<< Liberty Main - General Questions - Liberty Installation and Configuration - Computer System Configuration - General Questions, Problems, and Troubleshooting - Performance and Speed Issues - Video DDR and VTR Setup - Still Stores, Networking, and FTP - Animation - Plug-Ins - Fonts General Questions [1] What is Liberty? Liberty is a comprehensive Paint and Animation software application for Windows NT and SGI IRIX systems. Liberty is heavily used by professional graphic artists and animators. Liberty is the primary Paint system utilized by hundreds of video/graphics departments and post production facilities around the world. [2] Can I use Liberty for Film, Print, and Web graphics? Although Liberty is most heavily used in professional video broadcast and post production applications, it is also used at a number of Hollywood film production companies, for work on major feature films. It has also been effectively used for print and web graphics. [3] How do I contact Sales for Liberty? Please refer to the following web page for info on how to contact Sales. [4] How do I contact Customer Service for Liberty? Please see: Video Design Software, Support [5] What is the current version of Liberty software? Liberty V8.1 is the current released version (as of October, 2002). Each new version of Liberty contains new features, along with numerous enhancements and bug fixes. We recommend that all users keep up with the latest version of Liberty. This also makes it easier for us to help if you have questions or require support from Customer Service. [6] How do I obtain the latest version of Liberty software? If you have a current support contract, you will be updated with the latest versions (on CD) when they are released. Normally, there is one major release per year. In addition, you can register and download the latest Liberty installer. See the User Section Note that you still need a support contract to use versions that you download, as they may require a new software license. To inquire about support contracts, please contact Video Design Customer Service as stated above. [7] If I don't care about new features, should I still install the latest Liberty version? Yes. Many bugs are fixed in each new version, so keeping up with the latest version is highly recommended. It also makes it easier for Video Design Customer Service to help if you have questions or problems with the software. [8] Is a new license required for new versions of Liberty software? Yes, when you install a major new version, a new license is generally required. When you install a minor update (for example, for bug fixes in between major releases), a new license will generally not be required. [9] How do I obtain a license for my Liberty software? Please contact Video Design Customer Service. [10] How do I know what enhancements have been added to the latest version of Liberty software? The full release notes for each Liberty version are on the Video Design FTP site, at: Liberty Release Notes on Video Design FTP site For example, to read the Liberty V8.0 Release Notes, download the file: release8_0.pdf and then open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader. You can download Adobe Acrobat Reader software, free of charge, from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html [11] How do I download files from the Video Design FTP site? It is easiest to register and visit our Download area. Click HERE. [12] How do I access the Liberty documentation? Once you've installed Liberty, documentation can be found in the "docs" sub-directory, in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) files. If you don't have Adobe's Acrobat reader, you can download it from http://www.adobe.com. Documentation includes release notes for each Liberty version (describing new features and enhancements), the Liberty Artist's Manual (users' guide), the Liberty Technical Reference Manual (with important set-up, configuration, and installation info), the Liberty Tutorial Manual, and documentation on font conversion (IRIX only) and plug-ins (IRIX only). To start the Acrobat reader on an IRIX system, open a shell window and type "acroread". On a Windows system, Acrobat can be started from the "Start -> Programs" menu. Or, just double-click on one of the PDF files from Windows Explorer. [13] Can I access this documentation from within Liberty? Yes, just use the corner button of the green Help button in any of the Liberty environments. This brings up a list of all Liberty documents installed on your system. Press on any item in the list to bring up that document in Acrobat. On Windows, this menu also contains links to key areas on the Video Design web site, and email links for Video Design Sales and Customer Service. Liberty Installation and Configuration [14] Must I uninstall Liberty 7.X before installing Liberty 8.X? Yes! Here is how to uninstall Liberty 7.X:   1. First make sure you've backed up all of your image files to a safe location.   2. Open Start > Settings > Control Panel > ChyronLM   3. Click "Stop" and close the ChyronLM control panel   4. Open Start > Settings > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services   5. Find the service called "Chyron License Manager"   6. Right-click on it, and choose All Tasks > Stop. If that option is not available, then it is already stopped. Close the Services manager.   7. Delete the file C:\WINNT\ChyronLM.ini   8. Run the Liberty 7.X uninstall program.   9. Install Liberty 8.X as described below. [15] How do I install Liberty? Liberty releases are provided on CD. The same CD is utilized for both IRIX and Windows. The CD contains the following text files with installation instructions: Readme.txt LibertySGI/README (for Liberty on IRIX) LibertyNT/README.txt (for Liberty on Windows, including SGI 320 and 540 systems) Also, for Windows, in the "Select Components" panel of the installation program, be sure and select "SGI 320 or 540" if you are running on an SGI 320 or 540 system. Otherwise (for all other Windows platforms), select "Other Platforms". [16] For Liberty on IRIX, if I already have Liberty on my system, will installing the new version wipe out my existing images and animations? For IRIX, as long as you choose "Upgrade" rather than "New Installation" when installing Liberty, your image directories will remain in tact (in other words, in the Installation/Upgrade menu, select option 2., "Upgrade"). Warning: If you re-install the Liberty Demos or Liberty Tutorials, the corresponding directories will be written over. This will wipe out any changes that you have made to files in those directories. For Liberty Demos, this includes files in the Animations, Backdrops, Borders, Brushes, Filters, Masks, Palette, Pics, Plugins, Shapes, Switchers, ULTIMATTE_DEMO, and fonts directories under image/local/hd0. For Liberty Tutorials, it includes directories under image/Tutorials. If you want to install the Liberty Demos or Liberty Tutorials, you may want to first move your existing image directory to a new location. You can do this from a shell window as follows: mv image my_image After you install the demos and/or tutorials, your old images will be in "my_image" and your new images will be in "image". You can then compare and merge these two directories as needed. [17] For Liberty on Windows, if I already have Liberty on my system, will installing the new version wipe out my existing images and animations? When you install Liberty on Windows, the Liberty Demos directories get installed automatically. Any contents of these directories that you've modified may be overwritten. This includes files in the Animations, Backdrops, Borders, Brushes, Filters, Masks, Palette, Pics, Plugins, Shapes, Switchers, and fonts directories under image/local/hd0. In addition, if you re-install the Liberty Tutorials, the corresponding directories will be written over. This includes directories under image/Tutorials. To be safe, you may want to move your existing image directory to a new location prior to installing the new Liberty version. You can do this in Windows Explorer by right clicking on Liberty's image directory and re-naming it to "my_image". After you install Liberty, your old images will be in "my_image" and your new images will be in "image". You can then compare and merge these two directories as needed (or just delete the "image" directory and rename "my_image" back to "image", assuming you don't want the new demo directories). [18] What is the difference between the various Liberty program options in the installation program? "Liberty 32" contains both Paint and Animation, whereas "Liberty Paint" contains Paint only (no animation). "Liberty 64" contains both Paint and Animation, and provides 64-bit color depth for all pixels. Normally this would only be required when working on high resolution film projects. "Liberty Paint 64" is a Paint only version with 64-bit color depth. "Liberty Demo" is a demo version of Liberty 32. It does not require a license, but it puts a grid pattern in all saved images. In addition, all video input/output functions are disabled in the demo version. [19] How do I install my license? Licensing procedures are fully described in the Liberty Technical Reference Manual, section 2.12.3: lib_tech70.pdf for Liberty V7.0 and V7.1 lib_tech71.pdf for Liberty V8.0 and higher You can download this document from: Download Liberty Technical Reference Manual You can also find this document on your local system. If you haven't yet installed Liberty, this document can be found on the Liberty installation CD, under LibertySGI/liberty/docs. If you have installed Liberty, you can find it under the Liberty/docs directory (or access it within Liberty via the green Help button). [20] What if I have problems with my license? Can you provide more details (other than what is contained in the Technical Reference Manual)? For Windows systems, the following are things to check regarding licensing: Go into the Windows Control Panel, and open the Chyron LM tool. Stop the server and go into settings. Verify that the Key Directory exists and contains your license key files (you should have entered this same directory in the License Administration tool when you entered your key). Verify that there is a log file name entered (I usually use "license_log.txt"). Verify that the Start Time is set to 1 second. OK out of the Settings popup, verify that startup is set to "Automatic", then re-Launch the server. Verify that you have an environment variable set up to tell the license manager where the license server and keys are. This requires setting the environment variable "CHYRON_ELMHOST" to "@hostname", where "hostname" is your Computer Name (for networking). For example, if your hostname is "paint1", set this to @paint1. You can find your computer name in the Windows Control panel, under Network Settings. Note that if you are using Floating licenses (that is, if your licenses are on another system on the network rather than your local system), use the hostname of the system with the licenses on it, rather than the hostname of your local system. Check permissions on the License Manager's Registry Entry: Go into Start->Run and enter "regedt32". Press OK. In the Registry Editor, go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE window, and under "Local Machine" and "Software", select "Elan". In the menu bar, select "Security, permissions". Select "Users", and check "Allow" for both "Read" and "Full Control". Exit the menu by pressing "Apply" then "OK". Exit the Registry Editor. Please verify that you're running the latest version of Liberty. If the above steps fail, you can check the License Log file (in the Key directory mentioned above). Also, you can run the License Query utility (under Start->Programs-> Video Design Software->Liberty or Start->Programs->Chyron->Liberty for older systems). Check the results for "Servers", "Clients", and "Environment". You can email these results, along with the license log file, to Video Design Customer Service with a note explaining the nature of the problem. [21] How do I configure Liberty for use with a Wacom tablet? You need to install the tablet driver. This procedure is different on different systems: System Tablet Install tablet driver from IRIX 6.2, 6.3, 6.4 SD & UD series For older IRIX versions, the tablet driver is installed as part of the Liberty installation procedure (choose option 4 from the main installation menu). IRIX 6.5 SD & UD series Install from the IRIX 6.5 Foundation 1 CD, under "Optional Input Devices". IRIX 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5 Intuos tablets Install from the Wacom Intuos CD for IRIX 6.x. This CD should come with your tablet. Windows SD & UD series On the Liberty installation CD, look in: LibertyNT\Wacom_NT Windows Intuos tablets On the Liberty installation CD, look in: LibertyNT\Wacom_NT For Windows, on the Liberty installation CD, the directory LibertyNT\Wacom_NT contains the Wacom tablet driver, as an executable file (.exe file) that you run to install the driver. On some Liberty installation CDs, we provide more than one version of the driver (with a Readme.txt file to explain the differences). On older Liberty installation CDs, we provided separate Windows exe files for UD series tablets as opposed to Intuos tablets. On newer Liberty installation CDs, the same Windows exe file works for all models of Wacom tablet. Also note that selected drivers can be obtained on http://www.wacom.com. For Windows systems, you may want to check the settings in the Wacom tool in the Windows Control Panel as well. Once you have installed the tablet driver and re-booted your system, you can use the Wacom Control Panel tool to display and adjust various tablet settings. [22] Is there Demo Material or a Tutorial provided with Liberty? The Liberty installation CD contains both. The demo material contains a number of demo images, animations, brushes, filters, masks, palettes, and shapes. The Tutorial material goes along with the tutorial document (in liberty/docs/lib_tutorial.pdf), which contains a multitude of step-by-step examples on how to utilize Liberty. For Windows, the demo material is installed automatically. The Tutorial material can be installed by choosing it in the "Select Components" panel of the installation program. For IRIX, you can install both the demo material and the tutorials using the installation program. There are also Tips and Techniques write-ups accessible through the Help popup in Liberty. Users have found these helpful, but they are somewhat out of date. [23] After I install a new version of Liberty, will I have problems with file compatibility? No, files created in earlier versions of Liberty will be readable in new Liberty versions (for example, images and animations created in older versions will be readable in new versions). Note, however, that animations created in the current version of Liberty will generally NOT be readable in older Liberty versions (for example, you can't save an animation from version 7.0 and expect to read it in V6.5). [24] Are files compatible between Liberty on IRIX and Liberty on Windows? Almost all Liberty's supported file formats are compatible between the Windows and IRIX versions. The only important exceptions are that SGI movie files are only supported in the IRIX version, and AVI movie files are only supported in the Windows version. In addition, the Windows and IRIX versions support different sets of plug-ins. The IRIX version supports the Final Effects (Composer) plug-ins, where as the Windows version supports Photoshop plug-ins, and After Effects plug-ins in Liberty V8.0. So, if you create an animation with plug-ins, that animation won't be sharable between IRIX and Windows. Also, please note that Liberty on Windows will only recall animations from Liberty V6.0 and higher. [25] After I install a new Liberty version, do I have to re-configure any settings within Liberty? Yes, in some cases, you will lose your Liberty menu settings when you install a new version of Liberty. Thus, after installing the new Liberty version, you will need to re-enter any video/DDR settings, FTP settings, menu colors, custom cursor selections, number of temps/masks/undos, canvas resolution, etc. [26] Is there a way to remove the folder icons for directories that appear in the File Manager (browse) menu in Liberty on Windows? If you don't want to see the directory folder icons in the file manager, just rename the file: sys/folder_icon.img to something else (and re-start Liberty).You will then see red squares for directories, like in Liberty versions before V6.5. To get the folder icons back, just re-name the file to its original name again (and re-start Liberty). The sys directory can be found in the directory where you installed Liberty. For example: C:\Program Files\Video Design Software\Liberty\sys [27] Is there a way to modify the folder icons for directories that appear in the File Manager (browse) menu? Since the directory folder icon is just a SIM file, you can modify it using Liberty. Just recall the file from the sys directory into Liberty, change it, then save it to the same name (using "Save File As" with file type "AU sim"). Be sure that Shrinkwrap is on when you do the save, so that the icon will save to its correct size. Then re-start Liberty and you will see the new icon in the File Manager menu. The sys directory can be found in the directory where you installed Liberty. For example: C:\Program Files\Video Design Software\Liberty\sys [28] Is there a way to modify the login icons in the Liberty login screen? The icons are just SIM files, so you can change them using Liberty. Just recall each file from the sys directory into Liberty, change it, then save it to the same name (using "Save File As" with file type "AU sim"). Be sure that Shrinkwrap is on when you do the save, so that the icon will save to its correct size. Then re-start Liberty and you will see the new icon in the Login screen. This procedure works for the small P,A,C,L icons in the lower left corner of each environment as well. The sys directory can be found in the directory where you installed Liberty. For example: C:\Program Files\Video Design Software\Liberty\sys [29] I don't like fonts used in the Liberty menus. It is possible to change them? For Liberty on Windows (V8.0 and up), you can change the menu font using the "Choose Menu Font" button in the Menu Configuration panel of Liberty's Configuration environment. For Liberty on IRIX, the font for the Liberty menus can easily be changed by using the "xfontsel" utility provided by SGI. Simply open a shell and type 'xfontsel -print' at the command line to start the utility (or type '/usr/bin/X11/xfontsel -print' if the system responds with a 'xfontsel - command not found' message). You should see a window open with "xfontsel" in the title bar. Below the title bar are 2 pull-down type menus, 'quit' and 'select'. You will use quit to exit the application after the font has been defined. Do not use select as this will change the font used by the system menus. Directly below the pulldown menu bar is another menu bar. The bar has the pull-down menu selections '-fndry-fmly-wght-…', etc. This menu bar is used to define the font. As you change the selections for the foundry, family, weight, etc. for the font, the font definition string (directly below this menu bar) will change, and an example of the font will be displayed in the main part of the window. The main menu selections in the font definition menu that you need be concerned with are: fndry (foundry), fmly (family), wght (weight) and pxlsz (pixelsize) Examples of foundry selections would be Adobe or Bitstream and designate the font designer. The family selects the font type, eg. arial or courier. The weight controls font 'width', eg. medium or bold. The pixelsize controls the pixel height of the font. The pixelsize should be set for 14 or 16, otherwise it may not fit in some of the menus. Once you have selected your font (remember to check the font example in the main window), you should select 'quit' on the main menu. The font definition string will print in the shell window that you started xfontsel from. You then must set the LIBERTY_FONT environment variable in the ".cshrc" file (in the Liberty home directory) to the font definition string you built in the xfontsel utility. This will cause this menu font to be used each time Liberty is started. To do this, make sure you are logged in as Liberty (or whichever user name you log into to start Liberty) and open a Unix shell. Type 'cd' to get to your home directory. Use either vi or jot and open the file ".cshrc". At the bottom of the file, include the line: setenv LIBERTY_FONT "font definition string" where "font definition string" is the font definition string that you built in xfontsel and is currently printed in your window. Save the file, log out and then login to Liberty to have the font become the current menu font. [30] What are the various Liberty licensing options? There are licenses for each flavor of Liberty (Liberty 64, Liberty 32, Liberty Paint, and Liberty Paint 64). A Liberty 64 license will allow you to run any flavor of Liberty. A Liberty 32 license will allow you to run Liberty 32 and Liberty Paint. There are Background Rendering licenses for Liberty 32 and for Liberty 64. These allow you to do background renders at the same time Liberty is running. The After Effects Plug-ins for Liberty on Windows require a separate license. You can purchase this, along with other types of licenses, from Sales. The Composer Plug-Ins (Final Effects plug-ins) for Liberty IRIX require a separate license. An HDTV Support license is required to interface to either the Sierra HD 1.5 DDR or the ProntoVision HD DDR. These DDRs are currently supported under IRIX only. An Ultimatte Cinefusion license is needed to use Cinefusion actors in Liberty Animation (IRIX only). [31] Could you summarize what is contained in Liberty's various sub-directories? The Liberty home directory contains the following: The canvas, temps, masks, and current animation are saved in the "cels" directory when Liberty exits. The docs directory contains the Liberty documentation (mostly in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) files). For Windows, there are also URL files that link to important pages on the Video Design Web site and link to Video Design email. These are text files that you can edit if the web page locations ever change. The image directory is the default location for images and animations (under image/local/hd0). The plugin directory contains plug in files (for example, Photoshop plug-ins in Liberty on Windows). The projects directory contains the following files: cursorshape: a text file containing custom cursor definitions. custbrush: User defined brushes. done.aiff (IRIX) or done.wav (Windows): The bell that optionally sounds when an animation completes. You can replace this with any sound file you like. system: a text file whose contents isn't really used, but which needs to be there. config: contains the Liberty users and other info; will regenerate if deleted. *00, *01, etc: state files for each numbered Liberty user. These preserve menu settings and data such as curves, text, etc. These will regenerate if deleted. Examples of these filenames for Liberty user 0 include database00, curve00, text00, etc. The undo directory contains the undo files for canvas, temps, and masks. The utilities directory (IRIX only) contains, you guessed it, utility programs. This includes the Adobe Type 1 font conversion utilities. The README file in this directory discusses each utility. The liberty_paths file, a text file that tells Liberty where to find the above directories on disk. The sys directory, which contains the following files: The Liberty executable program(s), named like Lib32.exe (Windows) or liberty32 (IRIX). menu.bin and help.bin, binary files that define the menus. Playmovie, the IRIX movie player. *.img: The Liberty menu icons (in Aurora SIM file format). brush: Saves the airbrush profile; this will be regenerated if deleted. [32] I uninstalled Liberty, but after the uninstallation, the license manager is still installed and running. How can I remove it? The license manager runs as a service in Windows. For the uninstall to happen properly, the ChyronLM control panel needs to be stopped first, because otherwise the uninstall program will ignore it. So here is what to do: 1. Open Start > Settings > Control Panel > ChyronLM 2. Click "Stop" and close the ChyronLM control panel 3. Open Start > Settings > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services 4. Find the service called "Chyron License Manager" 5. Right-click on it, and choose All Tasks > Stop. If that option is not available, then it is already stopped. Close the Services manager. 6. Delete the file C:\WINNT\ChyronLM.ini Computer System Configuration Questions [33] What computer operating systems does Liberty run on? Liberty currently runs on IRIX 6.5 or higher. On older systems (Indy and Indigo) you can use IRIX 6.2. Liberty also runs on Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 (systems with Intel and AMD processors only). We are currently qualifying Liberty on Windows XP as well. [34] s there any reason not to upgrade my IRIX system to IRIX 6.5? The Chyron Cindy video board (on Indy systems) is not supported under IRIX 6.5. These systems should be kept at IRIX 6.2, and SGI's Y2K patches should be installed. See: http://www.sgi.com. [35] What hardware platforms does Liberty run on? Full info on supported platforms and video hardware appears below in the Support Platforms and Hardware section. [36] Should I buy a multi-processor system to use with Liberty? Liberty does not make explicit use of multiple processors. Its code is single threaded. Multiple processors still can speed render times up, since the operating system itself may make use of the extra processors. Of course, if you render animations in background, those are separate processes, and they can make use of multiple processors. So, I wouldn't spend money on multiple processors unless you're going to be doing a lot of background animation renders. If this is the case, be sure to get sufficient RAM as well (as each background render copy requires its own RAM). [37] For Windows, what graphics (SVGA) card is required? Refer to Support Platforms and Hardware, under "Windows Platforms", under "Graphics" [38] I have installed one of the recommended graphics cards for Liberty on Windows, but Liberty still won't start. Check the Liberty error log (on your computer desktop, or in Liberty\sys\LibErrLog.txt). This file will usually indicate why the program couldn't start. Often this is due to improper graphics driver settings. These can be changed in "Display Settings". Right click on the Windows desktop and select "Properties" (or double click on the "Display" icon in the Windows Control panel). Go to the "Settings" tab and ensure that "Color Palette" is set to "True Color". Also, set the "Desktop Area" to its largest possible size (1280 x 1024 is a good size for most VGA monitors, but certain graphics cards will only support smaller resolutions (such as 1024 x 768)). Also, in "Display Settings", there may be tab(s) specific to your graphics card that you need to adjust: For the Oxygen VX1 board, so into the "3D Labs" tab, press on "Advanced", go into the "Open GL Support" tab, press on "Advanced", and then in the "Advanced Options", be sure "Overlay/Alpha Mode" is set to "Overlay Only" For the ATI Rage chip, the default settings are usually acceptable. However, there is currently a cursor display adjustment required (refer to the next question below). For the Elsa boards, the default settings are usually acceptable. It is important that you have the latest graphics drivers loaded, however (see below). For SGI 320 and 540 systems, go to the "Silicon Graphics Settings" tab. Select either the CAD or Desktop Publishing preset, copy and rename it, then go into "Properties". In the "Graphics" tab, ensure "Overlay Planes" are set to "Single Buffered". Also, you may want to modify the "Memory" tab to allocate more memory for graphics (say, 40 MB). For the Diamond Fire cards, go to the "Diamond Configuration" tab, select one of the Configuration Profiles, press "Modify", and ensure that 4-bit Overlay Planes are turned on. There may be other graphics driver settings that you can adjust. And, the driver related menus can change with different driver and Windows versions. Please refer to the documentation for your graphics card when in doubt. Also, be sure you have the latest graphics drivers installed. Go into the "Settings" tab, and press "Display Type" ("Advanced" in Windows 2000). Compare the version number with the latest driver version on your graphics card vendor's web site. If your graphics driver version is older than the one on your vendor's web site, download the newer drivers from the vendor's web site and follow the vendor's installation instructions. One more graphics card related issue is that on some systems, Liberty may compete with other running applications for graphics resources. For example, this sometimes occurs with the Quicktime movie player. To resolve this for the Quicktime player, doubleclick on the Quicktime Player icon on your desktop. Go into "Edit, Preferences, Connection Speed, Video Settings" and select "Safe Mode, (GDI Only)". [39] I am seeing artifacts (garbage) on the screen as I move the cursor around (with ATI Rage and some Oxygen graphics cards on Windows). This seems to be a problem with the arrow cursor. In Liberty's Configuration Environment, bring up the "Cursor Configuration" panel. In the top window, click to change the arrow cursor to a plus cursor. You can also try going into the Windows Control panel and double clicking on the Mouse icon. In the resulting menu, go to "Pointers" and be sure "Enable Pointer Shadow" is off. This seems to fix the problem with the arrow cursor. [40] When I play back movie files (Quicktime or AVI) on my Windows system, it fails or I see garbage To resolve this, doubleclick on the Quicktime Player icon on your desktop. Go into "Edit, Preferences, Connection Speed, Video Settings" and select "Safe Mode, (GDI Only)". [41] Does Liberty require a graphics card with Hardware Overlay Planes? Liberty V7.1 and earlier versions require Hardware Overlay Planes support to run. As of Liberty V8.0, Hardware Overlay Planes are no longer required. This means Liberty can run on a wider variety of graphics cards (such as the ATI Rage cards). However, you will still get better performance from a card with Hardware Overlay Planes, especially when using Layers and vector objects such as Text. For this reason, we still recommend a card with overlay planes, such as the Oxygen VX1 from 3D Labs. [42] What is the best graphics card to run both Liberty and Chyron's Lyric software? As of October 2002, the Elsa Erazor X card and the Elsa Gloria II card are both good choices for running Liberty and Lyric, as is the ATI Rage card. We will be qualifying additional graphics cards in the near future. See: http://www.elsa.com http://www.ati.com See below for more Liberty graphics card recommendations. [43] What is the best graphics card for Liberty on Windows, if you are not running Chyron's Lyric software? We are continually qualifying new cards for use with Liberty. Here is a list of cards from which we have seen good performance:    3DLabs Wildcat VP880 Pro    Very fast/smooth layer handling, excellent for 3D applications as well. Recommended.    NVidia GeForce, 2, 3, 4, and MX Series    Newer cards are obviously better. Recommended.    NVidia Quadro 4 Series    Not officially qualified, but used extensively in the field    NVidia GeForce 4 Titanium 4600 *    Excellent price / performance ratio. Works well in Dual Monitor configuration, and has Video Out.    ATI Fire GL Series    ATI Mobility 128 AGP    Works well in a mobile (laptop) configuration.    http://www.NVidia.com    http://www.3dlabs.com    http://www.ati.com [44] How do I set Liberty up for print or film work? When working with images and saving image files, the important thing is the canvas resolution. This determines how fine or coarse the image resolution will be. For film and print work, you normally need to use higher canvas resolutions. For example, there are a number of default film resolutions to choose from in the "Defaults" popup (in the Canvas Configuration panel; note that in Liberty V8.0 this button is called "Advanced Settings"). Of course, you will need sufficient RAM to support higher canvas resolutions (RAM requirements are discussed in the Liberty Technical Reference Manual). If you're doing film work with Liberty, you probably also want to be using Liberty 64, so that you get 64-bits of color for each image pixel. For video, print, or web work, Liberty 32 is recommended. [45] What does the DPI button (in the Canvas Configuration panel) do? Liberty's DPI button setting doesn't affect the pixel resolution of files. That is determined by the Canvas resolution X and Y settings. The DPI button does affect the conversion from inches/mm to pixels for the Grid and Color Pick controls. Its value is also saved in TIFF files, which is useful when these files are to be used in print applications. [46] On Windows systems, what Environment variables does Liberty use, and how do I set them? Liberty uses several environment variables. When you install Liberty, the installation program will set these correctly. It is useful to be familiar with them, however, in case a problem occurs. To access environment variables in Windows NT 4.0: Go to Start->Settings->Control Panel. Doubleclick on the "System" icon. Go into the "Environment" tab. To access environment variables in Windows 2000: Go to Start->Settings->Control Panel. Doubleclick on the "System" icon. Go into the "Advanced" tab. Press on the "Environment" button. In the "Environment Variables" tool there are two windows, one for the current user and one for System (all users). These list the environment variables and their values. You can also Edit environment variables, create New ones, and Delete current ones. Liberty uses the following environment variables: HOME Should be set to the directory where Liberty is installed. For example: C:\Program Files\Video Design Software\Liberty LIBERTY_HOME Should be set to the same value as "HOME" above. LIBERTY_SYS Should be set to the Liberty\sys directory. For example: C:\Program Files\Video Design Software\Liberty\sys CHYRON_ELMHOST Should be set to @ plus the computer name of the system with the License Server (most often you will install the license on your own (local) system, so this will be the computer name of your system). For example, if your computer name is "paint1", set CHYRON_ELMHOST to @paint1. [47] Does Liberty support Image Scanners? Scanners are not supported within Liberty, but scanners are available for most IRIX and Windows NT platforms. For IRIX, SGI provides a list of approved peripherals. For Windows, a wide variety of scanners are available. Once you have a scanner, just scan images to files using the scanner software, then recall those files into Liberty. [48] Does Liberty support Printers? Printers are not supported within Liberty, but printers are available for most IRIX and Windows platforms. For IRIX, SGI provides a list of approved peripherals. For Windows, a variety of printers are available. Once you have a printer, just save images from Liberty to image files (or to the Windows clipboard), then recall (or paste) the image into a printer-friendly application (such as the Windows Paint program in "Accessories"). You can then print the image from that application. [49] How do I tell what hardware I have on my system? In Windows 2000, go into the Windows Control Panel, under "Administrative Tools, Computer Management, System Tools, System Info, System Summary". This displays processor type, amount of RAM, and other system/ hardware information. Similar information can be found in Windows NT 4.0 under "Start->Programs->Administrative Tools->Windows NT Diagnostics". In addition, the processor type and amount of RAM are usually displayed when Windows is booted. For IRIX, the shell command "hinv" tells what type of processor you have, how much RAM you have, what type of graphics you have, what SCSI controllers and devices you have, and what other peripherals you have (such as video and Ethernet). [50] How do I tell how much space is left on my hard drive? For IRIX, the shell command "df -k" displays all mounted file systems and corresponding free space (in kilobytes (each KB represents 1024 bytes)). When in a directory, the command "du -sk *" displays the entire amount of space (in KB) consumed by each sub-directory. For Windows, just bring up Windows Explorer, right mouse click on a drive or directory, and select "Properties". This tells how much space a directory (and its contents) uses, and how much space is used/free for a drive. [51] How do I back up my work? Liberty does not have a built in back up tool. However, it is highly recommended that you back up your image directories on a regular basis (for example, we do daily back ups of our work here at Video Design). On IRIX systems, DAT tapes are a good option for this (using "tar"). On NT systems, Zip disks, Jaz disks, and CDROM writers are all good options (for Zip and Jaz, backup merely consists of copying the image directories in Windows Explorer). [52] Under IRIX, how do I back up material to DAT tape? How do I load material from DAT tape? In a shell window, do an "hinv" to see what SCSI controller and unit your tape drive is assigned to. Based on this, the tar command has the following form to copy TO tape: tar cvf /dev/mt/tps<controller>d<unit> <file and directory name(s) to copy> And to copy FROM tape: tar xvf /dev/mt/tps<controller>d<unit> So, if your controller is 1 and your unit number is 5, use the following to copy TO tape: tar cvf /dev/mt/tps1d5 <file and directory name(s) to copy> and this to copy FROM tape: tar xvf /dev/mt/tps1d5 Other useful read options include: tar xvf /dev/mt/tps1d5s if you get byte swap errors tar xvf /dev/mt/tps1d5ns if you get byte swap errors tar xvef /dev/mt/tps1d5 To read past tape errors, or to read multiple tapes out of order tar xvRf /dev/mt/tps1d5 To load tapes under the current directory (rather than with absolute paths). This is only useful if the tape was created with absolute paths. [53] What happened to the "4:3 Aspect" button in the Liberty Paint environment? In Liberty V7.0, this button was moved to the Configuration environment, in the "Defaults" popup (in the Canvas Configuration panel). Just select "601 NTSC" or "601 PAL", then turn on "Aspect Correct Computer Monitor". It has the same effect as the old "4:3 Aspect" button. Note that in Liberty V8.0, the "Defaults" button was renamed to "Advanced Settings". See the V8.0 Release Notes for further details. [54] Installation of Liberty from CD fails. This may be a sign that your CD drive is flaky. Also, it is known that newer versions of IRIX (for example, IRIX 6.5) will not support older, slower speed external CDROM drives. [55] On my IRIX system, when I load the Liberty installation CD, it doesn't show up where it should in the /CDROM directory. Try the following shell command, to mount the CD at /CDROM: mount -r -t iso9660 /dev/rdsk/dks0d4vol /CDROM You may need to be super-user (root) to run this. Type "su" in the shell window to become root. General Questions, Problems, and Troubleshooting [56] My Windows system fails to boot up Please check to make sure the floppy disk drive is empty. Do the same for any CD drives. [57] On my Windows System, Liberty won't start when I doubleclick on its icon on the Desktop. Or, I get a strange error dialog when I start Liberty. Please check to see if Liberty will run from a Command Prompt Window: Bring up a Command Prompt Window (usually under "Start->Programs->Accessories"). Go to the drive where Liberty is installed (eg, type "E:" followed by Enter). Go to the directory where Liberty is installed. For example: cd Program Files\Video Design Software\Liberty\sys Run Liberty: For Liberty32, type "Lib32.exe -e4", followed by enter. For Liberty64, type "Lib64.exe -e4", followed by enter. For Paint32, type "Paint32.exe -e4", followed by enter. For Paint64, type "Paint64.exe -e4", followed by enter. If the above fails, note any error messages that appear in the Command Prompt window (towards the bottom). Then proceed to the next question below. If the above works, then there is a problem with your shortcut on the Desktop. Right click on Liberty's Icon and go to "Properties", then go to the "Shortcut" tab. Verify the following: That the path for the "Target" executable exists on your system and is correct. For example: C:\Program Files\Video Design Software\Liberty\sys\Lib32.exe That "Run as different user" is not checked (if running Windows NT 4.0, ignore this step). That "Run" is set to "Maximized". Note that when you install Liberty, the desktop shortcut will be set up correctly by the installation program. The above procedure exists in case the shortcut gets corrupted later. [58] Liberty won't start up. First, try the procedure in the previous question above. Also, on Windows systems, there should be a LibErrLog.txt file (either on your desktop or in your Liberty\sys directory) that may indicate what the problem is. On Windows systems, this is often a problem with the Display (graphics card) settings. Please see the Graphics card set-up seciton for further details. Also, please verify that if you've just installed Liberty, that you've rebooted your system afterwards. A reboot is required before you can run Liberty. If you have downloaded a new Liberty executable (for example, from our FTP site), there may have been a problem with the download. You need to download three files: The appropriate Liberty executable (for example, Lib32.exe). menu.bin (the menu file) help.bin (the help file). You need to download each file in Binary mode, to your Liberty\sys directory. For example: C:\Program Files\Video Design Software\Liberty\sys if that's where you've installed Liberty. You also need to be sure that the transfer for each file has completed successfully (FTP should tell you this). Another possible problem is that the system menu font used by Liberty is missing. For Windows, Liberty uses the Arial Bold font by default (ARIALBD.TTF). Please verify that this font appears in the C:\WINNT\FONTS directory. This font should always get installed when you install Windows. If the font is missing, you may be able to find it on your Windows installation CD, or on the Microsoft web site. Otherwise, you may need to re-install Windows. For IRIX, if you are missing a menu font, please refer to "Assigning IRIX menu font' below. If Liberty won't start, you should also check the next question below. [59] Liberty crashed, and now it won't start up again. How do I get it going again? Upon exit, Liberty saves the state of its menus in a number of files in the projects directory (under the main Liberty directory, for example: C:\Program Files\Video Design Software\Liberty\projects). These files are numbered based on the user number (in the Liberty Login screen) that you're running Liberty under. For example, user 3 has database03, diagram03, text03, etc. On rare occasion, one of these files might get corrupted, which may cause crashes or other strange results. So, deleting the files will usually get you going again. For example, try deleting: database00 and text00 if you were running as Liberty user 0. For Liberty on IRIX, you can delete files within a Unix shell: cd projects rm database00 rm text00 For Liberty on Windows, you can delete files using Windows Explorer. One warning about this procedure: if you delete the database file, you will lose your menu configuration settings. Therefore, you will need to re-enter your set-ups for video devices, DDR's, FTP, menu colors, number of undos, temps, and masks, canvas resolution, etc. One way around the above problem is to just move the files to a temporary directory, rather than deleting them. This way, if moving the files doesn't fix the problem, you can restore them. If moving the files does fix the problem, you can move them back one by one until the problem reappears. At this stage, you will still need to delete the file causing the problem, but you can restore the rest. This may save you from having to re-enter all your settings. [60] On my Windows system, when I paint in Liberty, the brush is offset from the cursor. This usually means that you have changed your display (screen) resolution, but the Wacom tablet driver is still using the old resolution. You should be able to use the Wacom tool in the Windows Control panel to correct the Wacom driver's screen resolution. If this fails, try deleting the wacom.dat file from the C:\winnt\system32 directory, then re-boot (the Wacom driver will re-generate this file with the correct screen resolution). If this fails, you will also need to de-install then re-install the tablet driver. [61] On my Aprisa system, the Wacom tablet driver won't install (it fails to recognize the correct serial port). On Aprisa, when the Microtouch Screen Driver is installed but there is no Microtouch Screen actually there, installation of the Wacom tablet driver has problems since the Screen Driver seems to somehow make the serial ports unavailable. De-install the Screen Driver if there is no touch screen, before installing the tablet driver. On systems with a touch screen, there should be no problem when the screen driver is installed. [62] Liberty is locked up. For IRIX, simultaneously press the Alt and F3 keys. This should push the Liberty menus behind the desktop. Bring up a Unix shell window from the Toolchest, and type "killall liberty32" (or liberty64, paint32, or paint64, depending on which program you're running). For Windows, use Control-Alt-Delete to bring up the Task Manager, and use it to kill the Liberty task. Note that it may take up to two minutes to acquire a new Liberty license after a lock-up occurs. [63] My IRIX system is completely locked up. Try simultaneously pressing the CTRL, SHIFT, F12 and / keys (the / key in the numeric keypad, that is). This should re-start the system. [64] I can't run Liberty and Lyric at the same time on my Windows system. Due to limitations of certain graphics cards, Liberty and Lyric can't run at the same time on systems with those cards installed. [65] When I recall and/or save files with Rescale on, the images appear jaggy (aliased) In Liberty's Configuration environment, in the Canvas Configuration panel, go into the "Advanced Settings" popup, and be sure "Rescale with Interpolation on" is turned on (Note that in versions of Liberty before 8.0, "Advanced Settings" was called "Defaults"). This will reduce the jaggyness, but will also soften the image a little. There also may be problems if the files contain interlaced frames. In this case, you need to de-interlace the images before they are re-scaled. One way to do this is to recall them first, de-interlace them (using the Even/Odd Field buttons in the Image Tools panel), and then re-scale them. For numbered sequences of files, you can automatically de-interlace them then re-scale them. Assign the file sequence to a Source Disk Path (in the Source VTR Set-up Menu), and turn on "Rescale" (setting the X and Y buttons to the dimensions you want to re-scale to). Then use either the Grab button in the VTR panel in Paint, or a Filmstrip Actor in Animation, to recall each frame. Also, be sure de-interlacing is on (use the "Extr" button in the Filmstrip Actor edit menu, or the de-interlace controls in the Grab popup in the VTR panel in Paint). [66] When I grab or show a frame using my video board, the images appear jaggy (aliased) Please refer to the previous question. [67] How does Liberty browse image files? And what are all those ".filename_brws.im" files in my image directories? Since most non-Liberty image file formats don't have embedded browse (thumbnail) images, Liberty creates separate mini .im files for each non-Liberty image file. These have the naming convention ".filename_brws.im". The leading dot means the filenames won't be visible in a UNIX shell, unless you use "ls -a" or "ls -la" (likewise, they won't be visible in Windows Explorer unless you configure it to display Hidden Files). Liberty creates these browse images when it saves non-Liberty image files, and also when you use the "Makebrowse" button in the File Manager. These browse files have the advantage that they can be browsed over FTP (this is possible since they are separate from the main image, and can be transferred quickly to Liberty). One problem is that if you delete non-Liberty image files from outside of Liberty, you may forget to find and delete the corresponding browse files. This may result in hard disk space being wasted. The solution to this is to manually delete any orphan browse files. Or, always delete image files within Liberty's File Manager (since it is smart enough to delete the browse files as well). [68] What about browsing of Imagestor files? These are stored with the ".TN" extension (for example, still .0001 will have a thumbnail .0001.TN). These can also be browsed over FTP. [69] My hard drive is getting full. What files can I delete? On both IRIX and Windows, images and especially movie files are often the biggest consumers of space. So, go through your image directories, and clean out any image files you no longer need. You might also try searching for movie files with the ".mv", ".mov", and ".avi" extensions and seeing if any of those can be deleted. Also, check for any unused Liberty browse (thumbnail) files (see above). And, see how many levels of Undo you have (in the Undo panel in Liberty's Configuration environment). You may want to reduce this number since each level of undo consumes disk space (you may also want to manually delete files in the liberty/undo directory to make sure old levels of undo really get removed from your disk). There are certain system files that you can delete as well: For IRIX, sometimes large crashdump files collect in the /var/adm/crash directory. Any numbered files in that directory can normally be deleted. Also, sometimes the contents of /var/tmp gets large. This directory contains temporary files that can normally be deleted. Check /tmp too. To delete files in any of these directories, you will usually have to be super-user (root). For Windows systems, files in the Temp directory on the main hard drive can often be deleted. You should also be able to delete .zip files which you've already unzipped, install programs for programs you've already installed, and temporary internet files. As a final note, remember that on Windows, you need to go into the Recycle Bin and empty it for any deleted files to really get deleted. [70] When I paint with pressure on, I don't seem to be getting the full range of pressure values. Check the Tablet Configuration panel, and try lowering the "Click" value (or use "Reset" to reset the panel to defaults, with click = 50). If the "Click" value is too high, it will reduce your pressure range. Be careful not to set "Click" to extremely low values, however, as this may result in buttons pressing before you've really pressed down. For Windows systems, you can also check the settings in the Wacom tool in the Windows Control Panel. [71] How do I use the Shrink-wrap button in the "Save File As" menu? For cut outs (images that don't fill the entire canvas), turning Shrink-wrap on causes the file to be shrunk down to its bounding box before being saved. For example, if the canvas contains a 30 x 40 pixel star, only that area will be saved to the file. On the other hand, if Shrink-wrap is turned off, the entire canvas area (including empty transparent portions of it), is saved to the file. This will consume more disk space (although not that much for compressed file formats). There are cases where you should leave Shrink-wrap off. If you're creating and saving a sequence of cut outs that you're going to use in an animation, leaving Shrink-wrap off ensures that all the saved files have the same width and height. This ensures that they will be stable when animated along a path, since the center point will be consistent between each file. [72] When I save a shrink-wrapped file to disk using the "Save File As" menu, when I recall it back into Liberty, it comes up in the lower left corner of the canvas. Not all file formats allow an X,Y offset to be stored. For such formats, there's no way of specifying where the bounding box started relative to the canvas. In this case, the file will be recalled to the lower left corner of the canvas. [73] When I grab video frames, they have a garbled, choppy appearance. You probably need to enable de-interlacing. This is especially true if your canvas size differs from your device's video resolution, since re-scaling could jumble the interlaced scan-lines. You can use the Grab popup in the VTR panel to turn on de-interlacing. Select either "Grab Even Field" or "Grab Odd field" in the Grab popup. In animation, use the "Extr" popup in the Filmstrip Actor Edit Menu (if the material is odd-field-first, select "use odd" for field 1, and "use even" for field 2; if the material is even-field first, select "use even" for field 1, and "use odd" for field 2). It is fairly easy to tell if your source material is even-field-first or odd-field-first. Just grab the even field, save it to the Temp, then grab the odd field. In comparing the two fields, you should be able to tell which one is first in time, based on the motion between the two. [74] Is there a way to batch convert files from Liberty (.im) format to another image format? Under IRIX, you can do this in a shell script. To convert all .im files in a directory to SGI .rgb files, try the following (type this in a Unix shell window while in the directory with the .im files): foreach i (*.im) fromaurora $i {$i:r}.rgb end Of course, you will need enough disk space to accommodate both the .rgb's and the .im's during this process. If you need to go a step further and convert these from SGI .rgb files to Targa (.tga), there is a "totga" utility that we can provide to you. Contact Support for more info. [75] Under IRIX, when I try to run programs in Liberty's utilities directory, it responds "command not found". Try using the full path name of the command. For example, when running the "fromaurora" utility, use the command: ~/utilities/fromaurora filename.im filename.rgb [76] I have attached a new disk drive, DDR, or other SCSI device to my system, and I keep getting SCSI errors. SCSI Resets are usually indicative of hardware problems. It could be a problem with the SCSI bus, a bad cable, or improper termination. Or, it may be that the SCSI chain is too long. Most often, this error is caused by either a bad or non-existent terminator, or by extending the SCSI chain (daisy chaining) over too many devices. While the SCSI spec is 3 meters, failures sometimes occur on chains of multiple devices of less than 1.5 meters. Regarding termination, check the last device on the chain to see if it has internal termination. If not, you need a high quality, properly functioning terminator on the "out" SCSI connector of the device. On the other hand, if the device IS internally terminated, do NOT use a terminator. [77] When I save an image from Liberty and then recall it into another program or on another platform, the transparent areas look overly dark. By default, Liberty saves all image files WITH pre-multiplied alpha. Many video devices, however, DO NOT use pre-multiplied alpha. If you provide them with an image with pre-multiplied alpha, transparent pixels effectively get multiplied twice, making them appear too dark. In Liberty V6.5, we added a "Pre-mult Alpha" button to the "Save File As" popup. When this button is on, images are saved WITH pre-multiplied alpha (the default). When this button is off, images are saved WITHOUT pre-multiplied alpha (which will correct your problem of transparent areas being too dark). Another situation where you would turn "Pre-mult Alpha" off is when saving files to Photoshop, since it does not use pre-multiplied alpha. Note also that we have added a new "Mult" button to the Recall File popup (this button is in the "Alpha" section of the Recall File popup). When this button is on, Liberty will convert pixels to pre-multiplied alpha when files are recalled (for example, turn it on when reading files created in Photoshop, so that Liberty will convert the pixels to pre-multiplied alpha). [78] When I show the canvas to Video Out (using my video board), the transparent areas look overly dark In the Show popup (in the Transfer panel in Paint), turn on the "UnPreMult Alpha" button. When this button is on, Liberty will un-scale the RGB components prior to outputting video and key. This should correct the overly dark transparent areas. Likewise, if you are grabbing video and key to the canvas (using the Grab button in the Transfer panel), you can turn on "Premult Alpha" in the Grab popup. This will ensure that the RGB components get properly scaled by the alpha (key) values for use within Liberty. [79] When using Paste Distort, what is the difference between the different filter types? "Point" is the fastest, but will also have the most jaggyness. "Bilinear" does a 4-to-1 averaging of pixels, and has the best results for most situations (its results will be softer than "Point"). "Adaptive" consumes the most processing time. It has the best results, however, for warps with very sharp angles, since it can average more than four pixels to one. [80] When I use the Paste/Distort tool to scale an object, it always does a proportional scale about the center of the object. What if I want to just scale one side or corner of the object (leaving the other side in place)? Just turn on the "Lock" button (the one right below the pink "Eye" button, not the one next to the "OK" button). [81] I have selected a file type (for example, JPEG) in my "Save File As" popup, but when I save files, it still saves them as Liberty .im files. The "Save File" button always saves files in Liberty .im format. The "Save File As" button saves in the non-Liberty format (JPEG or whatever) chosen in the "Save File As" popup. People often select a file type in the "Save File As" popup, then try to use the "Save File" button to save the files. This fails, since "Save File" always saves .im's. Use the "Save File As" button to save non-Liberty image files. Note that in V7.0, it is now possible to set up the "Save File" button to save TIFF files (instead of .im's). This can be set-up in the "Save-as Set-up" popup of the Directory Management panel in Liberty's Configuration environment. Just turn on the "Save button saves TIFF" button. [82] When I brighten dark areas of an image, I see banding (posterization). A similar thing occurs when I reveal very transparent areas to the canvas with an airbrush. When you reveal with low alpha, you're revealing highly transparent pixels (which have very little color information). As you continue painting, things get more opaque as the brush keeps painting over itself. The colors, however, are posterized, since the original, very transparent pixels had very little color information. The same thing happens when you brighten dark pixels. You see banding since very little color information was there to begin with. [83] When I recall certain files from the Recall File menu, a valid image size appears in the prompt window, but the canvas is blank. On rare occasion, some non-Liberty image files have an alpha channel of all zeros, or an inverted alpha channel. To resolve this, try either the "Alpha Ignore" or the "Alpha Invert" button in the "Recall File" popup. [84] Everytime I recall an Image, my palette settings get changed. Turn on the "Ignore Palette" button in the Recall File popup to prevent this. [85] In Liberty on Windows, I am unable to save files. I keep getting "Permission Denied", "File is Read Only", or "Sharing Violation" messages. Under Windows, go into Windows Explorer, right click on the file in question, select "Properties", and ensure that Read Only is off (unchecked). Do the same for the directory containing the file. In a command prompt window, you can turn off "read only" for multiple directories and files with the following command (in the command prompt window): attrib -R /S * Also note that Windows prevents a file from being accessed by two programs at the same time. So, you can't read or save to files that someone else has open. [86] In Liberty IRIX, I am unable to save files. I keep getting "Permission Denied" messages. You need to turn on read/write permissions for the files/directories in question. This is especially important if multiple Unix users utilize Liberty or share images. To turn on read and write permissions for all files and sub-directories in the current directory, use the following shell commands: chmod -R o+r * chmod -R o+w * You will probably need to be super-user (root) to perform these commands. Just do: su In the shell window, then enter the root password if needed. [87] When I exit Liberty, my menu settings don't seem to get saved. Most menu settings (for example, file paths in the recall menu) get saved when you exit, and will be there when Liberty is re-started. The one exception may be if you kill the program externally (for example, using the Windows Task Manager, or by killing Liberty's console window using the "X" button). If your menu settings don't appear to be saving, be sure that the liberty/projects directory and all the files in it have correct permissions (see above). Also, early versions of Liberty on Windows had a bug where menu settings were not being saved. Upgrading to the latest Liberty version will correct this. [88] When I exit Liberty, my video set-ups don't seem to get saved. Settings made in Liberty's Video Configuration panel are saved on exit (see above). Settings made in using the "Device Specific Settings" button, which brings up the vendor's video menu (for example, SGI's Video Control Panel), are outside of Liberty's control. In general, these should get saved. There was a bug in the O2 Video Control Panel, however, where settings were lost during a reboot. Note that the "Device Specific Settings" button was called "V Adj" in versions of Liberty prior to V8.0. [89] In Liberty 64, what does the "Cineon" button (under "Color Range Display Mode" in the "64 Bit" panel in the Configuration environment) do? This function, when enabled, performs a log to linear conversion when Liberty's 64-bit canvas is displayed on the screen. This function is used when working with images read from Cineon (or DPX) files, which are often in log format. Pressing on the Cineon button brings up a popup menu with five sliders, a Convert Off button, and a Reset button. The sliders represent black points for Red, Green, and Blue, an overall white point, and a gamma value. Increasing the black points makes the dark colors darker, while decreasing the white point makes the bright colors brighter. The gamma slider adjusts the middle ranges in the image. The Reset button sets the menu to the default log to linear conversion values for Cineon files, and will almost always be used when this function is on. The Convert Off button sets the values so that no conversion is done (black points at 0, white point at 1023, and gamma at 1.0). This is equivalent to turning the function off. Once the settings in the popup are complete, the OK button brings down the popup and makes the settings active. Note that this function only affects the range of colors displayed on the screen. The contents of the canvas is not modified. This function is utilized in conjunction with the Cineon and DPX set-up controls in the Save File As popup in the Paint environment. There are two modes of working with log Cineon or DPX files: The user works with log data within Liberty. In other words, Cineon files are NOT converted to linear format when read into Liberty (likewise, images are NOT converted back to log format when saved from Liberty, since they already are in log format). The user works in log format, but turns on Cineon log to linear conversion for display of the canvas on the screen. This way, the canvas looks good when displayed on the screen, but the pixels are kept in log format internally, preventing any conversion artifacts from being introduced. To run in this mode, set the Cineon and DPX set-up controls in the "Save File As" popup (in the Paint environment) to "Convert Off", turning off conversion when the files are saved and recalled. Also, turn on log to linear conversion for screen display of the image, by using the Cineon function described above. Enable this function by pressing on the Cineon button in the 64-bit Color Range Display section of the "64 Bit" Configuration panel, to bring up the Cineon popup. In the popup, press the Reset button in the popup to activate the default conversion values. The sliders in the popup can also be fine-tuned as needed. The user works with linear data within Liberty. In other words, Cineon files ARE converted to linear format when read into Liberty (and back to log format when saved back out). The user works in linear format, and turns off Cineon log to linear conversion for display of the canvas on the screen (since the images are already in linear format within Liberty). This mode is preferable for some imaging functions in Liberty (such as Chroma keying), as these functions work better when using linear image data. To run in this mode, set the Cineon and DPX set-up controls in the "Save File As" popup (in the Paint environment) to do conversion, by pressing the red Reset button in the Cineon or DPX set-up menu, and fine tuning the sliders if needed. This turns on conversion when the files are saved and recalled. Also, turn off log to linear conversion for screen display of the image, by selecting the "Off" button described above, for 64-bit color range display (in the "64 Bit" Configuration panel). [90] How do I recall frames from a movie file? To recall frames from a movie file in Paint, you need to use the VTR panel. In the Source VTR set-up menu, assign the movie file as the current source disk path. Then, in the VTR panel, use the frame/timecode window and the Grab button to grab frames from the movie file. In Animation, assign the movie file as the current source disk path, then use a Filmstrip Actor (with proper source disk path selected in the Filmstrip Actor Edit menu). Note that this approach works with any file containing multiple frames, including RAW YUV clips, Chyron Motion Files, Avid OMF clips, and movie files such as Quicktime and AVI. [91] When I brose a directory in Liberty, all of the .im files whose names start after a certain letter do not appear. If there is a "bad" shortcut in a directory that you are browsing, Liberty will sometimes fail to display any files whose names alpabetically follow the name of the shortcut. For example, the shortcut starts with a "g" and all files whose names start with "g," "h," "i," etc. do not appear. However if you manually type in the file name, Liberty will open it. To solve this problem, navigate to that folder in Windows, and remove the bad shortcut. Performance and Speed Issues [92] Liberty is running very slowly Be sure that you're not running two copies of Liberty at the same time. Sometimes, users accidentally start up more than one copy without realizing it. This slows things down. On an IRIX system, press Alt-F9 while the cursor is over the Liberty menus to minimize (iconize) Liberty. See if there is another set of Liberty menus remaining. If in doubt, do a "killall liberty32" from a shell window (or "killall liberty64" if you're running Liberty 64, etc). Then re-start Liberty once. On a Windows system, press Control-Alt-Del, and go into the Windows Task Manager. For each copy of Liberty, you will see the Liberty program (Liberty icon), and a Liberty error message (console) window. If you see more than one set of these, you have more than one copy running. Of course, if you're using background rendering of animations, you may want more than one copy of Liberty running. Also, please refer to the question below. [93] On my Windows system, Liberty's menus are drawing very slowly. In the Configuration environment, go into the Cursor panel and ensure that the "Custom Cursors" button is turned OFF. On some Windows graphics cards (such as the SGI 320/540 and the Diamond Fire), custom cursors do not perform well. Another thing to check is in the Windows Control Panel. Go into "Mouse->Pointers" and make sure "Scheme" is set to "None", rather then custom or animated cursors. On Windows, this could also be a problem with your graphics card settings. Also note that some Windows graphics cards just don't perform well with Liberty (due to poor fill rates or other driver issues). To resolve this, use one of the recommended graphics cards for Liberty (such as the Oxygen VX1 from 3D Labs). [94] In Liberty, painting on the canvas is very slow. In the Paint popup (corner button of "Paint"), press "Reset" followed by "OK". This will ensure that the brush gap is optimal during painting. [95] In Liberty, Paste previews seem slow In Liberty's Configuration environment, check the Preview panel. In most cases, all settings in this menu should be set to "fast (h/w)". If they are already set to this, however, you can try setting all settings to "normal (s/w)" and see how this affects Paste performance. Don't set some settings in this menu to "fast (h/w)" and some settings to "normal (s/w)", as this will cause problems with the previews. [96] My system seems to run slow when I have a lot of applications/windows running at the same time, or when I have a high canvas resolution or a large number of temp layers. You may need to add more swap space (IRIX) or virtual memory (Windows). Under Windows, just increase the Virtual Memory setting in the "Windows Control Panel->System->Performance" menu (NT 4.0), or the "Windows Control Panel "Advanced" tab under "Performance Options" (Windows 2000). Then re-boot. Of course, you need enough disk space to accommodate this. For IRIX, you can add a swap file to one of your hard disks to increase swap space. An example of doing this (in a shell window as super-user) would be: mkfile 200m /swapfile This creates a 200 Megabyte swap file in the root directory. You can activate this by adding the following line to your /etc/fstab file (using the jot or vi editor): /swapfile swap swap pri=0 0 0 Then, execute the following command: /etc/swap -m You can also check how much swap space you currently have using: /etc/swap -l Adding swap space will also help movie files play back better. [97] I am having problems using the Storyboard tools in Animation. You may need to add swap space. See above. [98] I am running Liberty 64, and/or Liberty with a high canvas resolution. Each time I do an operation in Paint, there is a noticeable pause before the operation begins. When Undo is on, Liberty saves an undo file to disk before any operation that modifies the canvas, temps, or masks. When working at video resolution, this usually isn't noticeable at all. With large canvas sizes (especially in Liberty 64), it may become annoying. In this case, you may want to turn off Undo (in the Undo panel in Config). If you do this, just remember that the safety net of undo is no longer there. Based on this, you should manually save your work more frequently. [99] I am having problems running Liberty on my SGI 320 or 540 system Please download and install the latest Digital Media drivers from: SGI 320 Graphics Drivers for SGI 320 systems, and: SGI 540 Graphics Drivers for SGI 540 systems. Be sure you download for the proper operating system (Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000) Next, Repeat the previous step above for the Video Drivers. Also, please verify that you are running the latest version of Liberty for the SGI 320/540. Also, in Liberty's Configuration Environment, please be sure that "Custom Cursors" is turned off in the Cursor Configuration Panel. [100] When running Liberty on an SGI 320 or 540 system, performance appears to degrade over time. This is a bug that was corrected after Liberty V7.0 was released. To resolve it, please install the latest version of Liberty software. Video, DDR, and VTR Setup [101] What video solutions are available for Liberty? The two main approaches involve DDR's (Digital Disk Recorders) and Video I/O boards. [102] What video I/O boards are available for Liberty on Windows systems? On Windows Systems, Liberty supports Chyron's Digital Codi board, which is an excellent choice for Paint users, since it provides single frame video grab, single frame video show, and real-time show (live video out) of the Paint canvas. Liberty also supports the DPS Reality board, which is a good choice for Animation users. This board supports streaming of video in real-time on and off a disk array. Liberty can then access the video clips as Targa file sequences, for frame by frame grab and render. For more details on the Codi and DPS Reality boards, pleases refer to the Liberty V7.1 Release Notes. Also, see the Video I/O setup section. Liberty also supports Chyron's Duet platforms, featuring single frame video grab (SD only), and single frame video show and real-time show (live video out) of the Paint canvas (SD and HD). Similar capability is available on SGI's 320 and 540 workstations. In addition, SGI 320 and 540 systems support real-time streaming of video on and off a disk array, using raw YUV clips. Liberty can then access these clips frame by frame for grab and render. For more info on Chyron Digital Codi, please refer to the Liberty V7.1 Release Notes, section 11. Also refer to: Chyron Web Site For more info on DPS Reality, please refer to the Liberty V7.1 Release Notes, section 10. Also refer to: DPS Web Site For more info on Chyron Duet, please refer to the Liberty V7.0 Release Notes, section 1 and the Liberty V7.1 Release Notes, section 2. Also refer to: Chyron Web Site For more info on SGI 320 and 540, please refer to the Liberty V7.0 Release Notes, section 2, and the Liberty V7.1 Release Notes, section 8 d-f. [103] What video I/O boards are available for Liberty on SGI IRIX systems? Liberty supports video boards on a number of SGI IRIX workstations, including Octane Video, O2 Video, and Impact Video. Within Liberty, you can grab single frames from these boards, and show single frames out. You can also enable real-time show, which displays the canvas to video out in real-time. In this manner, the artist can see live output on the NTSC/PAL monitor as they are working. These video boards can also be used with disk arrays, and with deck (VTR) control, to get video clips in and out of Liberty. More on this below. Refer to the Liberty Technical Reference Manual for more info on supported video devices and their set-ups. [104] What DDR's does Liberty support? Liberty has full support of Chyron's Aprisa DDR (200/250/300/SSX) over Ethernet, including browse of clips, single frame grab and show (render), clip playback, and access to database information. Liberty also supports a number of other DDR's, including the Sierra Quickframe Diskovery, the Accom WSD/Extreme series, the Pronto Video DDR, and the Abekas Diskus. Most of these can be interfaced either through Ethernet or SCSI. Within Liberty, you can control these DDR's (stop, play, cue, etc), grab frames, and render frames (from animation, or during rotoscoping). [105] What is the best DDR to use with Liberty? Liberty's Aprisa DDR interface is the most powerful. In addition to DDR control and frame grab/show, the user can browse clips (with thumbnails), access and modify database info for each clip, and grab/show both video and key simultaneously. For more info on Aprisa, please refer to: Chyron Web Site [106] What are the advantages of interfacing to a DDR over SCSI (as opposed to Ethernet)? In general, interfacing to a DDR over SCSI provides faster frame grabs and shows. It limits use of the DDR to the computer it is attached to, however. With Ethernet, any system on the network can access the DDR (although some DDR's only allow one user to access them at a time). Some DDR's (such as the Aprisa and the Abekas Diskus) only interface to Liberty through Ethernet. [107] How do I get Hi Definition video in and out of Liberty? Liberty runs on the HD Chyron Duet platform. This allows the user to show single HD frames from Liberty, and to enable HD real-time show (which displays the artist's work on the canvas to video in real-time). Frame grab is not yet implemented on this platform, however. Liberty on IRIX also supports the Sierra Design Labs HD 1.5 DDR, and the Pronto Vision HD DDR. Liberty interfaces to these DDRs over SCSI. This provides the same level of control as with a standard definition DDR, including transport (stop, play, cue, etc), frame grab, and frame render. An "HDTV Support" license is required to interface to either of these HD DDRs within Liberty. [108] What about Disk Arrays on Windows systems? The DPS Reality board allows you to stream video on and off a disk array, in real-time, as described above. [109] What about Disk Arrays on SGI systems? With SGI 320/540 Video, Octane Video, O2 Video, and Impact Video, Liberty supports video streaming (in real-time) using disk arrays. This allows you to stream video to and from your disk array using the video board. Using the video board, you can input video, in real-time, directly to a video clip on the disk array. The user does this using the Transfer panel Grab button, with "Video to Disk" turned on and an output file path specified. The video clip will be saved as a Raw YUV file. The user can then recall this file, frame by frame, into Liberty (using a disk path in the Source VTR menu). The user can also render Raw YUV clips in Liberty (using a disk path in the Target VTR menu). The user can then output these video clips in real-time, from the disk array to video out (again through the video board). The user does this using the Transfer panel Show button, with "Realtime Show" on, "Disk To Video" on, and an input file path specified. [110] Can I do streaming of both video and key with a disk array? n Windows, the DPS Reality board supports streaming of both video (fill) and key. For video streaming on SGI systems, raw YUV clips are utilized, key channel is not yet supported. [111] What type of disk arrays does Liberty support? To Liberty, a disk array just looks like a file system (no different than any other disk drive). So, Liberty will work with any disk array, as long as it works with your target computer platform (either IRIX or Windows). Note that to support real-time streaming, your disk array must support sustained data rates of at least 21 Megabytes (MB) per second, for standard definition serial digital (601) video. For the DPS Reality board, there is info on recommended hardware (including disk drives/arrays) at: DPS web site [112] How do I set-up a disk array? Disk arrays' fast data rates are possible since data is spread ("striped") evenly between the drives in the array. When a file is recalled, data is coming from all drives in the array in parallel, resulting in much higher data rates than if a single drive was used. If you are using the DPS Reality board, you configure your disk array using the DPS Reality software (refer to the Help menus in this software for more details). For other video boards, disk array striping can either be done in hardware or software. Hardware striping is done using a RAID array. Companies providing RAID arrays include Medea, Eurologic, Data Direct Networks, and Ciprico. In this case, the entire array looks like a single (very large, fast) disk drive to the computer system (and Liberty). It is mounted just like a regular hard drive (using the System Manager menu (under "Files and Data") for IRIX, or using Disk Administrator for Windows). Disk array striping can also be done using the Operating System software (using XFS under IRIX, or using Disk Administrator under Windows NT). Such arrays are referred to as "JBOD" arrays, since they consist of "Just a bunch of drives", plus striping in software. Full details on disk array configuration is provided in the Liberty Technical Reference manual. [113] Is video streaming with disk arrays supported for High Definition video? Not yet. This is due to the fact that Liberty currently doesn't support a suitable high definition video board. To deal with moving HD video, you need to use a HD DDR. See the HD DDR section below. [114] Should I use a DDR or Disk Array? Both DDRs and Disk Arrays allow you to get moving video in and out of Liberty. They do have very different characteristics, however. Both Chyron's Aprisa DDR, and the DPS Reality board, have excellent VTR control capabilities, and good interfaces with the Liberty software. DDR's are highly specialized video devices, and have many related features (often including things like VTR control, slow motion video capability, multiple video input/output formats, and even audio). If you have a DDR, you probably won't need a video board in your computer (unless of course, you want to do real-time show while painting to the canvas). You will just use the DDR for all video related functions, and control the DDR and grab/render frames from within Liberty. Disk arrays are very basic in terms of video, on the other hand. They support streaming of YUV in and out, and that's about it. Disk arrays may be more cost effective, however. In addition, disk arrays have the advantage of appearing like a regular file system to the computer. Therefore, you can use them as large/fast storage devices to save any type of data that you want. They have a directory structure, you can save, recall, and browse images on them, and they store non-image data as well. Of course, to stream video with disk arrays, you need a video board, and that limits you to certain computer platforms (see the section on video boards above). Also, disk arrays currently do not support parallel streaming of YUV and key, nor do they support high definition video streaming. The DPS Reality board, although it uses a disk array for its video clips, is really more like a DDR in terms of its features. For example, you can do sophisticated VTR control, capture, and print to tape using the DPS Reality and/or Velocity software. The DPS Reality supports parallel streaming of YUV and key. You can't use its disk array to store non-video data, however (in this case, the disk array is limited to video clips only). [115] How do I control a tape deck (VTR) within Liberty? In Liberty IRIX, frame accurate deck control is accomplished using the Videomedia VLAN interface, in conjunction with your video I/O board for grabs and shows. Liberty talks to the VLAN interface through a selected serial port, and the VLAN controls the VTR (depending on what protocol its chip is designed for). Once the VLAN is hooked up, proceed with set-up in Liberty as follows. In the "Option Management" panel of the Configuration environment, select your video board. In the "Video Configuration" panel, assign a VTR (say VTR 1) to "VLAN". Set "Control" to "Serial-1" or "Serial-2" (depending on which serial port you are using) and set the Address to the node number of the VLAN receiver (slave) for your VTR. Set "Video" to your selected video board. Press the green "Config" button (you should see the "Done Initializing VTR's" message in the prompt window). You are now ready to control the deck, and grab and record frames, using the VTR panel (refer to the Liberty Artist's Manual for details). Note that with most video boards, you will need a VTR with dynamic tracking, so that a stable frame can be grabbed when the deck is stopped. [116] What are the options for Video I/O on the SGI O2 system? The O2 system comes with analog video. You can purchase a digital video card for the O2 from SGI. http://www.sgi.com/o2/ Or, you can use the "VIVO 4:2:2 To Silicon Graphics 02 Digital Video Port Interface" from Miranda: http://www.miranda.com Of course, you can use a DDR with any Liberty system, and that doesn't require built-in video I/O (since it works over Ethernet and/or SCSI). [117] What are the options for Video I/O on the SGI Octane system? You can purchase a digital video card for the Octane from SGI. It supports both video and key out, and these are output in parallel during single frame show and real-time show. Of course, you can use a DDR with any Liberty system, and that doesn't require built-in video I/O (since it works over Ethernet and/or SCSI). [118] What are the options for Video I/O on the SGI 320 and 540 systems? The SGI 320 and 540 both come with analog video I/O. In addition, you can purchase a digital video card for the 540 from SGI. This supports both video and key. Of course, you can use a DDR with any Liberty system, and that doesn't require built-in video I/O (since it works over Ethernet and/or SCSI). [119] What are the options for Video I/O on the SGI Impact system? You can purchase Impact Video, which supports analog and digital video I/O. Of course, you can use a DDR with any Liberty system, and that doesn't require built-in video I/O (since it works over Ethernet and/or SCSI). [120] With SGI Impact Video, do I need to purchase the Color Space Conversion daughter card? This is required if you want to get both video and key out. Without it, you won't have key out. [121] When I grab video frames, they have a garbled, choppy appearance. You probably need to enable de-interlacing. This is especially true if your canvas size differs from your device's video resolution, since re-scaling could jumble the interlaced scan-lines. You can use the Grab popup in the VTR panel to turn on de-interlacing. Select either "Grab Even Field" or "Grab Odd field" in the Grab popup. In animation, use the "Extr" popup in the Filmstrip Actor Edit Menu (if the material is odd-field-first, select "use odd" for field 1, and "use even" for field 2; if the material is even-field first, select "use even" for field 1, and "use odd" for field 2). It is fairly easy to tell if your source material is even-field-first or odd-field-first. Just grab the even field, save it to the Temp, then grab the odd field. In comparing the two fields, you should be able to tell which one is first in time, based on the motion between the two. [122] When I output a frame from Liberty to video, circles in Liberty become ovals on the video monitor. When using Serial Digital Video (601) NTSC (525) or PAL (625), you need to turn on some form of Aspect Correction. This is required because Serial Digital uses rectangular pixels, while computer systems (and Liberty) use square pixels. Our recommendations for Aspect Correction are as follows: For O2 systems, go into the Defaults popup (in the Canvas Configuration panel), and select "601 NTSC" or "601 PAL". Also, turn on "Aspect Correct Display". This sets the canvas resolution to (720x486 for NTSC, and 720x576 for PAL), the same number of pixels and lines as 601 video. This sets the canvas display (on the computer screen) to (720x540), which makes the canvas look the same as when it's output to video. In addition, Liberty adjusts symmetric shapes so that they look correct when output to video. Thus, circles look like circles on both the computer monitor, and when output to video. For all other systems besides O2, go into the Defaults popup (in the Canvas Configuration panel), and select "601 NTSC" or "601 PAL". Also, turn on "Aspect Corr. Computer monitor". This sets both the canvas resolution and the canvas display (on the computer monitor) to (720x486 for NTSC, and 720x576 for PAL), the same number of pixels and lines as 601 video. In addition, Liberty adjusts symmetric shapes so that they look correct when output to video. This means that circles will look correct when output to video, but they will not look correct on the computer monitor (they will look like horizontal ovals). It is easy to adjust the computer monitor to correct this, however. Most computer monitors have horizontal adjustment buttons. You can use these to reduce the horizontal size of the computer monitor picture, until circles look correct (by reducing the horizontal size of the computer monitor picture, you actually stretch it vertically, making ovals appear correctly as circles). Another option would be to increase the vertical size of the computer monitor picture. On the Impact and Octane platforms, Liberty attempts to adjust the computer monitor picture for you. After making your settings in the Configuration environment, the computer screen will briefly flash black, and then will reappear with horizontal scaling applied. This setting stays in effect until you exit Liberty, and will resume when Liberty is re-started. Note that on the Impact and Octane, you may still need to manually adjust the horizontal size of the computer monitor picture, using the appropriate buttons on the computer monitor. This is due to the fact that the computer monitor size may already be out of adjustment, and there is no way for Liberty to detect this. A third option is to use "Aspect Correct Canvas" in the Defaults popup. This sets both the canvas and canvas display resolution to (720x540). Using this setting, Liberty's canvas has the same aspect ratio as 601 video. The problem, however, is that images must be re-scaled to and from (720x486 for NTSC, and 720x576 for PAL) when showing/grabbing video. This re-scaling is too slow to support Real-time Show. In addition, re-scaling introduces artifacts into the picture. In the Defaults popup, you can turn "Rescale with Interpolation" either on or off. With this on, re-scaling will result in softer images. With this off, re-scaling may result in aliasing (jaggyness). Another issue with using a (720x540) canvas is that you must de-interlace any moving video when bringing it into Liberty. Otherwise, the interlaced scan-lines get filtered together when the image is re-scaled during grab. You can de-interlace using the Grab popup in the VTR panel, and using the "Extr" popup in the Filmstrip Actor Edit menu. Note that in Liberty V8.0, the "Defaults" button in the Canvas Configuration Panel was re-named to "Advanced Settings". [123] When I have "Aspect Correct Display" or "Aspect Correct computer monitor" on (see above), graphics recalled from the web don't look right when output to video. Circles look like ovals. When aspect correction is on, you need to re-scale such images for video when you recall them into Liberty. This applies to graphics from the web, or from any other non-video graphics program or other source. To set up this re-scaling, turn on "Re-scale" in the Recall File popup. Go into the Re-scale popup, turn on "Scale by Percent", and set X to 100, and Y to 90 for NTSC (for PAL, use X = 100, Y = 107). After you do this, remember to turn off "Re-scale" when later recalling files that did originate from video. [124] How do I configure a Video I/O board within Liberty (for example, Chyron Duet, Chyron Digital Codi, or DPS Reality)? Go into Liberty's Configuration environment. In the Option Management panel, select the video board you wish to use (for example, Chyron Digital Codi). In the Video Configuration panel, select VTR 1. In the list of devices, select "none". Below that, press on "Control". Set Type to "none". Then press on "Video" (to the right of "Control"). Press on the Type window until the name of the video board (eg, Chyron Digital Codi) appears. Press the green Configure button, and look for the message "Done Initializing VTRs" in the prompt window. In the Video Configuration panel, there is a Device Specific Settings button. For some video boards, pressing this button brings up a menu where you can make further adjustments (eg, type of Sync). Note that in versions of Liberty previous to V8.0, "Device Specific Settings" was named "VAdj". On the SGI 320 and 540, bring up the SGI video control panel by right clicking on the SGI cube logo on the right side of the Windows Task bar. Select "video control panel" in the popup. Verify that these settings are correct for the type of video you are using. In the Canvas Configuration panel, verify that the Canvas and Display resolutions are appropriate for the video board you are using, and that NTSC or PAL is set correctly (Refer to the two previous questions on "Aspect Correction" above). In the Transfer panel, you can use the Show button to show the contents of the canvas to Video Out. You can also use the Grab button to grab the video input to the canvas. Usage of these buttons is dependent on which video board you are using: For Chyron Digital Codi, please refer to the Liberty V7.1 Release Notes, section 11. For DPS Reality, please refer to the Liberty V7.1 Release Notes, section 10. For Chyron Duet, please refer to the Liberty V7.0 Release Notes, section 1 and the Liberty V7.1 Release Notes, section 2. For SGI 320 and 540, please refer to the Liberty V7.0 Release Notes, section 2, and the Liberty V7.1 Release Notes, section 8 d-f. For Chyron Aprisa DDR/Still Store, please refer to the Liberty V7.0 Release Notes, sections 3 and 4, and the Liberty V7.1 Release Notes, section 3. The Grab and Show buttons are discussed in general in the Liberty Artist's (User's) Manual, section 4.10. For Single Frame Grab, go into the Grab popup and ensure "Video To Disk" is turned off. For Single Frame Show, ensure "Non Realtime Show" is selected in the Show popup. For Realtime Show, ensure "Realtime Show" is selected in the Show popup, and that "Disk to Video" is turned off. [125] I have checked my configuration settings but I am still unable to Grab and/or Show (from the Transfer Panel) using my Video I/O Board. First, make sure there is a live video signal coming into the correct Video Input jack on your video board. Also, if you are using an external analog to digital converter (such as the Miranda converter for O2 systems), you still need to configure the video board (and Liberty) for analog video (since the conversion to/from digital happens outside of the system). For example, for an O2 with analog NTSC, you would set the SGI video panel to the following settings: Default input: Composite Video Composite Video Input: Square NTSC Video Output: Square NTSC Bring up the SGI video panel using the "Device Specific Settings" button (formerly called "V Adj") in Liberty's Video Configuration panel. Also, ensure that your canvas resolution is set to "Analog NTSC" using the "Advanced Settings" popup (formerly called "Defaults", in the Canvas Configuration panel). [126] How do I configure a DDR within Liberty, using an Ethernet connection (for example, the Chyron Aprisa 300 DDR)? Go into Liberty's Configuration environment. In the Video Configuration panel, select VTR 1. In the list of devices, select your DDR (for example, "Chyron Aprisa DDR"). Below that, press on "Control". Set the Type to "Ethernet". In the Address window, enter the network host name (or IP address) of the DDR. Then press on "Video" (to the right of "Control"). Again, set the Type to "Ethernet". Verify that the host name/IP address is set in the Address Window. Press the green Configure button, and look for the message "Done Initializing VTRs" in the prompt window. In the Canvas Configuration panel, verify that the Canvas and Display resolutions are appropriate for the DDR you are using, and that NTSC or PAL is set correctly. Once the DDR is configured, you can control it, and grab and render frames, using the VTR panel (in Paint, and in the upper left corner of the Animation environment). Be sure to select the proper VTR number in the Source and Target set-up menus in the VTR panel (in Paint, bring these up using the corner buttons next to the Timecode windows in the VTR panel; in Animation, use the "Setup" button in the VTR panel). Liberty's interface to the Chyron Aprisa DDR is described in more detail in the Liberty V7.0 Release Notes, section 3, and the Liberty V7.1 Release Notes, section 3. [127] How do I configure a DDR within Liberty, using a SCSI connection? Please refer to the Liberty Technical Reference Manual, section 4. [128] How do I bring source material from my DDR into an Animation actor? Assuming you have already configured your DDR in the Configuration environment (refer to the Liberty Technical Reference Manual), do the following in Animation: Add a Filmstrip actor, making sure the length (in frames) is the same length as your video segment on the DDR (that is, if you want the speed to be 1:1). In the Filmstrip Actor Edit menu (far right), select the VTR number that you assigned to your DDR during configuration (for example, VTR 1). On the same panel, select the appropriate "In" time. This will be the first frame on the DDR that you want to make the first frame in your Filmstrip actor. To test this, make sure the Preview popup is set to "Render", then move the red arrow on the timeline and release it on a selected frame. If the DDR is turned on, in a few seconds a frame of video will render out to your canvas. [129] When accessing my DDR from Liberty over Ethernet, it keeps hanging up. First, make sure the DDR is visible over the network. On the Liberty system, bring up a shell (command prompt) window, and do a: ping DDR_hostname If the ping command fails, the DDR may be down or there may be a problem with the network or network configuration. Also, try a: ping DDR_ip_address If ping fails with the hostname but works with the ip address, you need to add the hostname to the "/etc/hosts" file (IRIX) or the "winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts" file (Windows). Also, be sure another user isn't already accessing the DDR. Some types of DDR's don't allow access by multiple users. In addition, make sure the DDR is properly configured for Ethernet (for example, for the Accom DDR, you need to go into the Accom's menus and enable Ethernet, along with setting the IP address). Refer to your DDR manufacturer's documentation for further details. [130] When rendering to my DDR from Liberty it eventually hangs. Be sure you are running the latest Liberty version. Also, be sure you are running the latest version of the DDR vendor's software on the DDR. Also, if accessing the DDR via SCSI, please refer to the SCSI Errors section. [131] When trying to initialize the Chyron Digital Codi board within Liberty, it fails First, you need to install the Digital Codi drivers (provided by Chyron with your Digital Codi board) if they haven't been installed already. Second, please consult the Video I/O Board setup checklist above, and verify that you are following the steps correctly. If initialization still fails after following the above steps, try the following. Liberty utilizes the following two files installed with the Digital Codi drivers: DpcCodiD.dll pcCODI601.out (pdCODI64.out for the newer Lantern64 card!) Sometimes these files get installed in a location where Liberty can't see them. To correct this, do a search for each file in Windows Explorer. When you find each file, COPY it to the Liberty\sys directory. For example: C:\Program Files\Video Design Software\Liberty\sys if that's where you have installed Liberty. Copy the files using Windows Explorer. Once you have done this, Liberty should be able to see the files and initialization should work. [132] I am having problems running Liberty at the same time as the DPS Reality software. In the DPS Reality software, go to "Options, VGA Window Settings", and set "Draw Mode" to "Compatibility Mode". This should enable Liberty and the Reality software to share your graphics board without conflict. [133] When attempting to do a Real-time Show from my Video Board, I get a message that the canvas resolution is incorrect for Real-time show. First, verify that the canvas resolution is in fact correct. Most video boards require canvas resolutions of 720x486 for NTSC, and 720x576 for PAL. Usually, you will set your display resolution to this same value (although on the SGI O2, it often works well to set your display resolution to 720x540 for aspect correction purposes). Second, verify that you have correctly selected either NTSC or PAL in Liberty's Canvas Configuration panel. Third, check any device specific settings and make sure you have the correct NTSC/PAL and video standard selected. You can check these for many video boards using the "Device Specific Settings" button in the Video Configuration panel (this button was called "V Adj" in versions of Liberty prior to V8.0). [134] Under IRIX, I am unable to access my DDR through SCSI. Review the proper section of the Liberty Technical Reference manual to confirm that you are correctly configuring the DDR. In Liberty's Video Configuration panel, it is a common error to spell device names such as "sc1d5l0" incorrectly. That's a one after the "sc", and a small "L" after the "5". The permissions on the corresponding device file (for example, /dev/scsi/sc1d5l0) sometimes need to be correctly set. To do this (for an IRIX system), become super user (root) and use the following shell command: chmod 777 /dev/scsi/sc1d5l0 [135] The permissions on my DDR device files keep changing every time I reboot my IRIX system. With IRIX 6.5, it re-writes the device drivers each time it re-boots. To ensure that the permissions are set properly, you need to create a file within IRIX called /etc/ioperms, as shown below: log in as root on your system open a UNIX shell and type the following: jot /etc/ioperms and press enter In the window, type: /dev/scsi/ * 0777 root sys and press enter From the toolbar, Select File, then Save, then OK. Then select File and Exit to exit jot. Re-boot the system and you'll see that the device driver should have the correct permissions. Still Stores, Networking, and FTP [136] How do I assign a host name and IP address to my Windows NT 4.0 system? Go to Start->Settings->Control Panel. Double click on the "Networking" icon. You can check and set your Computer Name (host name) in the "Identification" tab. You can also set your workgroup here (it is useful to assign related computers on the network to the same workgroup, so you can see them in Windows Explorer). To set the IP address and related settings, go to the "Protocols" tab. Select TCP/IP, and go into "Properties" (if TCP/IP is not listed, you will need to add this protocol; you will need your NT 4.0 installation disk to do this). Under TCP/IP Properties, you can assign an IP address, a subnet mask (usually 255.255.255.0), and a default gateway (blank unless you have an outside internet connection). You can also define a Domain Name Server here (for accessing external web sites). If you are on a large network, your system administrator should be able to tell you what these settings should be. [137] How do I assign a host name and IP address to my Windows NT 2000 system? To display/change your computer name (host name) and workgroup, go to Start->Settings->Control Panel, doubleclick on the "System" icon, and go to the "Network Identification" tab (you can change the settings by clicking on "Properties"). To assign an IP address: Go to Start->Settings->Control Panel. Doubleclick on the "Network and Dial-up Connections" icon. Doubleclick on the "Local Area Connection" icon. Select "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" and press "Properties". Assign an IP address, subnet mask (usually 255.255.255.0), and default gateway (blank unless you have an outside internet connection). You can also define a Domain Name Server here (for accessing external web sites). If you are on a large network, your system administrator should be able to tell you what these settings should be. [138] What Character Generators and Still Stores does Liberty support?< Liberty offers a powerful interface to Chyron's Aprisa Still Store, including browse of stills (with thumbnails and database info), recall of stills, save of stills (with database info), and browse, recall, and save of the Aprisa frame buffers. This interface works over Ethernet, using FTP and TCP. For more details on using the Aprisa Still Store within Liberty, refer to the Liberty V6.5 Release Notes, section 11, the Liberty V7.0 Release Notes, section 4, and the Liberty V7.1 Release Notes, section 3. Liberty also supports browse, recall, and save of stills on Chyron Infinit, Max, Maxine, and Imagestor systems. Each of these interfaces works over Ethernet using FTP. [139] I am unable to browse or recall files from a remote system from the FTP button in Liberty. Before using the FTP button in Liberty, be sure that you can ping and FTP from a shell (command prompt) window. First try: ping hostname to verify that your system can talk to the remote one. If this works, next try using ftp from the command prompt window to change to a remote directory and grab an image file there (in binary mode): ftp hostname Enter username and password for FTP bin cd directory_path get filename quit If this fails, then the problem is outside of Liberty. Check your networking configuration on both your system and the remote one. Also, see the section on Setting up an FTP Server on remote system [140] I am having problems saving files over FTP Be sure you have a temporary directory set up on your local system: For IRIX systems, be sure /usr/tmp exists. If not, please create that directory. You can do this within a UNIX shell, or using the SGI File/Directory Manager utilities in the SGI Toolchest on the Desktop. For Windows systems, be sure C:\Temp exists. If not, please create that directory. You can do this in Windows Explorer. When I try to FTP to a remote IRIX system, I get a "connection refused" error message. User names listed in the "/etc/ftpusers" file are denied FTP access. Edit this file (in a text editor like jot or vi) and remove your FTP user name from this file. You will probably need root (super-user) access to edit this file. [141] When I try to FTP to a remote Windows system, it fails (for example, I get a "Connection refused" error message). Windows systems aren't configured as FTP servers by default. To resolve this, you need to install FTP server on the target Windows system (the system you are trying to FTP to). For Windows NT 4.0, go into the Windows Control Panel, and bring up the Networking menu. Under the "Services" tab, install "Microsoft Peer Web Server" if it's not already there (to do this, use the "Add" button; you will also need to insert your Windows NT 4.0 installation CD). You will probably need to reboot the system after this installation. For Windows 2000, the FTP server installation process is similar. You can install services such as FTP server by bringing up the Windows Control panel, going to "Network and Dial up Connections", then "Local Area Connection". You can then Install the FTP service using "Install, Service, Add". Once "Microsoft Peer Web Server" is installed, it needs to be set up. In the Microsoft Start menu, select "Microsoft Peer Web Services" (sometimes this is called "Microsoft Internet Server") and bring up "Internet Services Manager". In the list, doubleclick on "FTP" and/or your hostname. This brings up the "FTP Service Properties" menu. Set this up as follows: In the "Service" tab, make sure "Allow only anonymous connections" is turned off (unchecked). In the "Directories" tab, set up aliases for each hard disk (add/modify as needed). For example, if C is your system drive and you also have D and E drives, the list should look like: Directory Alias C:\ <home> C:\ /C D:\ /D E:\ /E For example, this allows you to access drive D as "/D" through FTP. Also, in the Properties for each of these drives, make sure that both Read and Write access is enabled. Sometimes there is an "Advanced" tab in the "FTP Service Properties" menu. Make sure that your FTP user is granted access in this panel (if all users are granted access, that's fine too). [142] I am unable to browse my Aprisa 100 (Still Store) system from Liberty. Ensure FTP Server is set-up correctly on the Aprisa system, as specified in the question on FTP access immediately above this question. Follow the instructions there, on the Aprisa system. In Microsoft Peer Web Server, the "Directories" tab should be set as follows on the Aprisa system: Directory Alias C:\ <home> C:\ /C G:\ /G In the Aprisa 100 software, in the "Tools -> Set-up" menu, make sure that the IP address, network node name, and network paths are correct for your system. Refer to the Aprisa Still Store setup section for more details on these settings. Examine your Aprisa Database to ensure that all the settings are correct, particularly the IP addresses, host names, and directory paths, which should be set up based on the Aprisa Still Store setup described above. You can do this on your Aprisa system using the DBEdit utility, in C:\AprisaSS\Utilities. You can view all the database info in DBEdit. In addition, you can change all values for a particular column (for example, IP address) by clicking at the top of that column (to select the entire column), then entering a new value. Usually if you aren't able to see thumbnails when browsing the Aprisa, it means that the Aprisa database has invalid data in it (if you have changed the Aprisa system's IP address, you need to go into the database and change all the IP addresses in it to match). You can resolve such database problems using DBEdit. If you don't have the DBEdit Utility, another way to update the database is to re-import all the stills (using the Aprisa 100's "Tools->Import->Drive Mappings" menu). This procedure is outlined as follows: Go to IMPORT and select the "Drive Mappings" tab. Select the G: drive and the G:\STILLS folder (or whatever folder your stills are in). Select all of the stills in the "Available Images" list (you can do this by selecting the first one, then selecting the last one with the shift key pressed). Click on the >> button to add the stills to the "Selected Images" list. Select all of the stills in the "Selected Images" list. Select the "Auto Inc" button. Click on "Import" to import all the stills. When finished, Close the Import dialog and the database will refresh with the updates. Refer to the A100 User Guide for further details. Also note that re-importing the stills sometimes fails if the database is badly corrupted. In this case the only option is to use DBEdit. Instructions for Aprisa 100 Setup Menu The Aprisa 100 must be properly configured before you can IMPORT or RECORD images and add records to the database. You must tell the software the DESTINATION of new STILLS and THUMBNAILS. Please READ CAREFULLY and follow the steps below to configure You will first need the following information about the computer or network that stores the STILLS and THUMBNAILS: The COMPUTER NAME of where the STILLS and THUMBNAILS will be stored. If the files are stored locally, you can view this by selecting NETWORK in the Windows NT Control Panel (in the "Identification" tab). The COMPUTER NAME is only available for computers connected to the NETWORK NEIGHBORHOOD. The SHARED DRIVE alias of the drive where the STILLS and THUMBNAILS are stored. You can find this by double clicking on NETWORK NEIGHBORHOOD in Windows NT Explorer and finding the COMPUTER NAME above. Double-click on that machine and note the SHARED DRIVES that are listed. You will want to remember the name of the shared drive that contains the STILLS and THUMBNAILS. If no shared drive exists for this, you will have to create a SHARE for that drive on that machine (use Windows NT Explorer, right click on the drive with the stills/thumbnails, select "Properties", and add the shared drive name in the "Share" tab). The SHARED PATH on the shared drive that leads to the STILLS and THUMBNAILS. This is that path as seen in Network Neighborhood in Windows NT Explorer (this path usually starts with "\\"). The MAPPED DRIVE PATH of where the STILLS and THUMBNAILS are located (e.g. S:\APRISA100\STILLS). This is the path as seen on the local drive in Windows NT Explorer. The IP ADDRESS of the machine where the STILLS and THUMBNAILS are located. You can view this by selecting NETWORK in the Windows NT Control Panel. Go to the "Protocols" tab, select "TCP/IP Protocol", and press on "Properties". The IP PATH used to find the STILLS and THUMBNAILS through FTP. This is the path name to find the stills and thumbnails, preceded by the drive alias selected during FTP set-up (e.g. /G/STILLS). The PATH used by the IMAGESTOR! to locate STILLS and THUMBNAILS. This will be different than the IP PATH above. Even if you don't have an ImageStor! connected you must enter a path (e.g. N/APRISA100/STILLS). Now start the Aprisa 100, and click on TOOLS/SETUP. By default, there is no password needed. Go to the GENERAL SETUP tab. Fill in the DRIVE MAPPING PATH field for STILLS, which was retrieved in step (1d) above. This should point to the drive where the STILLS are stored. If these files are not local, you will have to create a MAPPED DRIVE through NETWORK NEIGHBOORHOOD. Fill in the UNC PATH field for STILLS, which was retrieved in step (1a-c) above (the SHARED PATH). This is most important. This is a universal locator path for Windows networks. Type in the following: \\COMPUTER_NAME\SHARED_DRIVE\SHARED_PATH for example \\APRISA_01\MEDIA_G\SSDATA\STILLS Fill in the IP ADDRESS field for STILLS, which was retrieved in step (1e) above. This is the TCP/IP address of the machine that stores the STILLS. Fill in the IP PATH field for the STILLS, which was retrieved in step (1f) above. This is the path accessed when using FTP over TCP/IP. You can test this path by trying an FTP session from a DOS COMMAND PROMPT. You will need to setup WEB PEER SERVICES on any Windows machine that you wish to act as an FTP SERVER. In WEB PEER SERVICES you can create a shared drive or directory for the STILLS. Fill in the IMAGESTOR! IP PATH field for STILLS, which was retrieved in step (1g), above. This is important if Aprisa is to maintain an ImageStor! database that an ImageStor! machine will read. This is the path to the stills AS SEEN BY THE IMAGESTOR!. You will need to check the ImageStor! machine to see how it has mapped the drive to the STILLS. If you don't care about the ImageStor! database, you can put anything here, however, you must put something. Fill in the NODE field for STILLS. This is the COMPUTER NAME retrieved in step (1a) above. Repeat steps 4 through 9 except fill in the THUMBNAILS section. You may RECORD or IMPORT new STILLS to the database. You can IMPORT files from the Aprisa CDROM. Click on the IMPORT dialog. Click on the MAPPED DRIVES tab. Select the CDROM drive and find the SAMPLE\TGA folder. You can select from the 38 TARGA files to IMPORT into the database. If you would like to IMPORT from a Chyron, Quantel, or other non-Windows device use the FTP tab. You will first have to enter the IP ADDRESS into the HOST INFORMATION of SETUP. Likewise, these IP ADDRESSES will need to by entered into the Windows HOSTS file. This file is usually found in the C:\WINDOWS folder on Windows 95 and the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC folder on NT. [143] I can't save files to my Aprisa 100 (Still Store) system. When I save the file, it says the directory path is not found. On the Aprisa system, please follow the steps below: Go into Start->Run and enter "regedt32". Press OK. In the Registry Editor, go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE window, and under "Local Machine" and "Software", goto "Video Technics" and then "Aprisa Still Store", then select the key "Liberty Support Path" (use double clicks for each of these steps). Set the value of the key "LibertySupportPath" to "C:\AprisaSS/". Exit the Registry Editor. Also, on the Aprisa system, be sure that the FTP settings under "Microsoft Peer Web Services" are correct. See the Aprisa Still Store setup section for more. [144] I can't save files to my Aprisa 100 (Still Store) system. When I save the file, it says the directory path is not found. On the Aprisa system, please follow the steps below: Go into Start->Run and enter "regedt32". Press OK. In the Registry Editor, go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE window, and under "Local Machine" and "Software", goto "Video Technics" and then "Aprisa Still Store", then select the key "Liberty Support Path" (use double clicks for each of these steps). Set the value of the key "LibertySupportPath" to "C:\AprisaSS/". Exit the Registry Editor. Also, on the Aprisa system, be sure that the FTP settings under "Microsoft Peer Web Services" are correct. See the Aprisa Still Store setup section for more. [145] Liberty will not save images to my Aprisa SSX via FTP. The Aprisa SSX runs Windows 2000, so a few things on the Aprisa's FTP server must be configured differently than other Aprisa systems before Liberty can save to it. You must set up the FTP server on the Aprisa to have the correct drive mappings for C/ and G/. To do this in Windows 2000, go into Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Internet Services Manager. Double click on your computer name, and then right click "Default FTP site". Go to "New", "Virtual Directory". This brings up a wizard that allows you to map /C to the C:\ drive, and turn on read and write permissions. Repeat the process for the G drive (map /G to G:\). Also, under "Default FTP site", right click, properties, and set the Home directory to C:\. For the complete Aprisa setup procedure, see the Aprisa Still Store setup section for more. [146] When I browse my Infinit system from Liberty via FTP, how come I don't see thumbnails of the images? When saving to the Infinit, use the Imagestor file format rather than the Infinit file format. In the "Save File As" set up menu for Imagestor files, enter the same node and path for both "image" and "TN". And be sure "FTP" is on. From then on, saving Imagestor files using "Save File As" will save a thumbnail to the Infinit along with each still. These thumbnails will be browsable from Liberty using the FTP button. Of course, if you want to be able to browse the files using the Infinit's own menus, you need the Imagestor software. If you have this, be sure you enter the node (host name or IP address) for "still store database" in the Imagestor "Save File As" set up menu. If your Infinit doesn't have Imagestor software, leave this field blank, as there is no database to write to. [147] When I browse my Imagestor system from Liberty via FTP, the browse menu is very slow to update. I would suggest always storing images and thumbnails in the same directory on the Imagestor. That way, Liberty doesn't have to query the database to find the thumbnails when browsing. This will result in faster browsing. To tell Liberty not to query the database when browsing, set Liberty's FTP popup as follows: set the "node" field for "System with Still Store Database" to nothing (blank). Be sure the node and path for "Remote System" are set correctly, however. Animation [148] When I render animations, objects do not move smoothly when the animation is played back. For each actor, in the "Edit Keyframe" menu, be sure the "SubPixel" button is turned on. This will render movement at sub-pixel resolution. Selecting a higher resolution filter in the keyframe Paste/Distort popup (for example, use Bilinear rather than Point) will make individual objects smoother, which may help. Rendering text to an image file and using that file in a Cel actor may be preferable to using a Text Actor directly. If you are inputting video material to your animation, there may be interlacing issues, especially if you are rescaling, translating, or applying Paste/Distort to the material. If this is the case, you need to first de-interlace the material. In the Filmstrip actor edit menu, use the "Extr" popup to enable de-interlacing. See theDe-interlacing section for further info. One additional thing to check is the field order of the device you are rendering to. If it is a DDR, it is most likely (but not always) F1-2 (odd field first) Make sure that your field order settings in the Run popup are correct for the DDR that you're using (for example, select "Fields, Odd Field first"). The above also applies to the DPS Reality board, and also if you're rendering to files or clips that will ultimately output to video. Make sure you render in Fields, using the correct field ordering for your target device. [149] I have rendered a movie, and on playback its frames have a choppy appearance Use the Record corner button to check the Record popup settings. Usually, you will want to render to movie files in Frame (rather than Field) mode, so that you won't see interlacing artifacts during playback. However, you may actually want to render to movie files in Fields if the movie will be used on a field based video device. In this case, use "Fields" and either odd or even field first depending on the field ordering of the device. [150] Is it possible to render Liberty animations in background so I can keep working during the render? Assuming you have sufficient RAM, you should be able to start separate background renders. Liberty's animation environment has a background rendering set-up menu (accessed through the Record popup). This is described fully in the release notes for Liberty V6.5. It allows you to start one or more background renders from within Liberty (in fact, if you have multiple processors, these renders will run in parallel if they are output to different devices or disk paths). If you are doing a Background Render at the same time as you are running Liberty, you will need a Background Render license (you can obtain this from Video Design Software). If you are running multiple Background Renders at the same time, you will need one Background Render license for each. [151] I've tried starting a background render, and it fails. Before starting background render, remember that you need to set up your Target device(s)/path(s) in the Target VTR set-up menu. You also need to set-up your Run popup parameters. Also, make sure the Animation Record button is on. [152] Is it possible to start a background render from a shell window (outside of Liberty)? Yes, bring up a shell (command prompt) window, and type the following: cd sys liberty32 -b "full animation pathname" (for Windows, use Lib32.exe rather than liberty32) Also, remember that you need to set up your target record device(s)/path(s) and run popup parameters (and make sure the Record button is on) within the Liberty menus, then exit Liberty before starting the background renders. This will ensure that the background renders have the correct set-up parameters. Once you've done this, you can re-start the foreground copy of Liberty and continue working. [153] In Animation, when I use an effects Mask actor (say, a Blur, for example), it affects all the actors below it on the timeline. Is there a way to make it affect just the actor immediately below it? Almost all types of Mask actors affect all the actors below them. This includes all the "Effects" Mask actors (like Tint, Bright, Ripple, Blur, etc). The one exception to this is a plain "Mask" Mask actor (one that cuts out based on the assigned mask file). Plain "Mask" Mask actors affect only the actor immediately below them. Now here's the trick: If you want an "Effects" Mask actor (like blur) to affect just the actor below it, add a "Mask" Mask actor immediately above the Blur Mask actor. Assign the "Mask" Mask actor to a solid white mask. Once you do this, the "Mask" Mask actor will isolate the effect of the Blur Mask actor to the actor immediately below it. To phrase this another way, whenever you use an "Effects" Mask actor, you can isolate its affects to the actor immediately below it by adding a "Mask" Mask actor immediately above it. [154] I've built an animation path in the "Edit Path" menu. When I adjust one of the key-frame positions (in the Edit Keyframe menu), however, the path smoothes out, losing its original shape. Go into any of the key-frames, and turn off "Auto Smooth" (to the right of the Paste/Distort menu). This will preserve the shape of your path (rather than trying to maintain a smooth curve shape) as you move key-frames on the screen. [155] When I render an animation, how do I output to the various file formats that Liberty supports? How do I render to different types of movie files? Liberty supports the following types of movie files: Quicktime (IRIX and Windows), AVI (Windows only), and SGI Movie Files (IRIX only), To render to a movie file, use the "Story" button in Animation. Turn "Story" on, then go into the Record ("R") popup, assign your file pathname and desired X,Y resolution, then go into "File Data" and specify the type of movie file that you want to render to (this will allow you to specify Quicktime, type of compression, etc). Once you've set up the storyboard record popup, just press the green Run button, and the animation will render to the movie file. When the render is complete, the movie player window will appear, allowing you to play the movie back right then. To recall frames of a movie file back into Liberty, use the Source VTR menu and assign the movie file as a source Disk path. In addition to movie files, Liberty supports rendering to all its supported image file formats (for example, JPEG, Targa, TIFF, Liberty .im, etc). These are rendered as numbered sequences of files, with 1 frame per file. To set this up, turn on the "Record" button. Then go into the Target VTR set-up menu, and assign a target disk pathname (including the number "0" in the filename). Also, press on the file type window (just to the right of the path window). This brings up a popup where you can choose whatever file format you like. Once you've completed this set-up, pressing the green Run button renders the frames to a numbered sequence of files. Liberty also supports several clip file formats, including Raw YUV, Chyron Motion files, and Avid OMF. These file formats contain all frames in a single file. Therefore, numbering of the file name is not required (since only one file, not a numbered sequence, will be created). Other than that, set-up for clip file formats is similar to what's described in the previous paragraph. Once you've rendered to a clip file format, use the Source VTR menu and assign the clip file as a source Disk path for frame by frame recall. [156] What if I need the filenames to have a fixed number of digits (say 4-digit filenames with leading zeros)? Liberty preserves the number of digits that you enter in the file pathname in the Target VTR set-up menu. For example, if you enter a pathname of "/usr/people/liberty/image/local/hd0/test/filename0000.im", all files in the sequence will have 4-digit numbers. Plug-Ins [157] What imaging plug-ins are supported in Liberty on Windows platforms? On Windows platforms, Liberty supports selected Photoshop Filter plug-ins, which can be used in Paint (in the Image Tools 2 panel), and in Animation (via the Plug-in Actor). Supported plug-ins include Kai Power Tools 3, 5, and 6; Paint Alchemy, TypeCaster, and Terrazzo from Xaos Tools; Aged Film from DigiEffects; and Alien Skin Eye Candy and Xenofex. In addition, most (but not all) of the native Photoshop 5.5 plug-ins work in Liberty. For details, see: http://www.corel.com (for KPT plug-ins) http://www.xaostools.com http://www.digieffects.com http://www.alienskin.com For Windows, Photoshop plug-ins are installed and licensed outside of Liberty, using the plug-in vendor's installation CD. Install the plug-ins into the liberty/plugin directory. If you already have the plug-ins installed on your system, you can point Liberty to your plug-in directory by using the "User Set-up" popup in the "Directory Management" panel in Liberty's Configuration environment. Just change the "Plug-ins" path to the location of your plug-ins. Although all these plug-ins can be used in Animation (via the plug-in actor), not all of them are key-framable over time. Liberty V8.0 does support key-framing for some of the Xaos Tools plug-ins, as well as the Photoshop 5.5 native plug-ins. [158] Does Liberty support After Effects plug-ins? Yes, Liberty V8.0 supports a wide variety of After Effects plug-ins, which can be used in Paint (in the Image Tools 2 panel), and in Animation (via the Plug-in Actor). These plug-ins are fully key-framable in Animation. Unlike the Photoshop plug-ins, After Effects plug-ins require a separate license in Liberty, which you can obtain from Video Design Software. Supported plug-ins include the following: Boris FX: http://www.borisfx.com DFT Composite Suite: http://www.digitalfilmtools.com DigiEffects: http://www.digieffects.com Knoll Light Factory: http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ListProducts.asp Panopticum Pan Lens Pro II: http://www.panopticum.com Sapphire Effects: http://www.sapphire-innovations.com Tinder Box I and II: http://www.thefoundry.co.uk Ultimatte Chroma Keying: http://www.ultimatte.com For more information on using these plug-ins in Liberty, see the Liberty V8.0 Release Notes. [159] Adobe's native Photoshop 6.0 Filter plug-ins don't work in Liberty In Photoshop 6.0 and higher, Adobe apparently customized all their native plug-ins. According to Adobe's web site, these no longer work in third party applications (such as Liberty). Based on this, we recommend using the native plug-ins from Photoshop 5.5 (or earlier) with Liberty. [160] What imaging plug-ins are supported in Liberty on SGI IRIX platforms? On IRIX platforms, Liberty supports MetaCreations' Final Effects plug-ins (for Composer). These are automatically loaded when you install Liberty, but you must purchase a license from Video Design Software in order to use them. The user can access plug-ins through the Tools2 panel in Paint, and using the Plug In Actor in Animation (with full key-framing). Documentation for the IRIX plug-ins is contained in the liberty/docs directory (it can also be accessed through the green Help button in Liberty). [161] Are there Chroma Keying plug-ins available from Ultimatte? On the IRIX platform, yes. The user can access plug-ins through the Tools2 panel in Paint, and using the Plug In Actor in Animation. The Ultimatte plug-ins (v1.1.2 for Composer) are automatically loaded when you install Liberty. You can use them, but a red grid pattern will appear in the output (showing that they are in demo mode). You can purchase a license for them from Ultimatte: http://www.ultimatte.com Note that documentation for the IRIX plug-ins is contained in the liberty/docs directory (in can also be accessed through the green Help button in Liberty). In addition, the sample animation "liberty/image/local/hd0/ULTIMATTE_DEMO/Ultimatte7.an" shows how to use Plug In actors in Animation with the Ultimatte plug-ins. Note: if you don't have the ULTIMATTE_DEMO directory on your system, you will need to install the Liberty Demo Material from the Liberty Installation CD [162] What about Ultimatte plug-ins for Liberty on Windows? In Liberty V8.0, we support these as After Effects plug-ins. See the After Effects plugins section for more info. [163] What is the Cinefusion actor type in Liberty IRIX Animation? The Cinefusion Actor (IRIX only) allows you to access and use Ultimatte's Cinefusion software from within Liberty's Animation environment. Although the Ultimatte plug-ins (see paragraph above) are newer, some users may be accustomed to using Ultimatte's Cinefusion software, and the Cinefusion Actor is a way to do this. This feature allows the user to key-frame the Ultimatte parameters by calling up the Cinefusion menus from Liberty. Once the parameters have been key-framed, Liberty will call Cinefusion (when the Animation is rendered), to perform the composite for each frame. The Cinefusion Actor requires at least two other actors to work with. After adding the Cinefusion actor to the timeline, add one Cel actor below the Cinefusion actor, and one Cel actor above the Cinefusion actor. The actor below is the background image, and the actor above is the foreground image. Note that there can also be other images below the background image, all of which will contribute to the background that is sent to Cinefusion. You can also enable Screen Correction and/or Garbage Matte using the corresponding buttons in the Cinefusion actor edit menu (to the right of the timeline when the Cinefusion actor is selected). If Screen Correction is enabled, you need to add an additional Cel actor above the foreground actor. This actor will recall one or more files representing the screen correction image. If Garbage Matte is enabled, you need to add an additional Cel actor above the Screen Correction actor (or above the foreground if Screen Correction is turned off). This actor will recall one or more files representing the garbage matte. A quick way to test the animation with or without the Screen Correction or Garbage Matte is to turn on or off the corresponding cel actor on the timeline, then turn on or off the corresponding button on the Cinefusion actor. Note that the foreground, background, screen correction and garbage matte actors can also be Cycle or Filmstrip actors (in addition to Cel actors). There is an additional field in the Cinefusion actor edit menu: "ult File". This field is currently not used. To set key-frame values in the Cinefusion actor, press "Edit Keyfr", press on a key-frame matchstick, and press the button "Edit Ult File". This brings up the Cinefusion interface, allowing the user to view the images and adjust the parameters. Once you exit this interface, you can copy the selected key-frame to the other key-frames, or you can bring the Cinefusion interface up for any of the other key-frames. Configuration set-up for running Cinefusion with Liberty: The UNIX environment variable ULTIMATTE_PATH must be set to the path where Cinefusion resides. Most often this will be: /usr/local/ultimatte/cinefusion. This can be done with the following command, which can be added to the user's ".cshrc" file: setenv ULTIMATTE_PATH /usr/local/ultimatte/cinefusion. Liberty must have permission for read and execute for the ultimatte/cinefusion directories. It also must have read permission on the file first.ult in the Cinefusion directory, and read/execute permission for the files ult and ultdisplay in the Cinefusion directory. (If in doubt, turn on all permissions for the Cinefusion directory and all files in it). Customers must have purchased Cinefusion's library option (and be licensed for that) to run Cinefusion with Liberty. It is important that the version of Cinefusion on the user's system match the version that Liberty was compiled with. To run Liberty version 3.4.0.9 and later, the user needs a version of Cinefusion dated Dec. 15, 1994 or later. On several past occasions, the file 'ultdisplay' in the cinefusion directory had to be copied to Liberty's home directory. This bug should be corrected in the current version of Cinefusion. Fonts [164] How do I obtain additional fonts for Liberty's Text panel? Liberty is installed with 50 Bitstream fonts, for use in Liberty's Text panel. In addition, you can purchase a CD of the entire Bitstream library (over 1300 fonts) for Liberty: Liberty also contains built-in conversion for Windows TrueType fonts. Just recall fonts from the Text panel. If Liberty finds unconverted TrueType fonts in the current directory, it will ask if you wish to convert them. If you respond yes, it will convert the fonts in that directory and you can use them in Liberty from then on. On the IRIX platform, there are also Adobe Type1 Font Conversion Utilities in the liberty/utilities directory. Full details are provided in liberty/docs/fontconv.pdf (You can also access this document via the green Help button within Liberty). [165] Can Liberty's menus be configured for non-US languages? No, the menus are always in English (US). [166] Does Liberty support non-US keyboard mappings in the Text panel? Liberty supports the correct keyboard mapping for the Cyrillic fonts on the Liberty font CD. Liberty supports Turkish True Type fonts (see the Liberty V7.0 Release Notes for details). Liberty also supports keyboard mappings for Thai and Korean fonts. A limited set of Thai and Korean fonts is provided for Liberty. You can obtain these through Video Design Sales. [167] What about support for other non-US fonts in Liberty's Text panel? You can convert any font you like from PC TrueType (done within Liberty) or Adobe Type I (see the Liberty Font Conversion Utilities document; IRIX only). With international fonts, however, the keyboard mappings probably won't be correct, and some of the characters may be inaccessible. Liberty does provide a number of international characters and accents in the International and Accent portion of the Text panel, however. [168] I have purchased the Liberty font CD, but I don't recognize the file names on the CD. They don't seem to match the names in the Bitstream font catalog. The font files on the Liberty font CD were named based on Bitstream's internal names for the fonts. As it turns out, the Bitstream internal names often differ from the names in the Bitstream font catalogue. For example, "Bell Gothic Bold" in the font catalogue has an internal name of "Gothic 761 Bell Gothic Bold Directory", and we named the corresponding file on the CD "gothic_bell_b.fo" based on this. Admittedly, this makes it difficult to map the fonts in the Bitstream book to the fonts on the CD. Although it's too late to re-name all the font files, a list of the font file names on the CD and the corresponding internal Bitstream names can be downloaded from the Video Design FTP site. Contact Support for more info. Hopefully this list will shed some light on where the filenames came from. If you bring up the list in your favorite text editor (like Notepad or "jot"), you should be able to search for names from the font catalog and hopefully find the corresponding internal names and file names in the list. Note also that there's a README file on the font CD, in the same directory as the fonts. I would suggest reading that file (by bringing it up in Notepad or "jot" for example), as it contains additional useful information. [169] Is this FAQ long enough? Yes it is.