Engineering Consulting583 Candlewood St.Brea, Ca. 92821Tel. 714-671-2009 Fax 714-255-9984
Contents
Introduction
Installation
Creating pages to play
Online registration procedure
Quicktime Movies & PICT files
Printing a Page
Window Size Selection
Document naming and play order
Logo or graphic and text display
NTSC Video Output
Playing Pages
Monitor Selections using Apple "Monitor" Control Panel
Using Copy, Cut and Paste text
Memory Assignments for MAC Video Poster™
Program copying and use on additional MACS
Automatic MAC Video Poster™ startup when AC applied
Restarting the MAC automatically
MAC file Access While Playing Pages
Introduction
The "Mac Multimedia Video Poster™" (version 3.8)
program provides a method of creating pages or documents on your
Macintosh which can be played on the MAC monitor (any size) or on
a TV channel using NTSC output from an A/V Macintosh like the
Centris 660 A/V, Quadra or Power PC/ AV. Using the "Mac" you
create pages that include full color "PICT" or "Macpaint"
pictures, movies, and audio messages. Once created, each page is
saved , then these pages may be displayed as a slide show either
from disk or RAM memory with the Mac Multimedia Video Poster™
.
Pictures or logos, movies & sound display as part of
the complete display page. Graphic or special art for display
pages are created using any graphics type program available for
the Mac. Programs like Canvas, Macpaint, SuperPaint, Color It,
& Expert Color Paint can all be used to save documents as
"PICT" or "Macpaint" format files.
We recommend that the latest Apple system software (7.5
min.) be installed for best results when using this product! Older
system versions may have problems that could cause problems. The
Macintosh should have a minimum of an 030 Microprocessor and a
processor speed of at least 25 Mhz.
Installation
To use the Mac Video Poster™ program, insert the
supplied disk and copy it to your hard disk by dragging the floppy
disk Icon to your hard disk and then run the installation program
which is a self extracting installation file. Double click on the
icon to extract the program. Before you run the program, connect
the MACHasp in series with the cable to your keyboard. Do this by
unplugging the "ADB" cable that goes to your keyboard, (remove the
plastic cover on the MAChasp) and plug in the MACHasp. Reboot
(Restart) your Macintosh. To use the program double click on the
MAC Multimedia Video Poster ICON.]
Online Alternate Registration Proceedure
Run the demo version and look under the Apple "about Mac
Poster" then click on register. We need to know the Registration
ID number above the name Window in order to provide your
registration code. EMAIL the ID number to radiobob@clearphone.com.
Once we receive payment we will provide your registration code
that will allow the program to function without the
MacHASP.
Creating pages to play
Sample pages can be opened or you can pull down the file
menu and select "new" to open a blank page. You may ad a text line
on a new page layout by using the "ad item" menu or use the mouse
to point to the area of the screen you wish to place text, then
double click on this area. A dialog box will prompt you. Enter
text that you wish to appear on your document into the text entry
box. You can define the text as a "scroll" line or as a "centered
line" or neither. Select text foreground and background colors for
each edit line using the "Select Colors" menu. A font size and
color selection is selected using the "fonts" menu. After
selecting the characteristics of each line click the "OK" box. The
edit line will appear on the page with the characteristics that
you selected. These characteristics can be changed at any
time.
The "add item" menu allows selection of Clock, Recorded
sounds and standard text to be added to the page. Use the "Add
Item" selection from the "edit" menu to install a clock, vertical
crawl text, and voice or music sound recording on any page. When
the clock is installed you will see the time and date and day of
the week as an updating line. You can select any text and font.
The text selection allow the placement of any text, scroll, or
flash lines on the page. This selection is defaulted to the text
entry when you double click any place on the page. The recorded
sound selection allow the attachment of a recorded message to any
page. A speaker icon symbol will be displayed on any pages that
contain recorded messages until the play mode is activated.
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Quicktime Movies & PICT files
Use the "Insert" command to select a Quicktime movie or
PICT file pictures that you want to place on a page along with the
rest of the page text and other items already on the page. You can
insert multiple PICT file and Movies on a single page.
All PICT files, movies and verticle crawl text inserts can
be moved or resized directly on the page. To resize, point the
mouse arrow to the lower right corner portion of the image on the
page and drag the image to the desired size. (Most movies are best
viewed at the original recorded size)
Verticle & Horizontal Crawl Text messages
The insert command is also used to select any size text
document created by any word processor (including Simple text).
When a text document is added to the page, the text will verticle
crawl when the page is played. You can resize this kind of text
window document on the page to set up your space for the vertical
crawl. You can change the font, color, and size once the text is
on the page.
Recorded Sounds can be added to the page using the "Insert
Item" and select "recording". Press the record button to begin.
Your microphone or selected audio input will be recorded. Up to 60
second message per page can be added. Multiple recordings and
movies can play at the same time if desired.
Window Size Selection
You may select any window size (right down to the pixel)
desired to view and create pages to play on your monitor. If you
are going to be playing the pages on a television channel (from
A/V Macintosh) or you wish to display the output as NTSC video,
you must use the NTSC 512 x 384 pixel size. If you use a larger
size then you will loose parts of the page when they are output as
NTSC video.
Page Delay time
The Page Delay command is used to set the time a page
remains on after the crawl (if any) is finished. It also can be
used to shorten or increase the play time of individual pages.
Each page can have a different delay.
Document naming and play order
The Documents menu can be used to refresh the page image
while editing, close all pages or select an open page to edit. The
play order when using any of the "play pages commands" is
determined either numerically or alphanumertic based on the file
name within the folder. We suggest that you name your pages
beginning with a number like "001" followed by the real name you
want to give the page. Example: 001 test page
In this way you will be able to define the play sequence
and you will be able to locate change, delete or add a new page by
removing or placing a page inside the Alternate Sequence or
Default Sequence folder.
Logo or graphic and text display
Logos or graphics
Logos or graphics (Macpaint or PICT file format) may be
installed onto any document page using the Insert command from the
file menu. Once the graphic is placed on the page, you can drag it
to the desired position. The graphic will import any colors that
are included. Pict files should be colored using the original
graphics program prior to importing the graphic. If you want the
"PICT image" to assume the same background color as the rest of
the page, then you can import the Pict file with a "clear"
background or set the color to that of the back ground screen
before you import it. Once you have imported your graphic, simply
"double click" on the area of the page that you wish to place
additional text. Enter each text and define the text font and size
and crawl, flash or position status. You can "double click" on any
of the text areas to see the text defaults chosen such as colors,
flash, crawl etc.
Playing Pages
To play your page once created, use the "Play Current Page"
command to play the selected page. Use the "Play all open pages"
or Play Alternate Sequence command to play multiple "open" pages
over and over. The "Play all open pages" and the "Play Alternate
Sequence" commands will play open pages directly from the
computer's RAM memory. You must have sufficient RAM memory
assigned to the program (using "Get info" selection on the
Application) for all the page documents to fit in RAM at the same
time using this play command. This method is the fastest play
method and does not require any disk activity unless you are
playing movies. However, a more memory efficient way to play the
pages is to use the play from disk selection options as
follows:
When playing a large number of pages that would require to
much memory to play them using the open command, you should first
place the pages into either the folder named "Alternate Sequence"
or "Default Sequence" (spelling and Caps must be exact). When you
play pages using the "Alternate Sequence from disk" or "Default
Sequence from disk" command, each page load s one at a time just
before playing, allowing any number of pages to be played as long
as the pages can fit on your hard disk. This also reduces the
amount of memory necessary to run the program when using large
PICT or movie files. The program will run efficiently with less
than 4 megs under these conditions. Pages placed in the folder
named "Default Sequence" will play automatically as soon as you
launch the program.
NTSC Video Output
To output the sequence as NTSC video, select "Monitor" from
the control panel menu and check the box marked " Upon restart
display Video on Television". Depending on your MAC type you may
have to disconnect your Video Cable connected to your RGB monitor
and restart you MAC in order to output NTSC video (the NTSC will
use the 512 X 384 or 640x480 (full screen) pixel resolution) to
the RCA "video out" connector on the back of the MAC on boot up.
Once the MAC reboots, you will have a finder menu bar visible at
the top of the screen.
Note: When in the NTSC monitor display mode, a portion of
the document page (bottom) will not be visible until you actually
"play" the pages. Editing of the pages is not recommended while
viewing them on an NTSC monitor as portions of the page will not
be visible and the small menu text size in this mode will be hard
to read. The highest resolution available when using the Apple A/V
board is "thousands of colors" which is available only when
selecting the appropriate NTSC mode. The resolution (flicker) of
verticle crawls is better when using the "convolved NTSC" mode,
although when in this mode the resloution is only 256 colors
rather than "thousands".
Monitor Selections using Apple "Monitor" Control
Panel
Use the Options command to get to the NTSC video selection
menu. Select 256 colors if you are going to use NTSC video output
on a TV channel when using the A/V Macintosh. For higher
resolution display on a Macintosh monitor use select "thousands or
millions" of colors.
Using Copy, Cut and Paste text
Use the "Paste" command to paste "PICT" files onto the
page. When using other MAC programs, you can use their "COPY"
command to put any graphic onto the clipboard. When you switch to
the MAC Multimedia Video Poster™ you can then "PASTE" the
graphic onto any page. Drag the picture to change the position to
a different location on the page, If you want the backround color
to match, be sure to set the colors of the "PICT" image before you
save it with the external paint program.
Memory Assignments for MAC Video Poster™
The amount of memory required to run the program depends
upon various factors. The resolution and size of the "PICT" images
use the largest amounts of memory. You will see a message
indicating that you need to assign more memory if the program
attempts to open more files than it can handle at one time. You
can determine how much memory the pages are using by opening all
pages that you are displaying and then switching to the finder and
looking under the "Apple" for the "About this Macintosh" menu.
This menu will display how much memory each program is using at
the time it is selected. If you need more memory and you have it
available in the form of RAM, you can assign the MAC Multimedia
Video Poster™ program additional memory by quiting the
program and clicking once on (selecting) the program ICON and
pulling down the "Get Info" menu under the finder's "File" menu.
You will see the dialog box below. To increase the amount of
memory you can change the "Preferred size" to a larger number
value provided that your MAC has this amount of memory available,
Turn on the MAC's "Virtual Memory". Virtual memory needs to be on
for the program to run continuously due to Quicktime
requirments.
The MAC MM Video Poster™ program is licensed to the
end user for operation on one Macintosh computer for the purpose
of converting the computer into a High Resolution character
generator. The operation of the program depends on the presence of
the MACHasp that is plugged into the keyboard ADB port. The
MACHasp must be present for the program to run. If you wish to use
this program on more than one Macintosh, contact Engineering
Consulting for a "multi-system" license, as additional copies must
be purchased for each computer. You can make disk copies of the
program and all files created and we recommend that you do
so.
Automatic MAC Video Poster™ startup when AC
applied
The Macintosh can be set up to turn on automatically when
the power is appled (see the Apple manual reguarding your MAC).
Pages that will play when the power is applied should be put into
the "Startup" folder located in the "System folder". All pages or
"Alias" of the pages stored in this "Startup" folder will load and
play automatically on boot up. To break into the program click the
mouse.
Restarting the MAC automatically
A shareware program named "Autoboot" is available to force
the MAC to reboot if anything causes the computer to crash due to
any type of bomb error. This program should be used if unattended
operation or remote operation via modem is intended. An ADB device
such as "Rebound" can also be used.
MAC file Access While Playing Pages
If you are connected to a network and have more than one
MAC Video Poster™ on line, you can drag and drop pages
created from one MAC to the other even while playing pages. There
will be a slight slowdown at times of any active crawl lines
during the transfer. This will not affect the transfer. Pages
transferred will not play until the program is restarted with the
pages located in the folder you are playing.
Audio Mixing From CD and External line audio
The internal CD or line audio can be mixed with the audio
that outputs from the MAC while derrived from your pages. You can
select the "playthrough" command with either the "microphone" or
CD input selected. Use the microphone if you want to play external
audio (from a radio station) or other source of constant audio.
Use the CD if you want to program your own music tracks.
Creating crawl lines that curve up the page
This can be accomplished by providing a horizontal crawl
and a vertical crawl. Place the vertical crawl over the horizontal
crawl at the spot that you want to have the text go up the page.
As the letters from the horizontal crawl move to the left they
will encounter the vertical crawl. Use a single blank space and
set the backround color to match the backround color of the page.
Adjust the crawl speeds for the desired effect.
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