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1993-11-11
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For Immediate Release
Contact: Todd Oberman
Lantern Corporation
63 Ridgemoor Drive
Clayton, MO 63105
Phone & Fax: (314) 725-6125
Compuserve: 73650,375
Internet: rhusar@mecf.wustl.edu
Lantern Corporation Announces MOVIE 4.0 Upgrade and New MOVIE Development Kit
Introduction:
CLAYTON, MO - November 11, 1993 - Lantern Corporation today increased the
usefulness of its MOVIE Animation Utility for Windows(tm) with its release of
MOVIE 4.0 and a new product, the MOVIE Development Kit. MOVIE is a
Windows 3.1 utility which creates animations by automatically capturing
screen images and playing back the images to produce motion. MOVIE requires
no expensive video hardware. The new version of MOVIE features a new device
independent file format which can handle palettes of 256 or more colors as
well as a royalty-free MOVIE Player which allows people to distribute their
animations to others. The new MOVIE Development Kit provides the capability
to embed movies in Windows Help files as well as Multimedia Viewer files.
Now WinHelp files can become the medium of electronic reports, newsletters
and demonstrations. With the new Development Kit, Lantern has also opened
up its MOVIE engine to allow developers to create their own animation
applications with a simple frame based API.
MOVIE's small hard disk requirements, $95.00 price tag, and ease of use make
this package particularly attractive to people with limited disk space, a
need to create animations quickly, and those who want to include animation
in their presentations when video clips are unsuitable. "Let's face it.
The Keystone Cops are just inappropriate for important presentations,"
commented Todd Oberman, MOVIE Marketing Director from Lantern. "People need
an inexpensive means to create their own animations which convey the
information they need to deliver, whether that be in business, engineering,
education or science. MOVIE lets our customers use their own drawing and
charting tools to create the animation they need for their specific purpose,
and the new products provide them more ways of distributing those
animations."
MOVIE can be combined with any drawing, painting and charting software to
produce animated presentations. In WinHelp files, simple animations showing
someone how to accomplish a task are an effective tool for learning and
training. MOVIE can be combined with 3-D CAD and surface modeling software
to produce fly overs and architectural walk throughs. It can be combined
with GIS mapping systems to animate economic, demographic or meteorological
data through time. Unlike some video based systems, MOVIE offers slow
motion playback as well as smooth reverse playback without skipping frames.
Quote from Beta Tester
"We are looking for innovative ways of using Windows Help as a stand alone
application." said John Morse of Instructions, Etc., a technical writing
company located in Bellingham, Washington (206) 647-1228. "We found that
MOVIE animations placed in help files produce much more exciting and more
informative help systems. We have been testing how animations make a help
file more visually attractive and might illustrate more clearly the topics
being discussed in the help file."
MOVIE Animation Utility Features
The MOVIE Animation Utility offers Play, Record, Stop, Pause and Speed
Control functions. MOVIE offers additional functions such as Loop for
continuous play, Hold to pause between loops, and an on-screen Remote
Control that contains a subset of MOVIE's functions including frame seeking.
An Auto-Record feature snaps each frame of an animation based on user
selected events. Frames can be recorded before or after a window repaints
its content, on a keystroke or mouse click in the capture window, or every
n seconds. When creating frames, MOVIE's capture area can be joined to a
window enabling the user to move the window around the screen.
Using MOVIE's Script Language creates longer more detailed presentations and
demonstrations from individual movie segments. These scripts can display an
individual frame of any movie file, play movie files in any order using only
selected frames, control the playing speed of a movie, and control the length
of time any frame is displayed. Pauses and loops are supported for
continuous demonstrations.
The new royalty-free MOVIE Player allows people to distribute their
animations to others who do not have the MOVIE Animation Utility. The Player
shares the same easy to use remote control interface as MOVIE, and supports
the playback of both movie and script files. Using the supplied Lantern
Installation System, animation creators can automatically install their
animations on end user computers along with the MOVIE Player. The
Installation System supports the creation of groups and icons in Window's
Program Manager so that movies and scripts can be launched with a simple
click of the mouse.
The new Device Independent file format allows movies to be created on one
screen and played back on any other screen device supported by Windows.
Additionally, the new file format supports color palettes of 256 or more
color. Color palettes can also be changed on a frame by frame basis, so
there is no requirement that a single palette be selected for an entire
movie file. The previous version MOVIE 3.4 supported only a device dependent
file format which required that movies be played back on the same screen
device at the same resolution.
MOVIE Development Kit Features
With the release of Lantern's MOVIE Development Kit, which lists for $299.00,
people can take their multimedia concepts a step further by placing their
animations inside of Windows Help and Multimedia Viewer files. Embedded
movies can appear with their own toolbar controls or they can be plain
windows controlled through WinHelp macro commands. An embedded movie can be
used as a simple slide show presentation of charts shown one at a time, or
it may contain a series of movies with each movie played when a specific
word or hot spot is clicked. Movie files can be stored separately or as
baggage inside of the help file.
Purchasers of the Development Kit receive a copy of the MOVIE Animation
Utility as well as the MOVIE Player which can be distributed royalty-free.
They also receive documentation of the commands and macros which embed movies
inside of WinHelp and Multimedia Viewer files. The embedded window DLL and
the MOVIE DLL engine can be distributed royalty-free with help or viewer
files created by developers.
The MOVIE Development Kit includes a thoroughly documented application
programmer interface (API) to the MOVIE DLL engine. With the simple frame
based animation engine, developers can create their own animation
applications. The MOVIE DLL engine can be distributed royalty-free with
any specific purpose application software developed by the programmer.
Requirements
Microsoft Windows 3.1 running on an IBM PC or compatible. At least
2 megabytes of RAM - 4 megabytes is recommended. At least 1.5 megabytes of
available hard disk space -- more to record your own animations. Any
graphic screen card supported by a Windows 3.1 device driver.
To create help or viewer files, Microsoft Help Compiler or Multimedia Viewer
Publishing Toolkit and documentation.
About the Publisher
Lantern Corporation is a software development company located in St. Louis,
Missouri. Believing that data dissemination should be as uninhibited as
possible, Lantern's primarily focuses on providing information delivery
systems within the Microsoft Windows environment. Lantern is uniting the
analytical and presentation needs of today's users. Lantern's other major
product is Voyager, a data base browser for related geographic and time data.
In Voyager, data are simultaneously displayed on map, time, variable and
scatter views. Voyager has applications in demographic, econo