Other Sample Timecoded Text File Projects
This tutorial provides a quick look at TitleFactory features. This tutorial uses a script as input. The next tutorial (Tutorial 2) has a timecoded subtitled text file as input. However you may want to view this tutorial even if you only use timecoded text files as input.
The first tutorial (Tutorial 1) has a script file as input.
The first part of this tutorial uses TitleFactory to create images. The second part of this tutorial exercises TitleFactory to create timecodes.
The first order of business is to Open TitleFactory. By default TitleFactory will open the last project opened unless there was never one opened. If this is the case then TitleFactory opens a default project that has been provided. The default project to open when starting TitleFactory is defined in the Preferences Window.
There are several buttons available on the Main Window. You can hover your cursor over any button to find out what it does. In general the buttons on the top of the window allow you to go to other sub windows.
The button to the left control or manipulate the image text entries.
The buttons on the right control or manipulate the timecode entries.
The button just under the image and timecode boxes control or manipulate both the image text and associated time code entries.
The bottom area of the window contains the pointers to your files and folders.
For this tutorial, use the 'open project' button
and select Tutorial1 from the
...TitleFactory\Samples folder.
The window above will be displayed. If you
have installed TitleFactory into the default folder on your C drive then the
text file name should display as shown. If you loaded it someplace else
then you will have to click one of the Select Text
buttons and find the text file
called Its_Unwrapped.txt in the Samples folder where TitleFactory was installed.
If you did install TitleFactory into the default folder on your C drive then you may get the following message when you open the tutorial.
This warning indicates that the project called Tutorial_1 recognizes that the 'Date Last Modified' for project's text file is different than the 'Date Last Modified' on the machine that created the project. This points out a nice feature in TitleFactory. You get this warning when any text or media file that has changed since the last time that you used it in TitleFactory. If you do not want to see this message then simply click the 'Do not show this message again" box and Press 'OK'.
This tutorial's project has been preloaded with both text (in the Image Text Box on the left side) as well as timecodes (in the Timecode Box on the right side). We will show you later how to load up the text from your text file and create your own timecodes later in the tutorial.
Now let's look at some basic functions on the Main Window. Click on an Image Text Box entry and you will notice that the corresponding entry in the Timecode Box is highlighted. You will also notice that the slider on the Timeline moves automatically and the Timeline Counter gets populated.
Now move the Timeline slider. If you are careful you will see Image Text Box and Timeline Box entries highlighted when the slider is at a point in-between the starting timecode and ending timecode for the entry. Notice that the Timeline Counter also changes.
If you have a mouse wheel you can hover your mouse over the slider bar and use the mouse wheel to increase or decrease the timeline counter.
Now hover your mouse cursor over the Timeline scale. Notice the popup that displays the timeline position (in several different formats).
Notice the buttons on the left. These buttons control the data in the Image Text Box. You have the option of modifying the text, specifying the style, Globally Changing the style, Viewing images for selected entries, shifting the entries up or down, merging or splitting text, and converting text. You can also perform unlimited undo and redo for update operations on the Image Text Box. For more information see Main Window - Left Side Buttons or Main Window - Image Text Box.
You can right-click on the Image Text Box to get to these same functions.
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Notice the buttons on the right. These buttons control the data in the Timecode Box. Here you can adjust timecodes, generate timecodes, convert timecodes, coalesce timecodes, clear, or delete timecodes, shift timecodes up or down, merge or slpit timecodes on two different lines, audit the timecodes, and perform unlimited undo and redos on changes that have been applied to the timecodes on the Timecode Box. For more information see Main Window - Right Side Buttons or Main Window - Timecode Box.
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You can right-click on the Timecode Box to get to these same functions, also.
Under the timecodes and image text boxes you will find another set of button that operate on both timecodes and text.
These buttons allow you to deselect, delete all selected entries, shift, merge split text and timecode entries in unison.
For more information, please refer to the Main Window documentation.
Now lets look around TitleFactory.
Use either of the Select Text
buttons or the recent file (down arrow button) to change the location of the 'C:/Program Files/TitleFactory 3.0/Samples/Its_unwrapped.txt' file if this is not the correct location.
When you select a new text file, the Input Settings Window will be displayed automatically. This is where the you tell TitleFactory what you input file looks like and what settings should be applied when reading the text file.
You can also use the Open Input Settings
button on the
Main Window to open the
Input
Settings Window.
The Input Settings Window describes the input text file. It is also used to bypass text when the input text file is a script, transcript (or whatever).
When you select a new text file, the window on the right gets populated
automatically. You can also display the text file by clicking on the Open
Text File button'
.
Now click on the Test button
.
Not only has the input file been open but the results on the settings on the left have been highlighted with the reason for text being bypassed (or ignored).
Placing the cursor over a highlighted area describes the reason it was ignored. Cool heh!
You can play around here for awhile. Try changing the settings and see what it does. Note however, that the textmode for this input file is unwrapped. Don't change that otherwise you may get unexpected results. Or try it, what the heck, you can't break anything.
Also note that the text window is actually a pretty powerful text editor. Well its much better than Notepad. Right click on the text window and you will see some more options.
Now lets go back to the main window by clicking on the 'Cancel' or 'Ok' button.
Then press the
button and look
at the 'Process Settings' window. Not too exciting. You can look at the
processing settings
documentation if you have questions. However, these are the
settings that control the processing within TitleFactory.
Now let's go back to
the main window, click on the
button and let's look at the Style Definitions Window.
This window defines the image styles for the CREATE IMAGE process. Here you can change the settings for how text entry will be displayed on your project. Scroll down to see all of the settings for the default 'Factory' style and go to the Style Definitions Window if you have questions.
The SHOW button at the bottom of this window expands the window for prototyping purposes. That is, you can see what the text will look like after making changes to the text parameters. Pressing the PROTOTYPE button will also expand the window and show the prototyped text.
To change the default text, type in some new text into the text box. Press the PROTOTYPE button to test the settings.
Now let's go back to the main window.
At this point, you can 'LOAD TEXT' .
When you load a non-timecoded text file into TitleFactory, you will be presented with the following Dialog.
Press the 'Yes' button to proceed with the operation.
LOAD TEXT will simply run the TitleFactory PARSER and load the text into the Image Text Box from the input file.
To CREATE IMAGES, first press either of the Select Folder
buttons to select an Output
Image Folder.
This is the folder where TitleFactory will place its images.
Now you can press the 'CREATE IMAGES' button.
Press the 'STOP' view button before the process ends to pause the CREATE IMAGE process. You can resume processing by using the 'RE-CREATE' button or the RESUME button.
You can also use the 'VIEW' button to view the images that have been created. (Here is a sample)
Use the tool buttons to zoom in
or
zoom out 
and the Hand Tool
to scroll images when you zoom into them.
The Image Information section displays the image size, the position of the
cursor and the color values of the image pixel under the cursor. Use the
PREV, NEXT, and JUMP TO buttons to display the next, previous, or any image,
respectively. Use the 'title safe' checkbox to turn the title safe
rectangles on or off.
Now let's create some timecodes. Even though the project already has timecodes they can be overwritten, appended to, or changed using the Timecode Recording operations of TitleFactory.
This step is not
necessary, of course, if the input file already has embedded timecodes. To
create timecodes, you will need to specify either a video or audio file (or
both). Use the
button to select a video file and/or
the
Audio File button to select an audio
file. If a video file is selected it can be displayed using the View Video
button. Use the timeline slider to
position the video and/or audio file. If you have a mouse wheel you can
hover your mouse over the slider bar and use the mouse wheel to increase or
decrease the timeline counter thus changing the position within your video
and/or audio file. You can also click on an entry in the Image Text Box or
the Timecode Box and the Video and/or Audio file will be re-positioned to the
starting timecode of that entry.
Now you can start
creating timecodes by clicking on one of the record buttons
,
,
. See how these differ
in the Main Window -
Record/Play documentation. When recording, you are actually just
recording the time that you press the left mouse button (starting timecode) and
release the left mouse button (ending timecode) while listening and/or viewing
the media file playback. You will notice that there is a pre-roll of
several seconds prior to the beginning of the media file playback. Both
the pre-roll time as well as the controlling mouse button can be changed in the
Preferences Window. The pre-roll
looks like:
When pressing the left mouse button, make sure that you are clicking inside of the main window area, but not in an area that is part of one of the Boxes, or the timeline. The place place to click will be identified at the start of the pre-roll and will look like this:
Now press the "Record Timecodes' button
. Press your left mouse button
when you hear (or pretend to hear) the start of someone saying "I owe
everything to Georgette." This will set the starting timecode. Keep
the mouse pressed until the person stops speaking "I owe everything to
Georgette." Then release the mouse
button. This will set the ending timecode. Notice that the Image
Text Box scrolls automatically as you press and release the left mouse button. Do this a few times.
Press the right mouse button or your mouse wheel (if you have one)
or any keyboard key to stop
the recording. Now press the "Play from Beginning' button
. As you listen to the
media file, the text and timecodes will be highlighted when the timecode is
reached. It will un-highlight when its ending timecode is reached.
Click on a timecode to highlight it and highlight its corresponding text or click on the text to do the reverse. Also notice that the timeline marker moves as well. You can also move this manually to pace through the timecode and text window lists.
Now that you have created some timecodes, you can overwrite
them, save them, write them to a timcoded text file (press
) in a bunch
of different formats, edit them (double click on the timecode), adjust them
(click on the AD button), delete them, append to them, and more.For now lets try to write out a timecoded text file.
Simply press ,
select the type of file that you wan to write, then select the file location
and name and that is it.
The timecoded text file can now be imported into your DVD authoring package.
The next tutorial (Tutorial) will have a discuss timecoded text files that can be input into TitleFactory.
Other Sample Timecoded Text File Projects
Several sample projects and files are included in the Samples Folder. A description of the Samples is contain on the Sample Projects page.
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