MacroSystem PIP-Studio User Manual

PIP-Studio

for the Casablanca Avio

and the Casablanca Kron

User's Manual

Safety notice

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

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

We have taken a great deal of care whilst programming and checking this software. Never­theless, since it is not possible to guarantee totally error-free software applications in all
environments and at any time, we unfortunately cannot rule out the possibility that some
errors may have crept in. If, contrary to all expectations, this is indeed the case, we will rem­edy any errors in the program and supply the affected customers with the new software free
of charge. We cannot, however, accept any liability for loss of data/time or any consequential
damages that may occur as a result, particularly since we have no influence over correct
software installation and operation by the customer. MacroSystem Digital Video AG and its
dealers therefore cannot be held liable for any defects or unintentional damage in connection
with the installation or use of the PIP-Studio program.

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

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

Neither MacroSystem Digital Video AG nor its dealers are responsible for any damages
resulting 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 ..............................................................................................................1.1

Installation.........................................................................................................1.1

What is PIP-Studio? ..........................................................................................1. 3

Sample Tutorials ...............................................................................................1 . 5

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

1. Personal Logo......................................................................................1 . 5

2. Personal Logo II...................................................................................2. 1

3. Moving scenes in front of a background.............................................3.1

4. Moving scenes within the video footage .............................................4. 1

5. Circling scenes within the video footage ............................................5. 1

6. Moving scenes in various sizes...........................................................6.1

1.1

General

Thank you for purchasing PIP-Studio from
your Casablanca dealer.

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

PIP-Studio enhances the power of your
Casablanca system.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you
have any further questions or wish to provide
us with suggestions for improvement. To do
so, please use the address and/or telephone
number printed in your Casablanca Avio or
Casablanca Kron (hereafter referred to col­lectively as “Casablanca II”) manual.

We kindly ask you to provide the serial num­ber of your unit or your customer number
whenever you contact us.

Installation

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

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

You can look up your system version using
the 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 installa­tion card into the Casablanca’s SmartMedia
drive. When you insert it, make sure the
gold-colored contacts are facing downwards
and the clipped-off corner is pointing towards
the front and left (i.e. towards the Casa­blanca II).

Push in the card until only around half a
centimeter remains protruding from the unit
and you feel some resistance. You will now
see the PIP-Studio program listed in the
window.

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

1.2

1.3

What is PIP-Studio?

The PIP-Studio program is based on the
Casablanca’s popular Picture-in-Picture
feature but this enhanced program offers
numerous additional functions that provide
you with a whole range of different options.

The software will let you place a scene any­where within another scene and inside vari­ous different shapes. Let your scenes fly in
and out of the picture or allow them to fade in
and out anywhere you like!

PIP-Studio comes with twelve different
shapes (e.g. rectangle, circle, heart) within
which your video scenes can appear. The
shapes can be sized and freely positioned to
suit your requirements.

You can also adjust the shadow or configure
the transparency and blur properties of the
picture, border and shadow separately. Let
your imagination run wild!

time. The only exception to this is the PIP
that is displayed whilst an effect is being
edited.

You can choose whether you want to display
a PIP on a video background or place two
PIPs on a patterned or colored background.
In the first case, the background video is
defined as a full-screen image by default. In
the second case, you can configure all the
parameters for both PIPs independently from
one another. This method gives you consid­erably more options but requires more com­putation time.

If you make changes to the PIP (e.g. adjust­ments to size, position, border or shadow),
the PIP will always be displayed within a
rectangle in preview mode. Once you have
finished making changes to the parameters,
the PIP will be recalculated immediately
using the new settings and displayed in its
final form.

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 the
video scene or video picture that overlays
your background video. So, generally speak­ing, PIP is the small superimposed picture.

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

You can freely choose the length of the fade­in and fade-out times. The length of the hold­time arises from the fade-in and fade-out
times and the length of the transition effect.

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

1.4

1.5

Sample tutorials:

The following tutorials are intended to help
you familiarize yourself with the PIP-Studio
program’s various buttons and their func­tions.

Of course, our suggested settings only repre­sent a small sample of the many variations
available. When working through the ex­amples, we recommend that you keep to our
suggestions and the sequence of working
steps so that you will more easily understand
the explanations of how the various options
work.

Please follow us through these instructions
button by button. You will soon discover just
how easy it is. We definitely advise you to
work through the examples several times so
that you quickly learn how to use PIP-Studio
with confidence.

You can, of course, later replace our sug­gested settings with your own ones. You will
soon see that just a few minor changes
provide a whole wealth of variants and will
distinctly influence the results achieved.

1) Personal Logo

This tutorial will allow you to superimpose
your own personal logo onto the video foot­age.

If you regularly use footage in your Casa­blanca that you recorded from television, you
will no doubt sometimes have wished that
the TV channel’s logo did not appear in the
material. Up until now, you’ve only had the
option of using various programs or tricks to
retouch and remove the logo. But now you
have the ability to cover it up with your own
personal logo.

You can of course also use PIP-Studio to
superimpose your logo over your own foot­age so that your films become unmistakably
“yours.”

That probably sounds complicated at first but
it is actually very simple to do using PIP­Studio and is an ideal introduction to the
program. We will only introduce you to a few
buttons in this first example. Later tutorials
will go into greater detail.

The given length of the scenes can of course
also be varied. In this manual we have re­stricted ourselves to using only short scenes
so that the examples can be calculated and
displayed more quickly.

You will be introduced to the program’s inter­face in the first tutorial (entitled “Personal
Logo”), in which you will practice making a
few adjustments to the settings. This ex­ample is highly detailed and contains many
program screenshots (i.e. examples of what
you will see on-screen) to help you recognize
which functions you are working with and find
your way around more easily.

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

The second scene should be of the same
length and contain material that you would
like to use as your logo. Use, for instance,
your initials on a textured background. (To do
so, create a 10-second long scene in the
New Scene menu, add it to the storyboard,
create the required letters of your initials
using the “Pages” title effect in the Titling
menu and allow the title effect to be calcu­lated.

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

1.6

Edit screen. Now, in the storyboard that is
located in the Edit screen, replace the previ­ous mask scene with this new one. If your
system is a Casablanca Avio without a
Scene function, you can also let the scene
containing the calculated title effect be
placed in the storyboard.)

In the storyboard you will now first see the
scene containing your video footage and
then the scene containing your logo – both
are 10 seconds long.

Hintergrundsze

Note: Please note that the background
scene is always represented by the footage
located on the left in the storyboard and that
the second (i.e. right-hand) scene repre­sents the PIP.

Open the Transition Effects menu and select
PIP-Studio from the list of effects. Insert the
effect between the two scenes and, using the
x s button, set the effect duration parameter
to 10 seconds, i.e. the entire duration of both
scenes.

Now launch the program using the Launch
PIP-Studio button. In a few moments, you
will see your first scene (i.e. your video foot­age) as the background picture, and your
second scene (your logo) in a small picture
superimposed on the background scene.

You’ll see the program toolbar located at the
bottom edge of the screen. You can now
start positioning your logo.

If you find that the toolbar is obscuring your
view, you can use the arrow button (bottom
left in the toolbar) to move it to the top edge
of the screen or use the minimize button
located above it to turn off the toolbar (and
of course turn it back on again when you
need it). Make sure that the selector button
next to PIP is set to “Single.”

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

Now we have reached the actual design
stage of your logo. Click on Shape so that
the selector button opens up offering you a
list of twelve different shapes to choose
from. Now select Elliptic so that your logo
takes on the shape of an ellipse.

1.7

Next, click on Size to turn off the toolbar so
you can read the size in pixels at the bottom
edge of the screen. The size ranges from
0 x 0 to 636 x 520.

You will no doubt have noticed that your logo
is now framed by a rectangle again. This will
only happen (for technical reasons) whilst
you are changing various settings – thereaf­ter it will of course return to the shape that
you selected.

Now move the trackball and you will notice
the little box containing your logo moves as
well. If you roll the trackball to the right the
little box increases in size, if you roll the
trackball to the left it shrinks.

After you have set the required size (let us
take, for instance, the size 172 x 140), click
on the left trackball button to confirm the size
setting and return to the toolbar. (Although
you can also return to the toolbar by pressing
the right trackball button, your size settings
will, however, not be applied.)

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

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

Now position your logo in the top left corner
but make sure that you don’t move it too far
off the edge of the screen! (If this does hap­pen, however, the screen display changes
and you will see a gray area.)

Since we won’t be going into this function in
this tutorial, move your ellipse back into the
displayed background picture. (Further infor­mation on this function can be found in Tuto­rial 6.)

1.8

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

Select the color blue with an alpha value of
100% (i.e. not transparent) and confirm these
settings. Now click on the next button (Size)
to activate the slider control.

As you can see, you can adjust the thickness
of the border to between 0 and 40. Select a
setting of 5 here.

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

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

Now you have already placed your elliptically
shaped logo in the top left corner and config­ured its size settings. The next button is
labeled “Border.” Click on it to replace the
existing toolbar with a new one. This new
toolbar contains settings that refer to the
border that is displayed in the top right corner
of the toolbar.

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

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

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

1.9

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

After having made these settings changes,
you will finally see the Preview button. Click
on it and you will see a small window appear
superimposed on the PIP-Studio program.
The window contains a preview of the scene
sequence with the applied settings that you
adjusted.

Last, you will also see the Archive button in
this program. You can use it to save and load
settings.

If you click on Archive you will see the Load,

Save, Delete and Cancel buttons.

the configured settings again later on for a
totally different PIP. However, for editing,
calculating and later changing this current
PIP, all the relevant displays are automati­cally saved and are applied again at the next
start without you having to use the archive
function.)

You can now let the system calculate the
effect in the Transition Effects menu and then
sit back and watch this example scene at
your leisure.

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

Now confirm with OK and close the program
by clicking on the Transition Effects menu
symbol in the bottom right corner. (If neces­sary, read about how to use the archive in
the standard Casablanca II manual. You only
need to use the archive if you want to use

1.10