Grass Valley Kaleidoscope to Krystal Effect Translator User Manual

Installation and Operation

Kaleidoscope to Krystal Effect Translator

Introduction

This document explains how to install and use the Kaleidoscope to Krystal Effect Translator utility program (Version 1.0).The Kaleidoscope/Krystal Translator utility is a Windows 95 based program that converts Kaleidoscope effect files to Krystal effect files. The files produced by the conversion are true Krystal DPM system effect files able to be loaded into a Krystal system and then be run, modified, and/or saved.

Components

The Kaleidoscope to Krystal Effect Translator utility consists of:

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These files can be acquired from the Tektronix/Grass Valley web page, or may be supplied on a 1.44 Mb floppy disk.

Requirements

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The utility program (TRANSL8), installer (INSTALL), and Kaleidoscope unity keyframe (DEFAULT.KFR) files.

Installation and Operation Instructions (this document TP0864-00-A2)

The Kaleidoscope to Krystal Effect Translator utility minimum requirements are:

• 486 PC

• 8 Mb RAM

• 8 Mb available disk space on the C: drive.

• Windows 95 version 4.0 or later.

Kaleidoscope uses 720K disks. Krystal uses 1.44M disks but supports

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720K disks. On 720K disks with few effects, you can convert the files onto the same disk.

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Krystal files created with this utility program are compatible with Krystal Release 2.3.0 and higher software.

Kaleidoscope to Krystal Effect Translator

Installation

Web Site Acquisition

If you downloaded the software from the web page you will have a single file (CONVERT.EXE) that contains the software and documentation in a compressed archive format. To unpack the archive simply execute it. This extracts the various files from the archive and uncompresses them. Save the files to a floppy disk and label the disk. You can now install the software from the floppy disk onto your computer, using the procedure described below. Save the floppy disk copy as a back up, and to allow easy installation onto other computers.

Program Installation

The Kaleidoscope to Krystal Effect Translator program is installed into a new directory. To install the program:

1. Insert the floppy disk into the computer’s A: or B: drive.

2. Open the Windows Run window (select “Start”, “Run”).

3. Type A: INSTALL (or B:INSTALL), the select “OK” or press the “Enter” key. An installation window appears (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Krystal Translator Installation Screen

4. Click the “Install” button to create the directory and install the program into the default directory (C:\KryTrans\), or you can enter a path and different directory name, if you wish.

5. A progress bar will appear as the files are being installed. After a few seconds the message “Krystal Translator Load Successful!” appears. Click the “OK” button on this window.

6. Remove the floppy disk from the drive.

Because the installation process does not use DLLs, no changes will be made to your Windows configuration and initialization files. Because of this simplified installation process, the installed utility program will not appear in the Windows 95 “Programs” window.

To remove the application from the computer, simply delete the directory containing the installed program files.

General Operation

Kaleidoscope to Krystal Effect Translator

Startup

The Kaleidoscope to Krystal effect conversion process consists of the following steps:

Select where the files to be converted are located.

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Select the specific files to be converted.

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Select a location to save the converted files.

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Assign names to the converted files, if desired, or you can use default names.

Perform the file conversion.

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Several options are provided to add flexibility to the process.

You can start the Kaleidoscope to Krystal Effect Translator utility two different ways:

1. If the default installation was used, you can double click “My Computer”, “C: drive”, “KryTrans\” to open the directory containing the program. Otherwise use standard Windows techniques to open the directory. Then double click on the “Transl8” icon.

2. Alternatively, you can select “Start”, “Run”, type the path to the Transl8 file (the default path is C:\KryTrans\transl8), then click the “Run” button.

Kaleidoscope to Krystal Effect Translator

NOTE:

program operation. This file contains Kaleidoscope unity keyframe information used by the program during file translation.

To perform your conversions, you will need the Kaleidoscope effect files either on floppy disk or on a drive the computer can access. If you have many files to convert, you will want additional 1.44 Mb formatted floppy disks to receive the files.

User Interface

The Kaleidoscope to Krystal Effect Translator program has a simple, single screen user interface that employs standard Windows operating methods (Figure 2).

The DEFAULT.KFR file located in this directory is required for translator

Figure 2. Kaleidoscope to Krystal Effect Translator User Interface Screen

About

You can click on the About button to open a window showing the version number of the translator software.

Source File Location

Source Disk

Three standard disk selections can be made for the source disk (A:, B:, C:). Each is mutually exclusive and the selection is reflected in the Source Path name. If the desired disk is not one of the selectable options, you can change the disk name by editing the source path (see below).

Kaleidoscope to Krystal Effect Translator

Source Path

After selecting a source disk, the path name can be modified by moving the mouse to the Source Path window and pressing the left mouse button. You can now enter a source path to the effect files to be converted, if necessary. If the last character typed is not a backslash '\', this character is automatically inserted when the disk files are retrieved.

If the desired source disk is not one of the selectable options, you can use the left arrow to move the cursor to the drive letter, delete it, and type in the desired replacement. Then enter the remainder of the path, if necessary.

After you have specified the source drive and path, press the Enter key with the cursor in the Source Path field. This tells the converter to retrieve the files. All the files at that location will be displayed in the Kaleidoscope Files window.

Source File Selection

You select files for conversion from those listed in the Kaleidoscope Files window. Use the mouse to move to a file name and press the left mouse button. The file name will change color indicating that file has been selected. More than one file can be selected at a time, and you can also deselect files by clicking on them.

All

The All selection button selects all files in the list. Even if you don’t need to convert all the files, it is sometimes easier to select all the files and then deselect the files not needed.

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