Since the introduction of the Amiga there alaways have been a strong request of software for sequential display of pictures created by the user, practically a slide show emulator.
Until now only few programs coming from the "Pubblic Domain" suffice decently, but especially for the european countries they are not to be consider professional, first for the different resolution between the NTSC and PAL standards, second for the short number of available effects.
The biggest problem seems to be in viewing images wich cover the entire screen (overscan) without the annoing black border arround the picture, this gives a very bad look during video recording on tapes, and do not allow professional video work with the Amiga.
The lastest graphic software let you create picture bigger then the normal screen and let you view them without border, but what if you wish to view these pictures sequentially with some special video effect to make your demos more exciting ?
To obtain overscan images, Deluxe Paint II uses resolutions wich are different from those used by VideoScape 3D and the same is valid for all the other available packages. There is not a valid standard for the oversacan resolution.
Here come QUEST with a splendid package called "VideoVedi", a software to solve all these problems at once. It lets you view pictures with resolution ranging from 320x200 to 704x576 pixel, it can use HAM images with up to 4096 colors, and use IFF format.
To solve the mentioned problems we have been forced to introduce some rule the user must follow to obtain good visual results. For example if you want to display HAM pictures, it will not be possible to use all the available effects and there is no way to obtain overlapping effects on images with different resolutions or number of colors, but these are not to be considered real limits.
VideoVedi well behaves even with the combined use of a GENLOCK device on every Amiga model (A500, A100, A2000), normally the color register number 0 will be the transparent color, so be sure to remember this while creating your pictures.
If you use a GENLOCK you can cover the entire screen area (thus the entire GENLOCK display) to obtain recordings without borders of different color or borders showing the overlayed video image.
The software is especially suitable for video production, graphic demos, professional video titling, data display in conferences or meetings or in applications like visual education.
AVAILABLE EFFECTS
You can choose between twenty special effects in more then sixty different combinations to show your graphic creations, the list wich follow gives a small description and the effect's names:
Pag. 1 Type Description
bang load and appear immediatly
fadeb load with fade out/in black
fadew load with fade out/in white
hpress compress and decompress horriz. to center
vpress compress and decompress vertic. to center
spirs erase/load with small spiral
spirl erase/load with medium spiral
spirm erase/load with large spiral
ospirs load over with small spiral
ospirl load over with medium spiral
ospirm load over with large spiral
diaguls erase/load with small diagonal from top left
diagulm erase/load with medium diagonal from top left
diagull erase/load with large diagonal from top left
odiaguls load over with small diagonal from top left
odiagulm load over with medium diagonal from top left
odiagull load over with large diagonal from top left
diagurs erase/load with small diagonal from top right
diagurm erase/load with medium diagonal from top right
diagurl erase/load with large diagonal from top right
odiagurs load over with small diagonal from top right
odiagurm load over with medium diagonal from top right
odiagurl load over with large diagonal from top right
wiped erase/load with wipe from top
wipeu erase/load with wipe from bottom
wipel erase/load with wipe from left
wiper erase/load with wipe from right
owiped load over with wipe from top
owipeu load over with wipe from bottom
owipel load over with wipe from left
owiper load over with wipe from right
rands erase/load with small casual square
randm erase/load with medium casual square
randl erase/load with large casual square
orands load over with small casual square
orandm load over with medium casual square
orandl load over with large casual square
hlines erase/load with small horiz. lines
hlinem erase/load with medium horiz. lines
hlinel erase/load with large horiz. lines
ohlines load over with small horiz. lines
ohlinem load over with medium horiz. lines
ohlinel load over large horiz. lines
vlines erase/load with small vertic. lines
vlinem erase/load with medium vertic. lines
vlinel erase/load with large vertic. lines
ovlines load over with small vertic. lines
ovlinem load over with medium vertic. lines
ovlinel load over with large vertic. lines
cheqs erase/load with small checkerboard
cheqm erase/load with medium checkerboard
cheql erase/load with large checkerboard
ocheqs load over with small checkerboard
ocheqm load over with medium checkerboard
ocheql load over with large checkerboard
dropd reveal picture from top
dropu reveal picture from bottom
rolld roll images down
rollu roll images up
Pag. 2 VideoVedi can be executed both from Workbench and CLI, providing properly the needed parameters (script file).
From CLI type "VideoVedi <script filename>", from Workbench select the icon representing the script file containing a sequential list of pictures to be displayed, then SHIFT double click on the VideoVedi icon.
To simplify the execution process it is possible to modify the ".info" file through the Workbench menu function "Info".
The icon of your script file should have a "Project" type icon and the gadget "DEFAULT TOOL" must contain the exact path to find the VideoVedi program tool. Then if the program is in "dh0:" you would have to write "dh0:VideoVedi", if instead it is in the same drawer as the script file writing just "VideoVedi" will suffice. Be sure to leave the "Info" screen through the "SAVE" gadget to store permanently your updates.
The format of the script file to create is the following:
where <picture path name> should be the exact full path name to find and load the picture (ex. dh0:lo-res/KingTut), <time> is the time the picture must remain on screen after having executed the effect, if this value is 0 the program will wait until a press on the left mouse button is detected, <effect type> is one of the available effect you wish to use to make the picture appear (see the included list), <delay/increment> is the value wich indicates an extra parameter for all the effects. It will be considered a delay by some effect or an increment by some other. If it is a delay it says how slow the effect will be executed, else it sets an increment in pixels for the specific effect. For example rolls and drops consider this parameter as an increments of vertical pixels between the steps of the effect. In this case it is the exact opposite of a delay, in facts higher is the increment, higher will be the effect execution speed.
Parameters must be spaced at list with one space character (see the demo script files for more examples).
VideoVedi allows you to change resolution between the sequential pictures, even if they have different colors or number of colors, but this must be achieved with only some of the available effects like Rolls, Drops, Fades, or Bang. Another way to obtain changes in resolutions or number of colors, is to insert a black picture between the two images with a low permanence time (1) and a low effect delay (0).
If the pictures have different resolutions and you do not use the
specified method to browse through them you will see some strange movement of picture on your screen, this is due to "VideoVedi" wich tryes to center the image on the screen every time a new picture is loaded.
For a good show we recomend however to use the same resolution for all the pictures you wish to include in your demos. This will
prevent the mentioned problem giving a smooth display.
