User Manual

Introduction

Quite basically, Instant Video Suite enables you:

• To record, generate and Publish Top-notch, Full-Motion Streaming Video presentations embedded in a web page ready to put on your web site without any special skills.
  
• To record your desktop activity and generate Full-Motion stunning multimedia presentations right from your computer.

You can choose to save the files produced in the standard AVI (Audio Video Interleave) format, or you can choose to have them generated as SWF (flash) file already embedded in a HTML page.

It also gives you the ability to convert AVI files to SWF files with just a few clicks.

Why do you need Instant Video Suite?

• Dramatically increase sales conversion - by presenting stunning sales messages as streaming video on your web site without any prior experience
• Training - show your users exactly what you want them to see, hear or do
• Customer satisfaction - Provide help files illustrating how to use your product (hence reducing refunds and customer support issues.
  
  ...the uses are as diverse as peoples' needs.

First some basics...

To start recording, click the red button
A rectangle will appear for you to select the area you want to record

When you want to stop recording, click the blue stop button
A dialog will appear for you to name and save the file

To pause a recording to adjust your screen, click the pause button
You can resume recording by clicking on the record button again

In general the default settings are the best to use Instant Video Suite. You do not need to change anything to use it. Just click on a menu to launch the application and you are ready to start recording.

This manual is meant to provide more information on how it works and provide advanced users with the options of tweaking their preferred options.

System Requirements

• Microsoft Windows 98, Me, NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista
• 400 MHz processor
• 64 MB recommended
• 4 MB of hard-disk space for program installation

Contents

Setting Regions
Video Basics
Setting Video Options
Setting Cursor Options
Recording Audio from Microphone
Setting Audio Options for Microphone
Recording Audio from Speakers
Setting Audio Options for Speakers
Enable Autopan
Program Options
Keyboard Shortcuts
Screen Annotations
IVS VideoCam
Audio and Video Synchronization
Quality and Performance of the Recording
Producing Flash (SWF) Files
Controlling Quality of the Flash File

Setting Regions

From the main menu on IVS ScreenCam, choose Regions->Region or Fixed Region or Full Screen


You should set the Input Region before recording. This allows you to define the area and type of video capture. From the main menu on IVS ScreenCam, choose Region. There are 3 types of regions you can choose:

1. Region
   Before recording starts, you can define an arbitrary rectangular region with the mouse. The cursor turns into a pen on cross-hairs, which you use to define a rectangular region on your screen by click-dragging the left mouse button.
   
2. Fixed Region… 
   You can capture a fixed-size rectangular region. A dialog allows you to define the size of the region in pixels.
   
   
   If the Fixed Top-Left Corner checkbox is not selected:
   Before the recording starts, you can move the fixed-size region around the screen to determine where you want the input area to be. To cancel recording, you can click the right mouse button.
   
   If the Fixed Top-Left Corner checkbox is selected:
   Recording will start immediately when the Record Button  is clicked. The region of capture is specified by the Left, Top, Width and Height values of the dialog above.
   
   If the Drag Corners to Pan checkbox is selected:
   You can drag either one of the four corners of the recording region (indicated by the flashing rectangle) with your mouse during recording. The mouse cursor will change to a four-pointed arrow when it is over one of the corners. When this happens, click and drag the region to the new location.
   
3. Screen 
   The entire computer screen is captured.

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Video Basics

When you record a movie using Instant Video Suite, you are actually saving a sequence of bitmaps (known as frames), that, when displayed in rapid succession, exhibit motion.

If more frames are recorded per second, the resultant animation will also be smoother. However, this will also cause the file size of the movie to be much larger.

In the process of recording, Instant Video Suite allows you to specify two video rates: the input rate and output rate.
- The input rate tells your computer how many frames to record per second.
- The output rate tells your computer how fast to play them back. Usually, these two rates are equal, so that the time of playback is equal to the time used in the recording.

However, these two rates can also be different. Normally, you do this only if you want to create a time-lapse movie. For example, you can capture a frame once every hour and play the frames back at 20 frames per second.

The default value is set at 20 frames per second for the output (playback) rate and 20 frames per second (corresponding to 50 milliseconds sleep time) for the input /capture rate.

There is also a third rate: known as the keyframe rate. When a frame is saved in an AVI file, they can either be saved as a full frame, or only as a difference to the previous frame. This keyframe rate specifies how often full frames are written to the AVI file. A high value means you can fast forward/rewind to a particular frame in your movie much faster. But it also means a larger file size.

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Setting Video Options

From the main menu on IVS ScreenCam, choose Options->Video Options


Setting the video options allows you to optimize your video recordings by choosing between the file size, quality and frame rates of your video files.

Auto Adjust
Use the Auto Adjust settings to set the Key Frame Rate, Capture Rate and Playback Rate automatically through the slider. Shift the slider to the left to increase the frame rate and to the right to reduce file size. If the slider is situated at the right of the Time Lapse indicator, it means you are creating a time-lapse movie.

In Time Lapse mode, Instant Video Suite will usually capture a frame only after a long period of time. (Example: after every 30 seconds). However, during playback, the frames will be displayed more quickly. (Example: at 20 frames per second).

Compressor
The Compressor select-box allows you to select the encoder for your AVI file. An encoder compresses your AVI files to make them smaller in size and cause them to play faster. The default setting is the MS Video 1 compressor.

Configure
Click this button to configure the parameters of your selected compressor. The parameters for each compressor is different and some settings will cause Instant Video Suite’s performance to degrade or behave unpredictably. For some compressors, clicking this button will not have any effect.

Quality
The quality setting determines how nicely your picture is saved. A lower value means a lower picture quality but also a smaller file size. Only some compressors use this value.

Set Key Frames Every
This setting specifies the keyframe rate. When a frame is saved in an AVI file, they can either be saved as a full frame, or only partially as a difference to the previous frame. The keyframe rate specifies how often full frames are written to the AVI file. A high value means you can fast forward/rewind to a particular frame in your movie much faster. But it also means a higher file size.

Capture Frames Every
This field determines the input frame rate. It dictates how long the Instant Video Suite will ‘sleep’ after capturing each frame. One millisecond is 1/1000 of a second.

If you set this to a large value (for example 1 hour, or 3,600,000 milliseconds), you practically create a time-lapse movie. Instant Video Suite will actually ‘sit and watch’ for activities on the screen that takes a long time to occur and take a snapshot (say, only once every hour).

Playback Rate 
This field determines the output frame rate. It specifies how many frames are played back per second. A higher value means a smoother playback. Typical values of 20 – 30 frames per seconds are adequate for most purposes.

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Setting Cursor Options

From the main menu on IVS ScreenCam, choose Options->Cursor Options



Setting cursor options can help illustrate the action you are recording by drawing attention to the area where the action happens. The following cursor effects can be selected:

Hide Cursor
The cursor will be hidden during screen capture

Show Cursor
Use Actual Cursor – The actual shape and position of the cursor will be recorded during screen capture.

Use Custom Cursor – Replace the recorded cursor with a customized one.

Use Cursor From File - Replace the recorded cursor with a cursor that is loaded from file.

Highlight Cursor
When this option is selected, the recorded cursor will have a highlight area around it. This helps in calling attention to the movements of the cursor. You can set the shape, size and color of the highlight area.

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Recording Audio from Microphone

From the main menu on IVS ScreenCam, choose Options->Record audio from microphone

You can add a soundtrack to your movie by selecting this option. When enabled, Instant Video Suite will record your voice input from the microphone while it is capturing video. You need a sound card with an attached microphone to use this option.

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Setting Audio Options for Microphone

From the main menu on IVS ScreenCam, choose Options->Audio Options->Audio Options for Microphone)

Use this dialog box to set the recording format and compressed format of your audio.

Recording Format -- The recording format is the format your soundcard use to record your voice from the microphone. Its main attributes are samples per second (measured in kHz), mono/stereo input, and bits per sample (usually 8 or 16 bit). Larger values for samples per second and bits per sample will result in better recording quality, but at the expense of the movie file size.

Compressed Format -- This is the format that will be saved with your movie file. You can click on the “Choose Compressed Format” button to select another compressed format. After recording your movie, Instant Video Suite will attempt to convert your audio from the recording format to the compressed one. 

Your choices for the compressed format are determined by the recording format. If you change your recording format, the compressed format will also change automatically.

Interleave Video and Audio – Interleave your audio and video for smoother playback on a slow device such as CD-ROM. This will also allow better synchronization of your video and sound content. The interleave factor determines the amount of interleaving in your movie. Normally, this value is specified in number of frames. A value of 1 frame will mean full interleave. Larger values will mean less interleaving.

You can also specify the Interleave factor in milliseconds. If you choose to Interleave a movie every 100ms for a movie with a capture rate of 200 frames per second (Capture Frames Every 5 milliseconds), the Interleave factor will be equivalent to Interleave every 20 frames.

Volume - Use this to adjust the input volume of your microphone if your recorded audio is barely audible. If Instant Video Suite is unable to locate your volume control, you will need to adjust the volume manually through Start : Programs : Accessories: Entertainment : Volume Control.

Please note that some configurations of the Recording and Compressed format will result in the audio recording becoming choppy or inaudible.

Some sound card disallows your system to record while another application is playing sound. In this case Instant Video Suite will issue an error when you attempt to record with the “Record Audio” option being enabled.

Use system method for audio recording

If you set this checkbox, Instant Video Suite will use certain system commands (MCI commands) to perform the recording of audio from your microphone. This method is more stable and may give better sound quality in some systems.

If you experience low audio quality when recording from Instant Video Suite, but managed to obtain high quality recordings from your system's Sound Recorder, you may want to consider setting this option.

Important
Instant Video Suite will ignore all other settings in the Options for Microphone dialog box (except for the Audio Video Interleave setting) if you choose this setting.

Instead, to adjust the recording source, you will need to set it externally in the Control Panel->(for Win XP) Sounds and Audio Device->(Audio Tab)->Default Recording Device.

If you set the external recording source to a non-soundcard device (e.g webcam microphone), you will need to set it back to your soundcard when you want to record sound from speakers.

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Recording Audio from Speakers

From the main menu on IVS ScreenCam, choose Options->Record audio from speakers



By selecting this option, Instant Video Suite will record the output from your speakers while it is capturing video. This is ideal for recording a gaming session or a movie stream. You will need a sound card with speakers attached to use this option.

Please note that not all soundcards support this function. (Most modern and branded soundcards usually allows you to record from your speakers).

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Setting Audio Options for Speakers

From the main menu on IVS ScreenCam, choose Options->Audio Options->Audio Options for Speakers



Most of the time, you only need to adjust the Playback Volume and Recording Volume.

Playback Volume
The Playback Volume controls the volume of your speakers. The sound signals going to your speakers and can originate from a variety of sources. Examples include sound from CD, Microphone, MIDI playback and Wave playback.

Recording Volume
The Recording Volume controls the volume of the recording line.

Important: For a good quality recording, it is important that both the Playback Volume and Recording Volume are not set too high.

Recording Line Configuration
In order for Instant Video Suite to record sound from your speakers, it has to search your soundcard for the appropriate line to use. Failure to find the line simply means that Instant Video Suite is unable to record from your speakers. Some soundcards do not support this capability.

The searching is usually done automatically when you click Options > Record Audio > Record from speakers. However, if that does not work, you will have to use one of the two methods provided by Instant Video Suite below to carry out additional searching.

By clicking the Automatic Search button, Instant Video Suite will play a few tones and attempt to automatically detect the line.

If you select the Manual Search button, Instant Video Suite will ask you a few questions on whether you have heard a tone when a particular line is used. You will need to turn on your speakers and listen carefully.

Note:
Normally, you do not need to perform a search at all because Instant Video Suite will automatically do that for you when you choose the Record Audio from Speakers option.

Please make sure that the Default Recording Device and Default Playback Device is set correctly to your soundcard. Instant Video Suite makes use of certain recording functions that depend on this two devices being properly set. These can be accessed in Control Panel :: Sounds and Audio Devices :: Audio (Tab) in Win XP. If you have only one soundcard installed in your system, and have not installed other virtual sound devices, you usually do not need to be worried about this.

If the recording is set incorrectly, you will not get any audio from your speakers.

If you are unable to find a line after the Automatic Search and Manual Search, chances are that your soundcard do not support this function. Please ensure you have installed the latest soundcard drivers to take advantage of this feature.

Soundcard Device
For most users, the Soundcard Device will already be pointing correctly at your soundcard. However, if it isn’t or if your system has more than one soundcard, you will need to set it to the correct one.

If the soundcard device is changed, the recording line will no longer be valid and you will need to perform a manual/automatic search for the line

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Enable Autopan

From the main menu on IVS ScreenCam, choose Options->Enable Autopan

If this option is selected, the capture area will follow the cursor to wherever it goes during recording. This has the effect of making the screen capture to occur at the region with the most action.

Autopan Speed
From the main menu on IVS ScreenCam, choose Options->Autopan Speed



Use this to control the maximum speed at which the capture area follows the mouse. The value is measured in screen pixels.

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Program Options

From the main menu on IVS ScreenCam, choose Options->Program Options

Use the program options to customize the way the program behave when it starts/stops recording. A tick beside the menu items indicates that option is enabled.

Minimize program on start recording
Hide flashing rectangle during recording
Save Settings on Exit
Capture translucent/layered windows
Play AVI file when recording stops >>
Temporary directory for recording >>
Recording Thread Priority >>
Name of AVI >> 
Troubleshoot …

Save Settings on Exit
The Save Settings on Exit option allows you to save the program settings when you exit. These settings will be loaded the next time you launch Instant Video Suite.

If you run Instant Video Suite and find that it does not work as well as in previous sessions, most likely your saved settings is not tuned very well or is corrupted. You may want to reset your settings by turning off the Save Settings on Exit option, exit Instant Video Suite, and launch Instant Video Suite again.

Minimizing Instant Video Suite
Instant Video Suite is minimized to the system tray instead of the taskbar. To restore Instant Video Suite, double click its icon in the system tray.

Play AVI file when recording stops
In here, you can choose to
- Do nothing when the recording stops.
- Play the AVI file when the recording stops (using IVS Player).
- Play the AVI file when the recording stops (using your system’s default player).

Capture translucent/layered windows
In Windows 2000 or XP, there are certain windows that are translucent/layered and cannot be captured without turning this option on. An example is the Office Assistant in Office 2000.

Temporary directory for recording
Instant Video Suite creates temporary files while it is performing recording. These temporary files can become very large and crash your system if your system ran out of disk space.

You can set the directory for placing your temporary files by selecting one of these:
- Windows Temporary Directory (Usually C:\Windows\Temp) 
- Installed Directory of Instant Video Suite (Usually C:\Program Files\Instant Video Suite) 
- User Specified Directory

If you are using the User Specified Directory, you should always choose a directory that resides in the drive with the largest free space.

Recording Thread Priority
Some programs, when set as the active window, use the system resources so heavily that they cause Instant Video Suite to be unusable. The frame rate in these cases drop to 0 - 5 frames per second (even if only a small region is being captured). Examples include some DirectX games or CPU intensive simulations.

To improve the performance of Instant Video Suite at the expense of these programs, you can set the recording priority of Instant Video Suite to Highest or Time Critical. However, doing this may also affect the performance of your whole system (For example, Windows may not respond to some mouse clicks on your Desktop). Therefore, for most cases, this option is best left at Normal.

Name of AVI
With auto-naming, you can now avoid giving a name to every AVI you record. The name of the file will have the following format 1422003_1520_26.avi and is saved in Instant Video Suite’s installed directory.

The name is formed using the system’s date and time of the recording. 1422003_1520_26.avi means the file is saved on 14th of February, 2003, 3.20 p.m (1520), at the 26th second.

Troubleshoot
This dialog allows you to diagnose and resolve some problems.

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Keyboard Shortcuts

From the main menu on IVS ScreenCam, choose Options->Keyboard Shortcuts



Use the above dialog box to customize your shortcut keys for starting, stopping or canceling your recording operation. 

You can also set your keys for displaying the Next Layout and Previous Layout. For more information on layouts, refer to the section on Screen Annotations below.

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Screen Annotations

From the main menu on IVS ScreenCam, choose Tools->Screen Annotations

The Screen Annotations feature allows you to add captions to your screen during recording. An example of a screen annotation is shown below:



You can display the Screen Annotations dialog box by clicking on the icon  or choose Tools->Screen Annotations From the main menu on IVS ScreenCam.


To instantiate the shape Orange Gradient, simply double click on it or drag it out of the Screen Annotations dialog box.

Screen annotations consist of two main components: Shapes and Layouts.

Shapes
A shape is just a floating window that will appear on top of all other windows on your desktop. An example is shown below.

• When you have finished editing the shape, you can save it with the Save command.
• The Close command will close / hide the shape on your desktop.
• The Close All command will close all shapes on your desktop.
• The Refresh command will redraw the shape.
• The Save Layout command will save all the shapes and their arrangement on your desktop into a layout. Please refer to the Layout section below for more information.

Editing Text
Select Edit Text from the context menu to change the text of the shape.



Notice the text is surrounded by a dotted rectangle after you have chosen the Edit Text command. You can move / resize the dotted rectangle by dragging it with your mouse.

Clicking on the Font Button allows you to choose the Font Name, Font Style (Bold, Italic, Underline) and Font Color of the shape’s text. The three buttons

is used for setting the alignment of text. The Choose Language / Encoding button allows you to choose an appropriate font for your language if it is non-Western (English, French, German etc). This feature is available only on Win 2000 / XP.

Editing Image
Select Edit Image from the context menu to change the text of the shape.


The cutout / transparent region allow you to create non-rectangular windows. It refers to the region that allows the background to show through. There are two methods to create a cutout region.

1) By Transparency Color

All areas of the image with the specified transparency color will be made transparent. For example, if the transparency color is Black, the image

will be transformed into

2) By using a predefined shape

Currently, the predefined shapes are round-rectangle, ellipse and rectangle. For example, a round-rectangle cutout region for the image

will be something like

For a predefined cutout region, you can add a border, and set the color and size of the border. You can set the Background color for a shape if the shape does not have an image.

Otherwise, you can click the Load New Image button to change the background image to a new file. The file formats that are accepted are bmp, gif and jpeg.

Editing Transparency
Select Edit Transparency from the context menu to change the shape’s transparency. This feature is available only in Win 2000 / XP.



Note that recording a transparent window will cause the frame rate to drop significantly. You will also have to enable the Program Options ::Capture Translucent / Layered Window setting for the shape to be properly captured into the AVI movie.

Resizing Shapes
Select Resize from the context menu to resize the shape.


Note that a shape with a large size will be drawn and displayed very slowly.

Managing and creating shapes
In the Screen Annotations dialog box, right click on an item to display a context menu for managing and creating shapes.



You can also rename a shape by choosing the Edit Shape Name command or selecting a shape and press F2.

You can rearrange the order of the shapes in the list by dragging a shape onto another. For example, to switch the order of the “Flat Text” and “Dialog”, simply drag “Dialog” onto the “Flat Text” item.

The Shape Library command lets you

1. Save all your existing shapes into a file
2. Load a shape library file into the Screen Annotations dialog box and
3. Create a new (empty) shape library
   

Note: In the event your default shape library file CamShapes.ini gets corrupted and is unable to load on startup, you can restore the default shapes by opening the file default.shapes in the installed directory of Instant Video Suite.

The New Shape command will launch a dialog box where you can specify the

1. Name of the new shape
2. Image of the new shape
3. Size of the new shape and its
4. Initial text
   

Layouts
A layout is just the arrangement of one or more shapes on your desktop. An example is shown below


You usually prepare all your layouts before recording starts. When you start recording, you will click a hotkey / shortcut key to cycle through the layouts to display the appropriate captions at the proper time.

You can mange your layout by clicking on the layout tab of the Screen Annotations dialog.

• Select a layout and right-click on it to display a context menu for managing the layouts.
• You can rename a layout by choosing the Edit Layout Name command or selecting a layout and press F2.
• You can rearrange the order of the layouts in the list by dragging a layout onto another. For example, to switch the order of the “Layout 1” and “Layout 2”, simply drag “Layout 1” onto the “Layout 2” item.

Instantiating a layout
You instantiate a layout by simply double click on the layout item or drag it out of the Screen Annotations dialog box. By doing so, all the shapes that are saved into the layout will be displayed on the desktop in their correct order and position.

Saving a layout
To save a layout, first, arrange your shapes in their correct position and order. Right click on any of the shapes to bring up a context menu, and select the Save Layout command.

Cycling through layouts
You can cycle through the layouts by clicking the Next Layout key in the Screen Annotations dialog box. Every click will close all existing shapes on the desktop and instantiate a new layout. Alternatively, you can use a hotkey / keyboard shortcuts to perform the cycling. To customize the keys for navigating the layouts, you can choose Options->Keyboard Shortcuts From the main menu on IVS ScreenCam or Objects->Layout Shortcuts from the Screen Annotations menu.

Layout shortcuts
- The keys for cycling through the layouts are
- Next Layout Key – key for displaying the next layout
- Previous Layout Key - key for displaying the previous layout
- Show / Hide Layout Key - key for showing / hiding the current layout

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IVS VideoCam

This feature requires a webcam to be installed on your system. The Video Annotations window is essentially a webcam window.

By placing a webcam window on your desktop, you can record its content along with other screen content when the webcam window is inside your recording region. You can also record just the video through your webcam.

The Video Annotation window does not only stream video content to your desktop. You can also add a text caption, make a cutout region, or set transparency values (Win 2000 / XP only) to the video annotation just like you did for screen annotations. To do so, right-click on the webcam window to display a menu like this


The Edit Text, Edit Image and Edit Transparency commands have already been covered in the section on Screen Annotations and will not be explained here.

Refresh Rate



The refresh rate indicates the number of times (frames) Instant Video Suite will attempt to capture an image from your webcam and display it on your screen. The actual rate will usually be much lesser, especially for large sized images.

Important

• Setting a high refresh rate will degrade the recordings of Instant Video Suite considerably. This is especially true if transparency is turned on. It has been observed that some dialog boxes will not appear when they are selected when the IVS Videocam window is shown. To stop the blocking of these dialog boxes, you will need to close the Video Annotation window first.
  
• The slowdown in the recording rate will be observed even if the IVS Videocam window is not inside the recording region. In fact, the presence of the IVS Videocam window will even affect the performance of other programs in your system. Therefore, it is highly advised that you close the IVS Videocam window when it is not needed.
  
• Sometimes, especially on slower systems, the video of the webcam images will appear to be slightly behind the audio track on playback. This is because the acquisition of an image and its display on the screen is quite demanding on your system resources. The computer will take some time to process the acquired image before showing it on the screen. This latency problem can usually be resolved by
  
  1) Choosing a smaller dimension for your video format or
  2) Shifting the video track slightly to align it with the audio track. More information can be found in the section Audio and Video Synchronization below.

Video Source
You can use the video source dialog to select your webcam or video source for the video annotation. You can also set the brightness, contrast, gain, exposure and other settings related to your webcam video.

Video Format
The video format dialog is used for selecting the dimensions of your webcam or video source image. You can also set the pixel depth and compression (e.g RGB24, RGB32) of your video.

Note: You are advised to choose a small dimension (e.g 160 x 120) for the video format, as a large sized format will slow down your system significantly.

The video source and video format dialog boxes will vary on different systems. Its implementation will very much depend on the vendor of your webcam.

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Audio and Video Synchronization

From the main menu on IVS ScreenCam, choose Options>Audio Options->Audio and Video Synchronization


If the video and audio track of your recording is not in phase during playback, you can try to shift a stream slightly to make them back in sync. This may happen if you are recording the output of a webcam. The amount of shift is measured in milliseconds, and the appropriate value for the shift can usually be determined after a few trail recordings with different time shift values.

Note : The dialog above only handles the case when the audio streams appear to go before the video.

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Quality and Performance of the Recording

Instant Video Suite creates a movie by sampling the screen on fixed-time intervals. If this sampling frequency is too slow, it may not be able to pick up some cursor movements if the mouse moves too fast. The result of this will be that the cursor will appear to jump, become jerky or even cannot be seen in the recorded movie. It is thus advisable to slow down your mouse movements during recording.

This sampling problem can also happen when you are recording a fast animation. If Instant Video Suite cannot record much faster than the changes in the animation, Instant Video Suite will miss out on some important data and the playback will not be smooth.

Frame Rates
The speed of your computer will directly affect the performance of Instant Video Suite. A slow CPU will unquestionably mean slower frame rates. For the best performance, use the fastest computer available for recording.

Apart from CPU speed, the following factors will also affect the performance of the recording:

1. Recording a movie that covers a large area.
2. Recording pictures that contain many colors in.
3. Running other applications during recording sessions.

File Size
An AVI file usually has a very large file size, especially for those lengthy and detailed videos. This is due to the fact that a video file has to pack hundreds and thousands of images into a single file. It is thus very common to have size exceeding one megabyte.

To reduce the size of the AVI file, you can do the following:

1. Limiting the area of the region being captured.
2. Limiting the (input) rate of which video frames are captured. This can be set in the Capture Frames Every field of Video Options
3. Changing the compressor and compression quality. By changing the compression quality, you are essentially making a tradeoff between picture quality and the file size.
   

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Producing Flash (SWF) Files

Instant Video Suite allows you to produce Flash files in two ways

1. Record directly to Flash
   To record directly to Flash, simply click the button to toggle the recording mode to . After that you may proceed in the same way as you record an AVI file.
   
   There are a few options that you can adjust prior to recording to Flash. These are accessed with the Options :: Record to Flash commands in the menu.
   
   
   The Preview SWF File upon completion instructs Instant Video Suite to display your Flash movie in a HTML file when the production is completed.
   
   The process of recording to SWF actually involves multiple steps. Instant Video Suite in fact record your screen activity to an intermediate AVI file first, before converting it to a Flash (SWF) file. The Delete the intermediate AVI file upon completion setting thus instructs Instant Video Suite to delete the intermediate AVI file when the conversion is completed. You may want to preserve the AVI file just in case you’ll like to edit it in an AVI editor, but that will take up plenty of space on your hard disk, as the format of the AVI is saved with minimal compression settings.
   
   The production an SWF file is affected by many parameters in the SWF Producer. These parameters are, by default, hidden from users, but may be revealed if you turn on the Display conversion options before generating SWF setting.
   
   
2. Convert an existing AVI file to Flash with the IVS SWF Producer
   The IVS SWF Producer converts an AVI file to SWF. This is actually a separate program that can function independently of the Instant Video Suite Screen Recorder.

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Controlling Quality of the Flash File

To convert a file, open the IVS SWF Producer, click on File -> Open. You can then browse your computer and open the AVI file.

To convert to flash, click on File -> Convert to SWF. It will then display a dialog box below where you can adjust some of the conversion parameters.

Filename - lets you indicate the name of the (.swf) to generate. You can choose a different filename by clicking on the Change button. The producer will also create an accompanying HTML file that will be opened when the conversion is completed. You can thus preview the .swf movie in your internet browser.

Video Properties - lets you specify the color display mode of the Flash movie. It can be 16bit or 32bit. A 16 bit movie will give a smaller file size, but may affect the display quality slightly.

When the SWF Producer converts the AVI, it actually behaves like a player that plays back the AVI and re-samples / re-captures the frames at fix periods of time. The Sample rate is the number of frames that is sampled every second. This rate is also used in the playback of the Flash (.swf) movie. A higher rate will result in a smoother playback, but a large value is not necessary if the original AVI itself is not playing at high speed.

The Producer generates Flash movie frames using a temporal compression algorithm. To save space, it does not save every frame for each frame it samples or captures. Instead, the difference between the current frame and the previous frame is stored. The Producer thus periodically store a full frame (Keyframe) followed by a number of difference frames (Intermediate Frames). The Keyframe Rate indicates the number of Intermediate Frames that will follow each Keyframe. A higher value usually means higher compression.

Audio Properties - lets you Encode the Audio to the Flash movie if there is an audio track in the AVI. You can encode it without compression (PCM) or with compression (ADPCM).

Please note
The audio track in the original AVI may already be compressed in some format that is incompatible with Flash (e.g CCITT u-law or CCITT A-law ). In this case, Instant Video Suite Producer will attempt to convert it to PCM and then reconvert to, say ADPCM, before actually saving the sound stream to the Flash file.

Sometimes, the audio conversion stage indicated above may fail. You may get error messages such as “Error Opening Audio File for Conversion”. In this case, you can solve this by pre-converting the audio track in the AVI file to the PCM format. This can easily be achieved with a third party video editor (such as VirtualDub).

Behavior - The Add Player Controls item, when checked, will add a play, stop and pause button to the Flash movie.

The Loop item will cause the Flash movie to go back to the 1st frame when it has finished playing. Otherwise, it will stop at the last frame.

The Autostart item will cause the Flash movie to play automatically when launched. If this item is turned off, you will need to add player controls to the Flash movie. Otherwise, the Flash movie will always stop at the 1st frame and there is no provision (no play button) for users to play it.

If Loop is selected, but AutoStart is turned off, the Flash movie, when it has finished playing, will go the 1st frame and stop there.

The Add Preloader + Progressbar checkbox adds a “Loading … “ message to the SWF file. A progress bar at the bottom indicates the fraction of loading that is completed.

If you select the Produce raw movie checkbox, Instant Video Suite will produce a linear SWF file without the Preloader and Player buttons. For advanced users, this raw movie can be loaded / enhanced by the Flash MX editor (assuming you know how to use it).

SWF Interface Parameters


This panel allows you to customize the message that the preloader displays when the SWF file is being loaded. The default message is “Loading …”, but you can easily translate the message into a different language by choosing another bitmap. Alternatively, using your company’s logo as the preloader image may give the Flash file a professional touch.

When the Flash Player has downloaded a SWF file partially, it will start playing the movie. The Percentage of movie to preload refers to the fraction of the movie that will be loaded before the playing starts.

If you want to make the dimension of the Flash file to be larger than the dimension of the AVI movie, you can specify a non-zero width and height for the borders around the movie. The borders are, by default, white in color. However, if you need to match colors with your custom controller (i.e custom play buttons etc.), you can change the border colors by clicking the “Background Color” button.

If you want to customize the graphics for the controller interface, you can do so by editing the bitmap files in the <Instant Video Suite Installation Folder>//controller directory. You are advised to use graphics with the same dimensions as the original bitmaps. Otherwise you will need to edit the Controller.ini file (in the //controller subfolder) with a text editor.

Advanced Conversion Parameters


The Manage Flash Player Memory will reduce unnecessary memory usage. It achieves this by freeing objects / frames that have already been displayed. However, because of this, movies with the “Loop” option will need to reload every time they have completed playing.

If your AVI file is very large, Instant Video Suite will not be able to squeeze all the information into a SWF file. This is due to the 16000 frame limit imposed by the Flash player. In this case, Instant Video Suite will split your movie into several SWF files that are chained together. For deployment, you will need to upload all the SWF files to your server.

You have the option not to chain the SWFs together if you are creating an external SWF file that will load and manage them. This assumes you are very experienced in using actionscripts in the Flash MX editor and is thus not covered in this help file.

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