReadMe file that explains the use of the File
- Browser object.
-
-
- Getting MAEstro
- ---------------
-
- MAEstro is freely available via anonymous ftp from sioux.stanford.edu
- (36.190.0.100), in the directory "pub/MAEstro".
-
- MAEstro is available in two forms:
-
- * Binary-only release -- The MAEstro applications have been
- pre-compiled for Sun SPARCstations running SunOS 4.1.X, for those
- who might be interested in using the MAEstro environment but are not
- interested in maintaining source code or adding new functionality to
- the environment. This release occupies about 3 MB of disk space
- uncompressed.
-
- * Full Release -- The full release contains source code and
- documentation for all the applications. This release is useful for
- those who are interested in the MAEstro architecture and those who
- wish to write their own applications to "plug into" the MAEstro
- environment (more about that later). This release occupies about
- 13 MB of disk space uncompressed.
-
- Other Places You Can Get MAEstro:
-
- MAEstro is also available via anonymous ftp from the SunSite archive
- at the University of North Carolina via the host "sunsite.unc.edu"
- (128.109.131.201).
-
- In addition, you can get the MAEstro source on CD-ROM as part of the
- Prime Time Freeware product, a set of two CD's containing a wealth of
- publicly-available software. For more information about Prime Time
- Freeware, please send mail to "rdm@cfcl.com"
-
-
-
- Future MAEstro Development
- --------------------------
-
- Although the current release of MAEstro consists solely of XView-based
- applications, MAEstro was designed to be toolkit-independent. We have
- written MAEstro applications using other toolkits, most notably
- NeXTStep and the Athena Widget Set (our NeXTStep software was written
- as a test of the protocol, however, and is not available for
- distribution).
-
- MAEstro was developed with GCC, the GNU C Compiler. Gcc gave us the
- flexibility of writing ANSI-C code and at the same time using toolkit
- libraries that had not yet been written to ANSI-C standards. In order
- to compile MAEstro, you must use gcc (or another ANSI-C compiler).
-
- We are making MAEstro freely available in the hope that people at
- other universities, vendors, and the like will find MAEstro of some
- use. In order to realize MAEstro's full potential here at Stanford,
- we encourage others to use MAEstro and send us your suggestions,
- criticisms, error reports, and any code you wish to contribute.
-
- We hope that some developers will be encouraged to write applications
- for the environment that we neither had the time, resources, nor
- imagination to develop ourselves.
-
- If you have any comments, suggestions, error reports (or fixes), or
- source code that you would like to contribute, please send mail to
-
- maestro@sioux.stanford.edu
-
- There is an error report form in the full distribution to help you
- report errors more accurately.
-
- For a more detailed technical discussion of the MAEstro architecture
- and issues that went into its design, please refer to the paper
- "MAEstro - A Distributed, Multimedia Authoring Environment" presented
- at the 1991 Summer USENIX Conference in Nashville, Tennessee. A
- PostScript copy of the paper is also included in the Documentation
- subdirectory of the MAEstro distribution. The paper discusses some of
- the other important features of MAEstro such as its ability to scale
- to different media delivery sites, the ability to quickly add support
- for new media when they become available, and the simplicity of the
- protocol.
-
- We hope that you will find MAEstro to be a useful and enjoyable
- package. We will do our best to make it a worthwhile software
- environment.
-
-
- George Drapeau
- MAEstro Project Leader
- Libraries and Information Resources
- Stanford University
-