| I saw the scala Demo. It seemed impressive for sure, but I did not have
time to play with it. I liked the background of satin cloth that they
used. Pro Video Post is not the same gender program, while Scala is a
presentation package PVP is strictly a Charecter Generator. Were
talking apples and oranges here. If you want video titling then PVP,
or Broadcast titler II would be the way to go. If you want corporate
presentations Scala may be a good choice. I like BT for titling. At
present I own both PVP, and BT. I saw yet another new video program on
the Shelf last week(can't recall name). It appears that many people are
viewing video,and presentation in the same light while I see two distinct
applications that can be merged when needed.
bill
|
| Bill,
Thanks for your input. I'm confused. What is the difference between a
"presentation program" and a "character generator" or video titler?
What makes one an orange and the other an apple? I'm new to the Amiga,
so I'm looking forward to your reply.
Why can't SCALA do video titling? I can genlock its text on top of video,
or put the text on one of their spiffy backgrounds (yes, I agree the satin
is definitely sexy!). There are more transitions for the text than I would
possibly need.... not only can you choose transitions for the pages of
text, but also you can choose transitions for each line of text, along with
speed adjustments, etc.
Is it the anti-aliasing that makes PVP and BT so good for video titling?
As I mentioned before, SCALA's next release will anti-alias Amiga fonts.
Another thing I really like about SCALA is the "move" mode... click on the
MOVE button and then just drag lines of text around on the screen with the
mouse to put them wherever you want them.
Also, SCALA supports anims. Is that why you call it a "presentation"
package rather than a titler?
I appreciate the demo you gave me of the Kara fonts... do these work in
both BT and PVP? Also, do the AnimFonts also work in both BT and PVP?
I understand that ProVideo Post is the latest version of this software
package. Is BT the latest version, or is there a "pro" version of that,
also?
|
| Dave,
You could certainly use scala for titling in the manner which you
discribed, but this 'does not a video titler make'. You can also drive
a nail with a tack hammer. While scala will display screen of
text,graphics or whatever with different transactions, and if you were
to overlay say a screen of text you could TITLE a video. However you
do not have the controll a true Video Titler has. When I want to use
BT, or PVP to title a video I can take your approach of generating
graphic screens,and transistioning between them. BT allows each line
to have a 16 color pallette of it's own plus each line can have a
seperate transistion. You build your pages,and then you can run through
them in several seperate ways.(ie mouse controll, automatically etc)
EACH page will be displayed smoothly a line at a time if you want it
to. For adding scripts I can create a text file, create my first page
setting the speed of the scroll, fonts, font size etc. I feed this into
BT and it generates the proper number of pages needed to display the
credits. What I don't get is support for sound, anims etc. The last
film I credited was no problem. As the film ended all the cast was on
stage singing a song, and the mc was telling other to join in. As this
was happening I scrolled the credits over the live video. It is very
much what you see at the end of the games shows on TV. I introduced
the show by setting up the text and graphics much as your talking about
and genlocking that over the crowd with the noise of the crowd for
background sound. BT, and PVP will also make it easier to work live
with TV broacast if the need arises(IE: the donations crawling across
the screen on telephons). There is a program called "Credit Text
Scroller" that will take in a text file,and using the color,size, ect
create an anim file for playback in any program that supports anims.
There is also one in the PD called "Title Gen" I think. Ed Doyle
mentioned it a long time ago. PVP is at present the top of the line
offered by Serriff Systems,and BroadCast Titler II is the latest
release.
bill
PS. I was talking to the owner of Channel 13 in Nashua. They have been
using an Amiga 1000 with PVP for over four years now. He said the Amiga
was a life saver for him.
|
| Bill brought in the two SCALA demo disks, so I LHWARP'ed them and
they're available on CRISTA""::AMIGA: as,
SCALA-DEMO1.LHW 811
SCALA-DEMO2.LHW 979
Even though they are "normal" ADOS disks, I used the "-m" (ignore
disk bitmap) just to be on the safe side (having been burnt before
by *not* using it).
After unpacking, you should end up with two floppies labeled "SCALA" and
"ScalaScripts1". Boot the former and it will autoload the demo. You can
create new scripts (upto 10 steps) or load the samples from the scripts
disk. Also, all the support files for the sample scripts (backgrounds,
anims, etc.) are on the Scripts disk. I'm not sure of the memory
requirements, but I couldn't get it to run on a 512K machine. I suspect
it requires lots of chip ram with all the hi-res and overscan displays.
At times the demo behaved strangely, causing the mouse pointer to
flicker like mad and then hang, but I only noticed this when using the
"run" button. Using the "see" button did not give me any problems.
This is a real slick demo and is nearly fully functional, save for the
limit of 10 pages per script (plus no looping), and the "save script"
function is disabled. Also, only two fonts are included in this
version. One surprise was that you can output to IFF, although you have
to get to the "layout" panel to do so ("change" -> "layout" -> "save
IFF").
This is a very impressive presentation package with lots of features,
but my favorite part of it is the interface. At first I was blown away
with just the "look" of its overscan screens, menus (no pulldowns that
I could find, however), and requestors; all with nice 3-D gadgets and
sliders and a real nice font. After fumbling a bit, I began to realize
just how intuitive most of the functions really are, especially when
previewing a script, or when creating a page. Laying down text is a
breeze and then modifiying or moving it is just as easy. And the
"quarter-screen" gadget panels (ala CanDo) look awesome. There are also
a large number of fades, wipes, etc., available for both the backdrops
and the text. There's a short demo script that combines showing off
it's ability to smoothly handle transitions between different
resolution screens and support for animations, but I think the anim
support is limited to "runtime"; that is I can't see any way to
position the starting point on the page (as in an ANIMbrush?). I guess
you would have to do this outside of SCALA. Anyway, it's well worth the
download, IMHO.
Thanks again Bill,
Pete
|
| I've already used the demo for a video I put together.
I used the "silk" background, with some spiffy transitions.
I've decided to purchase this since it's so slick.
There's a review of SCALA in the current AmigaWorld, and in
last month's Amazing Computing. Both reviews gave it high
marks.
Would be interested in hearing from other SCALA users
in this note.
Dave
|