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Well I am creating instructional jazz guitar DVDs and we want to incorporate a new feature into them. What is the best way to get music notation on the screen say, underneath the instructor, as he plays the notes.
Hard to describe but I was thinking about just taking a regular screen capture from my notation program, saving it as a JPG image, and dropping it onto my NLE timeline in a split screen format.
Will this work? What DPI should the captured image be for viewing clearly on a DVD? I know print is 300dpi and screen is 72dpi so for displaying graphics on the screen on a DVD, should the image be 72dpi?
Or is there some entirely different way of accomplishing what I want to do?
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oh yeah, moderators, if i should have posted this some place else, can you tell me where or move it for me to the appropriate forum?
thanks -
When I was in NewYork 4 years ago, I was gonna do the very same thing with Happy Traum and those publishers. Moved away before ever geting around to it. 2 ways to do it...
1. Stills...
Notation program (Finale, Sibelius, Cakewalk, etc)--Print Preview (for each page). May want to create custom size page to get the right zoom/flow. Set screen to 640x480 (VGA) or 800x600 (SVGA). Do screen capture to clipboard. Open Photoshop, New picture (will default to screencap size). Paste in. Save. Create new 720x540 size pic. copy orig. screencap pic to new window. Align and Resize as needed (use ActionSafe/TitleSafe/Centering guides). Clear the canvas of clutter--just the staff and notes, etc. Resize to 720x480. Change from RGBmode to IndexMode (4 colors only)-No Antialiasing!. Save as 8bit BMP. This will be usable as subpicture/subtitles in a number of authoring apps (like Maestro, etc) as well as sub apps available here.
2. Video...
Similar to #1, but use Camtasia to record to Uncompressed/Lossless/DVcompressed AVI. Open up video in Virtualdub or other editor/compositor and align/resize/mask (as much as you can--more difficult in video). Figure out the FPS you want for the sub. Save as Still Image sequence using that FPS. Open up in Photoshop to finish the other colormode changes--use Actions to batch automate the whole folder of images.
That's it in a nutshell.
HTH,
Scott -
man, that sounds like a lot? why all the screen size changes? I guess the important stuff is the color settings... I don't use photoshop, I use paint shop pro for when I need to do stuff - that program will be able to do the "indexmode" - would it be called something different in paint shop pro? why 4 colors? I just want black music notes on a white "page"
What about the option of making a movie in Flash wherein, i just drag the image from right to left as the notes are being played? I use Swish and can export my movie file to AVI, that could work or no? -
what are sub apps? do i need that?
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re:Screen size--ScreenCaps use what the current resolution is. You could always do it larger but then you'd have to resize even more, and it takes much less RAM with smaller sizes. Whatever you like.
re:PSP--It ought to be able to do the trick. I haven't used PSP regularly since ~2000, so can't tell you exactly where to look for stuff. If you do "8bit" color, or similar, you're doing index mode.
re:WhyIndexedMode?--DVD spec uses "Subpicture" formats which have 4 colors--and ONLY 4 colors (usually set to White/Red/Blue/Black). To do this right, you must use IndexMode. I save to 8bit BMP, because that's pretty universally accepted without resorting to more compression like JPG. These 4 colors are just "placeholders" for the color & transparency level that you define for those regions while in your authoring app of choice. Example: you want only Black Notes, White page, but do you want that over video or menu? If so--maybe WhiteRegion=60%opacityWhite, BlackRegion=100%OpacityBlack, BlueRegion=60%OpacityBlack, RedRegion=30%OpacityBlack (last 2 for "psuedo-antialias"). These could change if they are able to be "active" buttons or not.
The flash idea could work quite well. I wouldn't have considered it way back when, cuz flash wasn't as great working with video then, plus at the time I was barely conversant with Flash/Director.
I did a mock-up with Cakewalk, which has a "highlighting" note cursor and scrolling staff during play mode. Used Camtasia. Worked great!
re
ub apps--I don't know what authoring app you use and how well it supports subtitles, so its always a good idea to get some subtitle utility apps (from <--here) to work around with. Good one to start with is Subtitle Workshop. You want one that supports "bitmap-based" subs, not just "text-based" subs. (Internally, DVD's only have bitmap-based subs, the text-based subs are often just converted by the authoring app at the last minute)
Good luck,
Scott -
I'm using Ulead DVD Workshop 2.0 to do the authoring
You know, the thought of subtitles never crossed my mind, but i've never used them in my life...
i'm using sibelius 3 and i wonder if there is a way to make the width of the page or staff the width I need to fit in the frame of the video so when i capture it, that'll be all i need to do? and drop it onto the track in vEgas?
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