for the Casablanca Avio

and the Casablanca Kron

User's Manual

PIP-Studio

Safety notice

To avoid making mistakes when operating this program, we recommend that you carefullyfollow the instructions provided in this manual.

We would also like to point out that the PIP-Studio program has been designed with thehobby enthusiast in mind.

We have taken a great deal of care whilst programming and checking this software. Never-theless, since it is not possible to guarantee totally error-free software applications in allenvironments and at any time, we unfortunately cannot rule out the possibility that someerrors may have crept in. If, contrary to all expectations, this is indeed the case, we will rem-edy any errors in the program and supply the affected customers with the new software freeof charge. We cannot, however, accept any liability for loss of data/time or any consequentialdamages that may occur as a result, particularly since we have no influence over correctsoftware installation and operation by the customer. MacroSystem Digital Video AG and itsdealers therefore cannot be held liable for any defects or unintentional damage in connectionwith the installation or use of the PIP-Studio program.

MacroSystem Digital Video AG and its dealers do not guarantee fault-free use of the productor complete flawlessness of the product.

Any implied guarantee is null and void, including guarantee of suitability of the software oroperating instructions for a particular purpose.

Neither MacroSystem Digital Video AG nor its dealers are responsible for any damagesresulting either directly or indirectly from the use of the software or the operating instructions,e.g. for profit loss, costs, hardware or software problems or other difficulties.

Contents

General .............................................................................................................. 1.1Installation ......................................................................................................... 1.1What is PIP-Studio? .......................................................................................... 1.3Sample Tutorials ............................................................................................... 1.5

1. Personal Logo...................................................................................... 1.52. Personal Logo II ................................................................................... 2.13. Moving scenes in front of a background ............................................. 3.14. Moving scenes within the video footage ............................................. 4.15. Circling scenes within the video footage ............................................ 5.16. Moving scenes in various sizes ........................................................... 6.1

Reference .......................................................................................................... 7.1

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General

Thank you for purchasing PIP-Studio fromyour Casablanca dealer.

We would like to thank you for placing yourconfidence in this product and hope that itwill fulfill all of your expectations.

PIP-Studio enhances the power of yourCasablanca system.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if youhave any further questions or wish to provideus with suggestions for improvement. To doso, please use the address and/or telephonenumber printed in your Casablanca Avio orCasablanca Kron (hereafter referred to col-lectively as “Casablanca II”) manual.

We kindly ask you to provide the serial num-ber of your unit or your customer numberwhenever you contact us.

Installation

PIP-Studio must be installed on your Casa-blanca II before you can use it.

To do so, you will need at least version 1.6 ofthe Casablanca II system software.

You can look up your system version usingthe information item in the “System Settings”screen (bottom left of the screen).

Leave your Casablanca powered on and, in“System Settings,” select the “Install Product”button to open the corresponding window.

Now insert the SmartMedia software installa-tion card into the Casablanca’s SmartMediadrive. When you insert it, make sure thegold-colored contacts are facing downwardsand the clipped-off corner is pointing towardsthe front and left (i.e. towards the Casa-blanca II).

Push in the card until only around half acentimeter remains protruding from the unitand you feel some resistance. You will nowsee the PIP-Studio program listed in thewindow.

Select it in the list and click on “License” (or“Show” if you are running a demo version).Anumerical keypad will enable you to enter thelicense code that you acquired from yourdealer. A message will then inform you thatthe installation process is complete. You cannow remove the SmartMedia card.

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What is PIP-Studio?

The PIP-Studio program is based on theCasablanca’s popular Picture-in-Picturefeature but this enhanced program offersnumerous additional functions that provideyou with a whole range of different options.

The software will let you place a scene any-where within another scene and inside vari-ous different shapes. Let your scenes fly inand out of the picture or allow them to fade inand out anywhere you like!

PIP-Studio comes with twelve differentshapes (e.g. rectangle, circle, heart) withinwhich your video scenes can appear. Theshapes can be sized and freely positioned tosuit your requirements.

You can also adjust the shadow or configurethe transparency and blur properties of thepicture, border and shadow separately. Letyour imagination run wild!

Notes on general concepts:You will frequently come across the term“PIP” in this manual. When we use this term(i.e. picture-in-picture), we are referring to thevideo scene or video picture that overlaysyour background video. So, generally speak-ing, PIP is the small superimposed picture.

Each PIP comprises three parts: fade-in (IN),hold-time and fade-out (OUT). These threetime periods add up to the total duration timeof the effect.

You can freely choose the length of the fade-in and fade-out times. The length of the hold-time arises from the fade-in and fade-outtimes and the length of the transition effect.

The PIP that is displayed during editing isalways the PIP as it appears during the hold-

time. The only exception to this is the PIPthat is displayed whilst an effect is beingedited.

You can choose whether you want to displaya PIP on a video background or place twoPIPs on a patterned or colored background.In the first case, the background video isdefined as a full-screen image by default. Inthe second case, you can configure all theparameters for both PIPs independently fromone another. This method gives you consid-erably more options but requires more com-putation time.

If you make changes to the PIP (e.g. adjust-ments to size, position, border or shadow),the PIP will always be displayed within arectangle in preview mode. Once you havefinished making changes to the parameters,the PIP will be recalculated immediatelyusing the new settings and displayed in itsfinal form.

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Sample tutorials:

The following tutorials are intended to helpyou familiarize yourself with the PIP-Studioprogram’s various buttons and their func-tions.

Of course, our suggested settings only repre-sent a small sample of the many variationsavailable. When working through the ex-amples, we recommend that you keep to oursuggestions and the sequence of workingsteps so that you will more easily understandthe explanations of how the various optionswork.

Please follow us through these instructionsbutton by button. You will soon discover justhow easy it is. We definitely advise you towork through the examples several times sothat you quickly learn how to use PIP-Studiowith confidence.

You can, of course, later replace our sug-gested settings with your own ones. You willsoon see that just a few minor changesprovide a whole wealth of variants and willdistinctly influence the results achieved.

The given length of the scenes can of coursealso be varied. In this manual we have re-stricted ourselves to using only short scenesso that the examples can be calculated anddisplayed more quickly.

You will be introduced to the program’s inter-face in the first tutorial (entitled “PersonalLogo”), in which you will practice making afew adjustments to the settings. This ex-ample is highly detailed and contains manyprogram screenshots (i.e. examples of whatyou will see on-screen) to help you recognizewhich functions you are working with and findyour way around more easily.

1) Personal Logo

This tutorial will allow you to superimposeyour own personal logo onto the video foot-age.

If you regularly use footage in your Casa-blanca that you recorded from television, youwill no doubt sometimes have wished thatthe TV channel’s logo did not appear in thematerial. Up until now, you’ve only had theoption of using various programs or tricks toretouch and remove the logo. But now youhave the ability to cover it up with your ownpersonal logo.

You can of course also use PIP-Studio tosuperimpose your logo over your own foot-age so that your films become unmistakably“yours.”

That probably sounds complicated at first butit is actually very simple to do using PIP-Studio and is an ideal introduction to theprogram. We will only introduce you to a fewbuttons in this first example. Later tutorialswill go into greater detail.

For this tutorial, take a 10-second long videoscene – which you will use to represent yourentire film – and insert it into the storyboard.

The second scene should be of the samelength and contain material that you wouldlike to use as your logo. Use, for instance,your initials on a textured background. (To doso, create a 10-second long scene in theNew Scene menu, add it to the storyboard,create the required letters of your initialsusing the “Pages” title effect in the Titlingmenu and allow the title effect to be calcu-lated.

Next, using the Scene button (if available),create a separate scene using this effect.This will then appear in the scene bin in the

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Edit screen. Now, in the storyboard that islocated in the Edit screen, replace the previ-ous mask scene with this new one. If yoursystem is a Casablanca Avio without aScene function, you can also let the scenecontaining the calculated title effect beplaced in the storyboard.)

In the storyboard you will now first see thescene containing your video footage andthen the scene containing your logo – bothare 10 seconds long.

Open the Transition Effects menu and selectPIP-Studio from the list of effects. Insert theeffect between the two scenes and, using thex s button, set the effect duration parameterto 10 seconds, i.e. the entire duration of bothscenes.

Now launch the program using the LaunchPIP-Studio button. In a few moments, youwill see your first scene (i.e. your video foot-age) as the background picture, and yoursecond scene (your logo) in a small picturesuperimposed on the background scene.

Hintergrundsze

Note: Please note that the backgroundscene is always represented by the footagelocated on the left in the storyboard and thatthe second (i.e. right-hand) scene repre-sents the PIP.

You’ll see the program toolbar located at thebottom edge of the screen. You can nowstart positioning your logo.

If you find that the toolbar is obscuring yourview, you can use the arrow button (bottomleft in the toolbar) to move it to the top edgeof the screen or use the minimize buttonlocated above it to turn off the toolbar (andof course turn it back on again when youneed it). Make sure that the selector buttonnext to PIP is set to “Single.”

In this case, you cannot operate the nextbutton (“Background”) since it is not active.We shall be skipping the “Effect” button inthis example, so we will not describe itsfunctions for the time being.

Now we have reached the actual designstage of your logo. Click on Shape so thatthe selector button opens up offering you alist of twelve different shapes to choosefrom. Now select Elliptic so that your logotakes on the shape of an ellipse.

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Next, click on Size to turn off the toolbar soyou can read the size in pixels at the bottomedge of the screen. The size ranges from0 x 0 to 636 x 520.

You will no doubt have noticed that your logois now framed by a rectangle again. This willonly happen (for technical reasons) whilstyou are changing various settings – thereaf-ter it will of course return to the shape thatyou selected.

Now move the trackball and you will noticethe little box containing your logo moves aswell. If you roll the trackball to the right thelittle box increases in size, if you roll thetrackball to the left it shrinks.

After you have set the required size (let ustake, for instance, the size 172 x 140), clickon the left trackball button to confirm the sizesetting and return to the toolbar. (Althoughyou can also return to the toolbar by pressingthe right trackball button, your size settingswill, however, not be applied.)

The logo is now framed again by an ellipse.Since your logo is still located in the center ofthe video footage picture, now click on thePosition button.

The toolbar is turned off and you will see thecoordinates at the bottom edge of the screen(please note that the coordinates refer to thecenter of the PIP).

Now position your logo in the top left cornerbut make sure that you don’t move it too faroff the edge of the screen! (If this does hap-pen, however, the screen display changesand you will see a gray area.)

Since we won’t be going into this function inthis tutorial, move your ellipse back into thedisplayed background picture. (Further infor-mation on this function can be found in Tuto-rial 6.)

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Once you have found the right position foryour logo (e.g. at the coordinates 128, 84),confirm it by pressing the left trackball buttonand the toolbar is turned on again.

Now you have already placed your ellipticallyshaped logo in the top left corner and config-ured its size settings. The next button islabeled “Border.” Click on it to replace theexisting toolbar with a new one. This newtoolbar contains settings that refer to theborder that is displayed in the top right cornerof the toolbar.

You will now see the Color button. Click on itand open the color box.

Select the color blue with an alpha value of100% (i.e. not transparent) and confirm thesesettings. Now click on the next button (Size)to activate the slider control.

As you can see, you can adjust the thicknessof the border to between 0 and 40. Select asetting of 5 here.

Finally, you can see the Blur button, whichallows you to set the edge blur to between 0and 100%. Simply select any setting you likeor leave the default setting as it is.

Once you have made your settings changes,you can leave this toolbar by pressing thebutton in the bottom right corner and returnto the original toolbar. You can now select theShadow button which in turn opens a newtoolbar dealing with the shadow settings.

The first button in this toolbar is labeled“Direction“. Click on it to display a selectionof 8 directions. Select the fifth in the list, i.e.the one pointing downwards. You can thenopen the color box again using the “Color“button and select the color black. You canconfigure the transparency here as well –this time select an alpha value of 50%.

Using the next button labeled (Distance), youcan determine how long the shadow shouldbe beginning from the edge of the logo.Select a value of 5 here.

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The Blur button determines the blur of theshadow (i.e. blurred contours) in percent.Select a value of 10% here. Next, close thistoolbar again by clicking on the button in thebottom right corner.

After having made these settings changes,you will finally see the Preview button. Clickon it and you will see a small window appearsuperimposed on the PIP-Studio program.The window contains a preview of the scenesequence with the applied settings that youadjusted.

Last, you will also see the Archive button inthis program. You can use it to save and loadsettings.

If you click on Archive you will see the Load,Save, Delete and Cancel buttons.

Now click on Save so that an empty yellowfield appears. Click on the lower yellow barand the keyboard will then appear. Enter therequired name (e.g. “Logo”) and you’ll seethe name appear in the list.

Now confirm with OK and close the programby clicking on the Transition Effects menusymbol in the bottom right corner. (If neces-sary, read about how to use the archive inthe standard Casablanca II manual. You onlyneed to use the archive if you want to use

the configured settings again later on for atotally different PIP. However, for editing,calculating and later changing this currentPIP, all the relevant displays are automati-cally saved and are applied again at the nextstart without you having to use the archivefunction.)

You can now let the system calculate theeffect in the Transition Effects menu and thensit back and watch this example scene atyour leisure.

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2) Personal Logo II

Since you’ve been given an overview of theprogram interface with the first tutorial, we’llpresume knowledge of the basics and theinstructions will be less detailed than those inthe first. Although you will be using many ofthe same functions, you’ll employ differentsettings. If you already feel confident aboutusing PIP-Studio, you can, of course, skipthis tutorial.

First, take another 10-second video scene(which you will use to represent your entirefilm) and insert it into the storyboard. Thesecond scene should be the same lengthand contain footage that you would like touse as your logo. You can use your initialsagain or create another personal logo.

Open the Transition Effects screen andselect “PIP-Studio“ from the list of effects.Insert the effect between the two scenes.Using the “x s“ button, set the effect durationparameter to 10 seconds. Now launch theprogram using the “Launch PIP-Studio“button. In a moment you will see your firstscene as the background picture and yoursecond scene as an on-screen PIP.

The settings (position, size, etc.) from yourprevious tutorial will remain unchanged.

AYou will see the program toolbar located atthe bottom of the screen. Please make sureonce more that the selection button next to„PIP“ is set to “Single.“ Now click on “Shape“to open the selector button and this timeselect “Star 2.“ You will see your PIP take ona star shape after you confirm your selection.

Next, click on “Size“ and set the value to 204x 168.

Once you’ve confirmed the size, you canproceed to the “Position” setting. Click on thecorresponding button so you can position thePIP at the coordinates 580, 100 (i.e. the topright corner).

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Now move on to Border again. Since you willbe setting the “Size“ to 0 this time, selectinga color becomes irrelevant because theborder will not be displayed anyway. How-ever, you do still need to set Blur, since theedge of the PIP is still affected by this func-tion. Set a value of 5 here.

Once you have configured all these settings,close the toolbar and click on the Shadowbutton. Select the sixth direction setting inthe list (i.e. the arrow pointing towards thebottom left). Next, you can open the colorbox again using the „Color“ button and thenselect black. This time, choose an alphavalue of 70%. Using the next button („Dis-tance“), you can determine how long the

shadow should be starting from the edge ofthe logo. Select a value of 5. The Blur buttondetermines the blur of the shadow in percent.Select a value of 30%. Close this toolbaragain by clicking the button in the bottomright corner or by clicking the right trackballbutton.

If you wish, you can save your configuredsettings in the archive.

You can generate the effect in the TransitionEffects screen and then enjoy watching thefinal results.

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3) Moving scenes in front of abackground

In this tutorial, you’ll learn about one of PIP-Studio’s more extensive functions - the abilityto display two moving scenes in front of abackground image (we’ll assume that youhave prior knowledge of the buttons coveredin previous tutorials).

Find two scenes that you want to use asPIPs superimposed on a background pictureand insert them into the storyboard. We’vedecided to use two wedding scenes, but youcan select any video footage you like.

First, we inserted a scene of a bride andgroom, followed by a scene of a priest. Onceyou’ve inserted the required scenes (eachwith a length of 5 seconds) into thestoryboard, insert the PIP-Studio effect. ThePIP-Studio effect must be configured to lastthe entire length of the scene (i.e. 5 sec-onds). Now launch the program usingLaunch PIP-Studio. In a moment, you’ll seethe priest scene appear as a PIP in front ofthe scene of the bride and groom.

Make sure that the “PIP” selector button isset to Double 1. Here, “Double” means that

you want two scenes as PIPs in front of aseparate background picture, while the “1”stands for the first scene; in this case, thebride and groom.

(Please do not be alarmed if you only see thebride and groom scene as a PIP once youchange the setting to “Double 1” – the otherscene is simply hidden behind this PIP.)

Now select the ”Background“ button to openthe ”Select Pattern“ window, in which youcan choose a background of your choice.

The Marble 1 background picture that we’vechosen can be found by selectingCasablanca in the Product menu andMonochromatic in the Type menu. Now

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select the twelfth pattern in the list (Color:White, Mode: Positive). Once you’ve set thebackground picture, close the Select Patternwindow by clicking on “OK.“ You’ll see thatthe background is no longer black, but nowhas a marbled pattern. You can now move onto configuring the other settings. Define theshape of the first scene by clicking on“Shape“ and selecting “Circle.“

Next, click on the Size button and select the636 x 520 setting. You can then click on the“Position” button to set the position of thebride and groom scene to 468, 320. You willnow see your second PIP again in the topright corner.

Now you’re going to configure the Bordersetting. Since we won’t be placing a borderaround the video scene, you should set theSize to 0. In this case, the Color setting isirrelevant. You can, however, use the Blurbutton to adjust the contour of the scene’sedge. In this tutorial, set it to 40%.

Since you won’t be applying a shadow in thistutorial, set the distance to 0 in the Shadowmenu. The remaining settings in this menu(direction, color and blur) are irrelevant, soyou can leave the current settings as theyare. Close the Shadow menu.

Once you’ve finished configuring the settingsfor the first scene and positioned it in thebottom right corner, you can proceed to thesecond scene. Click on the PIP button andselect “Double 2.” In a moment you’ll see thescene of the priest brought into the fore-ground, thus allowing you to edit it.

Click on “Shape” for this scene and select“Elliptic.”

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Next, set the Size of this scene to 292 x 240.The priest scene should be placed in the topleft corner, i.e. at the coordinates of 156, 120.

Again, in “Border” you will only need the Blursetting, which you should set to 20%.

You do not need “Shadow” in this secondscene, so you can set the “Distance” to 0 –just as you did for the first scene – and ig-nore the remaining settings in this menu.

Once you’ve changed these settings, youcan save them in the archive again, as de-scribed in the first tutorial. Now return to theTransition Effects screen and make thesystem generate the PIP-Studio effect. Youcan now sit back and view the weddingscene!

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4) Moving scenes within thevideo footage

This tutorial is a little more complicated thanthe three previous ones. Therefore, we askyou to first work through the previous tutori-als so that you can get a handle on operatingthe PIP-Studio program. In this tutorial you’llfade one small picture (PIP) video scene inand out of a larger video scene.

Choose two scenes each with a length of 6seconds for this tutorial. The first sceneshould show a person and a potential loveinterest (in this tutorial, we used footage of aman and a woman at the beach).

Insert the PIP-Studio effect once again andset its length to 6 seconds as well. Nowlaunch the program.

Make sure that the Single function is se-lected under PIP. You’ll see the man as thelarge background picture and the scene withthe image of the woman as a PIP.

Let’s turn our attention to the PIP settings.Select the Heart shape and then proceed tothe Size settings. You should adjust the sizeaccording to how large the woman appears

in the video footage. In this tutorial, we’vedecided to use the 264 x 216 setting.

Now let’s proceed to the Position option. Youshould select the top left corner for thewoman – we’ve chosen the coordinates of132, 116. (Please make sure that the manappearing in the background video is nothidden from view.)

Now proceed to the Border menu and selecta nice shade of red as the Color and leavethe alpha value set to 100%. Set a value of15 for the Size of the border and 50% for theBlur.

Close the Border menu by clicking the righttrackball button or by pressing the on-screen

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button in the bottom right corner, and thenopen the Shadow menu. In this menu, selectblack as the Color, but this time give it analpha value of 50% so that the shadowappears slightly transparent. Now set theDistance to a value of 3 and the Blur to 10%.For the Direction, select the fourth from thetop (i.e. falling towards the bottom right).

Once you’ve configured these settings andclosed the Shadow menu, click the Effectbutton located on the left to open the Effectwindow where you can determine whether ornot you want to edit the IN or OUT (i.e. thefade-in or fade-out).

Let’s start with the fade-in. Click on IN toactivate the button (i.e. it turns blue) if it’s notactive already.

Any other settings changes that you make inthis window will now relate to the fade-in.Click on the Effect selector button to openthe list of twelve different fade-in options. Inthis tutorial, use the Fade option. Next, setthe fade-time to 000.02:00 (i.e. to 2 sec-onds). The total fade-time is made up of thefade-in time plus the time during which theeffect remains stationary plus the fade-outtime. In this case, the 2-second settingmeans that the PIP will fade-in gently forprecisely 2 seconds.

Since you do not want to make any furtherchanges with the Edit Effect button, you canproceed to the fade-out settings and activatethe OUT button. In this tutorial, set the sameparameters that you did for fade-in, i.e. the“Fade” option and a fade-time of 2 seconds.You’ll notice that for this setting, you nowonly have 4 seconds available instead of 6,since 2 seconds are already taken up by thefade-in effect.

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Since you don’t want to make any furtherchanges to this effect, click on OK in theEffect window and close the PIP-Studioprogram saving your settings.

Afterwards, have the system generate youreffect in the Edit screen.

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5) Circling scenes within thevideo footage

For this tutorial select two scenes that areeach 6 seconds long. (We’ve decided to usetwo randomly selected scenes and we rec-ommend that you do the same for the timebeing so all you have to do in this tutorial issimply apply our suggested settings.)

Insert your two scenes into the storyboard,then switch to the Transition Effects screenand place the effect between the two scenes.Then set the effect length to span the wholetime period – in this case 6 seconds.

Once you’ve launched the program, youshould again make sure that the toolbar’sSingle function is set to PIP.

For Shape, select a Circle, set the size to200 x 164 and position the scene in the topleft corner at the coordinates of 128, 116.

Set the Blur of the Border to 20% and theSize to 0 (the color setting therefore be-comes irrelevant). Then proceed to theShadow settings and set the Distance to 0,thus making the other settings in the Shadowmenu also irrelevant.

Once you’ve finished configuring these set-tings and have closed the Shadow menu,click on the Effect button.

In this window, first activate the IN button, setthe fade-time to 2 seconds and then click onthe Edit Effect button. You now see a newtoolbar at the bottom edge of the screen andthe Effect window is no longer displayed.

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You’ll see your background picture withoutthe PIP (e.g. image of your car) superim-posed on it (unless, of course, the PIP buttonwas activated).

Instead of the PIP, you now see either one ortwo small dots. Depending on the effect(Fade, Zoom, etc.) you selected in a previousexercise, the display will be modified by thateffect in this menu. If you only see one dot, itwill be green in color and will be located inthe same position at which you previouslyplaced your PIP. If you see two dots next toone another, the active dot is green and theother is yellow.

If you worked through our tutorial exercisesin the order in which they were presented,you’ll see two dots displayed one on top ofthe other. You can recognize that this is thecase by looking at the slider control on theright – it is now no longer completely gray butcan be adjusted. You can decide which of thetwo dots to activate using this slider or byclicking the separate buttons next to theslider.

First, activate the PIP button to provide aclearer display – your PIP will now appeararound the active (green) dot. (You candeactivate this function by clicking on PIPagain).

You can see your video scene still in thesame position in which you previously placedit (i.e. at the top left). If you like, you canreposition it with the Position button or moveone of the two dots to another position. Sincethe first dot is located in the top left corner,activate the second dot and reposition it withthe Position (or by clicking on it again) in thebottom right corner. When the dot is shownblue it means it can be moved. The dot’scoordinates are also displayed at the edge ofthe screen.

The line indicates the path which the videowill later follow. After you’ve repositioned thepoint that you selected, confirm the setting bypressing the left trackball button.

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Now that you have configured these settings,you can start setting the waypoints to definethe path that your second video scene (thePIP) will later follow within the first videoscene. To do so, click on Insert. You’ll seeanother waypoint appear halfway betweenthe two existing points.

So you have now defined the path’s startingand finishing points diagonally across thescreen and you have positioned a waypointin the middle. If you want to configure thesize or the alpha value (i.e. the transparency)of one of these points, click on Edit to openthe Waypoint Parameters window and in itedit the currently active (i.e. green) point.

While you are making your settings changes,only the point that is being edited is visible.These size and alpha value settings offer youthe advantage of being able to influence howthe size and transparency changes at eachparticular point. For instance, activate thefirst waypoint (top left) simply by clicking onit, then click on Edit, leave the currently setsize as it is and set a low alpha value (e.g.10%).

On the right next to the settings you will seetwo yellow boxes containing dash marks. Ifyou click on these buttons, the dashes will bereplaced by tick marks. The Size or Alphabutton will then be activated therefore allow-ing you to adjust your settings. The tickmarks for the first and last waypoints cannotbe deactivated since a value has be to en-tered there or else interpolation will not bepossible.

Now confirm by clicking on OK.

Next, select the last waypoint (i.e. the finish-ing point), leave the size as it is and set thealpha value to 100%. These settings willcause the scene (i.e. the PIP) to move slowlyacross the background and display a smoothtransition in size and transparency. The sizesand alpha values for all the insertedwaypoints will be rendered automatically.

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Please make sure that the IN button is activethe whole time, since in this case we are stillworking on the fade-in effect.

Now that you have changed the two points(starting and finishing point), you can insertadditional waypoints. To do so, click on „In-sert“ to make the next point on the pathappear.

You can insert up to a maximum of 10waypoints (for the fade-in effect). The pointsare always inserted after the active point (i.e.in the direction of the finishing point). You willnotice that the slider control appears smallerand smaller. You can activate it and slide itback and forth to activate the variouswaypoints.

Naturally, you are not just restricted to defin-ing the size and alpha value – you can alsoreposition the points by following the stepsdescribed above.

Now that a total of 10 dots are displayed, youcan use them to shape the path. To do so,click on the various points and move themaround to form a curve that goes from the topleft corner via the top right corner to thebottom right corner.

In the beginning you may have to practicethis a little to learn how to use the correctpoints to form a smooth path. If you like, youcan now use the Preview button to view thepath that the curve traces in a small window.

You can then close this toolbar by clicking onOK and the Select Effect window appearsagain. Now click the OUT button to activate itand therefore make it turn blue. Please makesure once more that Custom appears underEffect, and set the Fade-Time to 2 seconds.

Select Edit Effect again. Once again thetoolbar opens in which the OUT button isnow also active.

You see two dots on-screen which you canposition (if not done so already) in the bottomright and top left corners. The dot at thebottom right is both the starting point of thefade-out as well as the finishing point of thepreceding fade-in. (If you now change thestarting point of the fade-out you will ofcourse also be altering it in its function as thefinishing point of the fade-in!) Under Edit,check whether the alpha value of the startingpoint (bottom right) is still set to 100%, andthen set the alpha value of the finishing point(bottom left) to 10%.

Now proceed in the same way as you did forthe fade-in. Insert up to another 10 waypointsalong the path and change their positions.

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You can the use the Preview button to viewthe PIP’s complete path comprising a two-second fade-in plus a two-second hold-time(in the bottom right corner) plus a two-sec-ond fade-out.

You can then close this toolbar by clicking onOK. The Effect window appears and you canclose this too by clicking on OK. You will nowonly see your original toolbar, which you canuse to archive your settings if you wish.Close the PIP-Studio program and allow theeffect to be rendered in the Transition Effectsscreen. You’re finished!

You can of course also set these waypoints ifyou decide to use a double PIP. In this caseyou can define separate paths for each PIP.Give it a try!

5 . 6

6 . 1

6) Moving scenes in varioussizes

In this tutorial you will once more be makinga moving scene circle in front of a back-ground. Though this time we will be showingyou some additional features.

Choose two scenes, each should be 5 sec-onds long.

Insert them into the storyboard, switch to theTransition Effects screen and place the effectbetween the two scenes. Then set the effectlength to span the whole time period – in thiscase 5 seconds.

Once you’ve launched the program, selectthe Single function for PIP in the toolbar.

First of all, proceed to the settings that youare already familiar with and select a Rect-angle for the Shape. Skip the size settings inthis tutorial and deal with the positioning alittle later. First, configure the border andshadow parameters. Now that you have hada little practice using this program, you canchoose the settings in this tutorial yourself.Give it a try!

Once you have configured these settings,click on the Position button. You can nowposition your rectangular PIP. Move it to thetop left corner and off the screen. You willnotice the display change as soon as one ofthe coordinates becomes less than or equalto 0.

The outermost edge of the screen still con-tains your background video but it is nowsuperimposed with a gray surface. The outerarea of this surface is light grey and repre-sents the invisible area of the screen. Theinner rectangle is dark grey and representsthe visible screen area, i.e. your backgroundvideo. The blue-colored rectangle is yourPIP. By the way, in this display your PIP isalways shown as a rectangle regardless ofwhat shape you have actually chosen for it.This display therefore allows you to seewhere you have positioned your PIP in thevideo footage.

In this tutorial exercise, position it at thecoordinates 0, 0 and then confirm your set-ting. (Since the coordinates always refer tothe center of the PIP, this setting will causethe bottom right quarter of the PIP to bedisplayed in front of the background video.)

Now click on Effect, activate the IN button,set Custom under Effect, set the fade-time to2 seconds and then click on the Edit Effectbutton. You will see the corresponding

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toolbar once more at the bottom edge of thescreen.

Depending on the settings that you selectedpreviously, you might now see severalwaypoints. Delete these by selecting themand clicking on Delete. Repeat this processuntil all the waypoints have been deletedexcept for the one located in the top leftcorner. You can now still see the gray surfacewith the blue rectangle in the top left cornerrepresenting the starting point. Since youhave already defined the position, click onEdit. First the Waypoint Parameters windowappears in which you should click on Size.Set the size to 24 x 20 and then click onAlpha value and set it to 50%.

Once you’ve finished editing the startingpoint, close the window with OK and click onInsert to insert another waypoint. Since thiswaypoint is placed in the center of the back-ground video, the display switches back andyou see the dot representing the rectangularPIP superimposed on the background video.Now move the Position of the finishing pointso that it is located in the bottom right corner(e.g. at the coordinates 620, 500). Now clickon Edit to open the Waypoint Parameterswindow again, and click on Size. Set the sizeto 244 x 200 and the alpha value to 100%.

You have now defined the values for thefinishing point. With these settings your PIPwould move from the top left to the bottomright while at the same time increasing insize and becoming less transparent. Closethe Waypoint Parameters window by clickingon OK and you will not only see the finishingpoint in the bottom right corner but also yourrectangular PIP. Next, click on Insert to insertanother PIP halfway along the path. You willsee that’s slightly transparent (alpha value75%) and medium sized (134 x 112). So thesystem automatically renders the transitionbetween the starting and finishing points.Now add a few more waypoints and changetheir position in the same way as alreadypracticed in the previous tutorial. Further-more, by clicking on Edit you can change thesize and alpha value for each waypoint.

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(If you want to subsequently change the sizeor alpha value for some waypoints, you firsthave to activate the corresponding buttons inthe Waypoint Parameters window by clickingthe dash mark on the right and thus replacingit with a tick mark. The buttons in this windoware initially blocked because they refer toautomatically rendered values – they aretherefore initially unchangeable.) Let yourimagination run free and enter any valuesthat you like. You can of course positionsome waypoints off-screen again – why notjust try it out!

Next, close this screen by clicking on OK andactivate the OUT button in the Effect window.Set the Custom effect here again and set afade-time of 2 seconds.

This configured value means that the hold-time will equal one second, since you havealready set a total effect time of 5 seconds.In other words, your PIP will remain for onesecond at the fade-in finishing point, which isthe same position as the fade-out startingpoint.

Now click on Edit Effect again and, if neces-sary, delete the waypoints in the menu thatthen appears. Your starting point is located inthe bottom right corner since it is, after all,the same as the fade-in finishing point.

Again, insert several waypoints with therequired position, size and alpha value tocreate a nice path for the fade-out. Next,close the program and make the systemrender the effect.

The results will surprise you!

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7 . 1

Reference

This chapter contains help on dealing withproblems and questions, and explains thefunctions in all the screens and sub-screens.

We recommend, however, that you first workthrough the earlier tutorial exercises to famil-iarize yourself with the program and then torefer to this reference section if you subse-quently have any particular questions.

If you selected PIP-Studio from the transitioneffects, inserted the effect between twoscenes and launched the program using theLaunch PIP-Studio button, you’ll see themain screen and main toolbar.

Every toolbar and every sub-screen allowsyou to select the two buttons that are locatedon the left edge. You can use the minimizebutton to reduce the toolbar to just these twobuttons so that it no longer covers any pic-ture elements. You can use the arrow buttonto move the toolbar to the opposite edge ofthe screen.

The button in the bottom right corner of everytoolbar returns you to the previous screen.

1.) PIP: The PIP selector button offers threepossible settings – Single, Double 1 andDouble 2.

The Single setting means that the first of thetwo scenes in the storyboard is played in full-screen mode as the background and thesecond scene is projected onto it with theselected parameters, i.e. it is played as aPIP. Double 1 and Double 2 mean that thestarting and finishing scenes can configuredseparately and then projected onto a pat-terned background.

Clicking on Double 1 activates the first of thetwo storyboard scenes. Any subsequentchanges that you make to the settings will beapplied to this scene.

Clicking on the Double 2 function activatesthe second storyboard scene. Any settingschanges that you now make will be appliedto this scene.

Please note: For technical reasons, whenyou are editing PIPs only the PIP that youare currently working on is displayed in theforeground. However, while the final PIPs arebeing rendered, the finishing scene PIP isalways displayed in front of the startingscene PIP.

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2.) Background: If you selected Double 1 orDouble 2 mode, the Background button willbe activated.

If you click on it, the Select Pattern windowopens and you can choose a background forthe two PIPs. You will already be familiar withthis Select Pattern window from the Titlingscreen or from the New Scene (Pattern)menu.

If you want to set a monochrome back-ground, select the type Monochromatic andthen the first entry in the list (No Pattern) andfinally open the color box using Color. Bothscenes will be displayed as small PIPs infront of this background.

3.) Size: If you click on the Size button, thePIP will become active and you can adjust itssize by moving the trackball. Rolling thetrackball to the left shrinks the PIP, rolling itto the right makes it grow in size.

To apply the new size setting, click on the lefttrackball button. Click on the right trackballbutton if you want to reset the PIP to theprevious size setting. Please note that fortechnical reasons the PIP is displayed as arectangle while its settings are being config-ured.

4.) Position: You can use the Position buttonto change the position that the PIP should bein during its hold-time and at variouswaypoints. In this case too, the PIP is dis-played as a rectangle while its settings arebeing configured. This function also allowsyou to place the PIP outside the visiblescreen area. As soon as you move the pic-ture off the screen (i.e. as soon as one of thecoordinates becomes less than or equal to0), a new screen view is displayed giving youa complete overview of the PIP’s currentposition off the screen.

7 . 3

You will see a gray surface. The outer arearepresenting the non-visible part is light gray.The inner area representing the backgroundvideo is dark gray. Regardless of the actualshape of the PIP, in this screen view the PIPis always represented by a blue rectangle,even after the settings have been confirmed.If you move the PIP anywhere within the darkgray area, you will see it in the visible screenarea again in the original menu, i.e. in front ofthe background video.

5.) Shape: The Shape selector button offersthe following twelve border shapes for thePIP: Rectangle, Circle, Elliptic, Heart, Hexa-gon, Diamond 1, Diamond 2, Star 1, Star 2,Binocs, Tube and Square. The shape is afixed parameter and cannot be changedduring the course of the fade-in and fade-outperiods.

6.) Border: If you click on Border a new toolbarwill appear offering several options.

Clicking on Color will open the already famil-iar color box (including alpha value andarchive). By clicking on the Size slider controlyou can adjust the thickness of the border tobetween 0 and 40. The Blur can be adjustedto between 0 and 100%. You can return tothe previous toolbar by either clicking on theright trackball button or by clicking on thebutton located in the bottom right of themenu.

The thickness of the border is proportional tothe size of the PIP. If the PIP is reduced insize, the border will automatically become

7 . 4

thinner as well. Again, the PIP is displayedas a rectangle while the size setting is beingconfigured.

7.) Shadow: If you click on this button a newtoolbar will appear.

Here you are given the option of setting aDirection (from a selection of eight differentones). You can also set a Color using thecolor box (including alpha value and archive).In addition, this toolbar allows you to set theDistance of the shadow from the PIP usingthe slider control (between 0 and 20). In thiscase too, the PIP is displayed as a rectanglewhile its settings are being configured. TheBlur can be set to a value between 0 and100%.

8.) Preview: If you click on this button you willbe shown a preview using the settings thatyou have configured so far. You can alsoview this preview from the Transition Effectsscreen, though to do so you must first closethe PIP-Studio program.

9.) Archive: If you click on this button you willbe presented a selection of four familiarfunctions: Load, Save, Delete and Cancel.

If you click on Load, a window appears whichyou will not yet be familiar with: Load PIP.Here you have the option of deciding whichof the PIP’s components (fade-IN, fade-OUTor hold-time) should be loaded. You can ofcourse activate all three items if you wish.Simply click on the yellow field alongside therequired function so that either a dash mark(will not be loaded) or a check mark (will beloaded) appears.

For fade-in and fade-out, parameters such assize and alpha value will be loaded. Thehold-time relates to parameters like thethickness of the border or the shape. If youconfirm your selection with OK, an additionalwindow will appear in which the saved set-tings are displayed and from where they can

7 . 5

be selected. You can confirm your selectionby clicking on OK.

If you click on the Save button, the ArchivePIP window appears. In the upper area yousee the PIPs that have already been savedand in the lower area you see a yellow linethat you can select. Clicking on it will openthe on-screen keyboard and you can giveyour PIP a name. After clicking on OK, thename appears in the upper area of the win-dow. Please note that when saving a doublePIP, only the settings for the active PIP (i.e.the selected one in the foreground) aresaved.

If you click on Delete, the Delete PIP windowappears. In the upper area of this windowyou see a list of saved PIPs. Initially the OKbutton is blocked (i.e. it is gray and cannot beselected) even if a saved PIP appears se-lected. This is a security measure to preventPIPs from being accidentally deleted. Selectthe PIP that you want to delete (even if it isalready highlighted in gray) and then click onthe now active (yellow) OK button to delete it.

The Cancel button can be used to close theArchive window even if you have not carriedout any actions in the window.

10.) Effect: If you click on the Effect button,the Effect window appears.

You will first see the two IN and OUT buttons.The button that you click on will turn blue andwill therefore be activated.

An activated IN button means that any fur-ther settings you configure will affect thePIP’s fade-in. An active OUT button willcause any settings changes to be applied tothe fade-out.

Under Effect you have the option of choosingthe type of fade-in or fade-out. The followingtwelve effects can be selected: Hard Cut,Fade, Zoom, Move Left, Move Left/Up, MoveUP, Move Up/Right, Move Right, Move Right/Down, Move Down, Move Down/Left, Cus-tom. The names of the first eleven settingsoptions indicate what they do. The Customsetting means you can set your own values.If you selected one of the other effects andsubsequently edit the effect, this will auto-matically cause the settings for the Customeffect to be changed as well..

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The Fade-Time button provides a slidercontrol for adjusting the duration of the fade-in/fade-out. The duration that you are able toset for this can be no greater than the effectduration that is set in the Transition Effectsscreen. If, for instance, you have a total of 6seconds at your disposal, you could set 2seconds for the fade-in and 2 seconds for thefade-out. The remaining 2 seconds will thenbe used for the hold-time. The hold-time isthe length of time during which the PIP re-mains stationary before it starts being fadedout again. If you set waypoints while editingyour PIP, they will determine the position atwhich the hold-time takes place. The lastfade-in waypoint is also the first fade-outwaypoint, which in turn also defines theposition for the hold-time.

The Preview button again allows you towatch the preview in a small window. Thisfunction lets you view the preview from withinthis menu.

The Edit Effect button activates anothertoolbar. You can insert waypoints in thismenu to define the motion of the PIP.

11.) Insert: If you click on Insert, anotherwaypoint is set. The newly inserted waypoint(and therefore also the active waypoint) iscolored green. When it is inactive it is yellow.The new point is always inserted behind thecurrently active waypoint. If the activewaypoint is not the last one, the newwaypoint will be placed exactly in the middlebetween the current and the next waypointon the curve (in the case of two waypoints itis of course actually a straight line and not acurve).

Note: A waypoint path is made up of betweentwo and ten waypoints, whereby thewaypoint for the hold-time position is alwaysdisplayed as a large octagon. The PIPmoves at a constant speed from the first tothe last waypoint on the curve. So if twowaypoints are close together, the PIP islocated in this section of the curve for ashorter length of time than when it is locatedbetween two waypoints that are further apartfrom one another.

(You should remember this if later you planvarying the PIP’s parameters between indi-vidual waypoints.)

If two waypoints are located on top of oneanother, the PIP will not move. However, you

7 . 7

can still have the PIP’s parameters vary overthe entire fade-time. So, for instance, youcould make a fade-in occur while the PIPremains stationary in one position. If thereare more than two waypoints in the path andtwo consecutive waypoints are in the sameposition, the first will have no time valueassociated with it, i.e. it will be skipped.

12.) Delete: Clicking on the Delete buttoncauses the currently active waypoint to bedeleted thus making the previous waypointactive.

13.) Position: If you click on the Positionbutton, the active waypoint turns blue andcan be repositioned using the trackball.While you are moving it you will see its posi-tion coordinates at the edge of the screen.You can confirm the new position by pressingthe left trackball button. The right trackballbutton cancels the operation. As an alterna-tive to the Position button, you can alsomove a waypoint by clicking on an activewaypoint once or by clicking on an inactivewaypoint twice. This action has the sameeffect as clicking on Position.

If you want to position the waypoint outsidethe video picture, you will automatically bepresented with a display showing the avail-able area located outside the visible area assoon as you move the point off the screen.For further details, please read the Positiondescription for the main screen.

We will now once more explain the meaningof the different waypoint colors:

yellow: an inactive point with no specialcharacteristics of its own. When you click onit, it turns green (active)

red: an inactive point for which settings wereconfigured manually under Edit (i.e. for whichat least one tick mark was set manually – inother words, no interpolation). If you click onit, it turns green (active)

green: the currently active point. The Posi-tion/Edit/Delete functions have an effect onthis point. If you click on it, it turns blue

blue: this point can be moved. After it hasbeen repositioned and clicked it turns greenagain

14.) Edit: If you click on Edit, the WaypointParameters window appears in which youcan configure the size and alpha value for theactive waypoint.

If you click on Size, the window is closed andthe PIP becomes active so you can changeits size. You will see the size displayed at theedge of the screen. Clicking on Alpha acti-vates the control next to it. You can then usethe control to adjust the PIP’s transparencyvalue to between 0 and 100%.

15.) This is where you see the slider control.If it is completely grey this means that thereis currently only one waypoint. If the slidercan be clicked and moved then there areseveral waypoints in your video footage thatyou can activate. Using the separate buttonslocated on the right of the slider control, youcan precisely select one waypoint after an-other.

If the Size and Alpha buttons are blocked(grey and inactive), you can click on theyellow boxes beside them to change thedash mark to a tick mark. (Buttons will beblocked if you have set intermediate pointswhose sizes and alpha values are renderedautomatically using the starting and finishingpoints. The tick marks for the first and lastpoints cannot be deactivated since valueshave to be entered there or else interpolationwill not be possible.)

If you can see a tick mark, the value that isset to the left of the tick mark will be used atthis waypoint. If, on the other hand, a dashmark is set, the corresponding value will beinterpolated based on the values of the

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neighboring waypoints – the rendered inter-polated value is therefore displayed instead.

You can change the required state wheneveryou want.

16.) IN/OUT: These two buttons allow you tochoose whether your settings apply to thefade-in or fade-out.

Simply click on the corresponding button tomake it active (blue) and therefore selected.

However, if you want to switch from the fade-in to the fade-out and make further settingschanges (e.g. changes to the fade-time orthe effect) you will first have to switch to theEffect window.

Each fade effect has its own curve and ofcourse its own parameters. It is important toremember that if you change the parametersfor the large waypoint (the last waypoint forfade-in i.e. the first for fade-out) then thelarge waypoint of the other effect will also bechanged.

As a reminder: the large waypoint is the oneat which the PIP remains stationary betweenthe fade-in and fade-out.

17.) PIP: If you click on the PIP button itturns blue (i.e. becomes active). This meansthat you will now not only see a greenwaypoint, you will also see your PIP dis-played at the position of the currently activepoint. However, if you selected a small sizeor a small alpha value, only a green point willcontinue to be displayed.

Since the presence of the PIP can often beirritating, you should only display it tempo-rarily just as a quick check.

18.) Preview: You also have the opportunityof displaying a preview in this screen too.

19.) OK: This button is used to confirm yoursettings, close this screen and return you tothe Effect screen.

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