A Reliable Character; Review of Videonics Character Generator

In so doing, I remembered that many of you, like me, are really still in a transitional stage between linear and nonlinear. Hold on, most of you are still probably linear, wisely waiting for all of us pioneer beta testers to finish spilling all the blood before you venture your timid feet forward. I don't blame you one bit. No sir. You're smart, conservative and if I didn't get all this gear to test for free, I probably would be shaking in my shoes too.

So this review is for you folks who are still in linear, or hybrid and straddling the fence (like we are), or better yet, for you folks who have full blown NLE's but can't get decent titles on your productions and want a good, reliable, fast way to do some really nifty effects with little risk, little bucks and lots of sass.

The Videonics PowerScript is a self contained character generator, with it's own computer chassis, a keyboard, mouse and self-contained time base corrector. Using the Adobe PostScript language, PowerScript can image characters and graphics to a video recorder in broadcast quality (about 9 nanoseconds of resolution, almost four times sharper than the Video Toaster) for professional project studio applications.

PowerScript includes an internal keyer which allows you to combine graphics with pre-recorded video without an external switcher. PowerScript also includes a key-out (black & white hi-contrast) signal for use with external keyers.

The Box

The main unit of PowerScript is a single rack unit chassis which offers a choice between composite and SVHS throughput. Hooking the unit up to one of the two choices, cancels out the other. Configuration of the system is simple and the ample documentation, written so that a novice can understand it, offers several sample configurations ranging from a standalone (CG, VCR, Monitor) layout to a full-blown satellite feed arrangement.

The unit features two PCMCIA memory card slots (for type I, II or III) for program and project storage, or for connection of peripheral devices such as a modem or network device. These are standard slots and can use any of the popular PCMCIA devices which are sold in most computer stores for laptops.

The PowerScript can also be set up to work with MAC or PC computers either in the same suite, down the hall or out on the Internet. I find this hugely beneficial since the net is abundantly loaded with free graphics, including the logos for nearly every company in the world! All of them can easily be imported for use on the PowerScript.

The most common application will be to feed your play deck (or switcher output) into the video input, connect your VCR and monitor to the output and the keyboard and mouse in their respective ports. Viola! You're done. Turn the unit on, insert the credit-card sized PCMCIA memory card, and the system starts to work, feeding both program graphics and control interface data to one or two video monitors (you can configure the software with a few mouse clicks for one or two monitors).

In about an hour, you can learn to create basic graphics, such as lines, rectangles, ovals, etc. in a full range of colors, transparencies and shadow attributes, add text and even animate the various elements into and out of the scene with changes in any of the set attributes. And - get this - no render time. Everything is instantaneous.

The Steps to a Title

The newly rewritten documentation follows the basic configuration instructions with an engaging tutorial that leaves nothing to guesswork.

The first step in PowerScript is to name a project, which I suggest be the name of your client, followed by the date, like "BART297." Each project in PowerScript begins with a default page. The Pages menu has a very intuitive layout, featuring icons that allow the user to easily recognize such functions as cut, copy, paste, "add a page above current page," "add page below current page," and "add page at end." A pair of windows allow for a page title and page comment. Type in one and the text is copied to the other, assuming you don't want to write separate comments. If you do, you can.

After the page is named, say, "First Credit," you being adding "objects" to the page. Objects are text, graphics, imported logos, photos, whatever. Right click the mouse with the control key depressed and bring up the Create menu, a simple, six-choice bar of icons.

Assume you want to start with a circle. Click the oval object button and an oval pops on the center of the screen within a bounding box of control lines and four "control" squares at the corners of the bounding box. Within each square is a small icon, representing the four effects that can be actuated on the oval: Move, Rotate, Resize and Skew. Simply drag these icons to effect changes on the object.

If you want to enter numerical modifications, such as those required to make the oval a perfect circle, activate the Modify Menu (Ctrl+F7) and a box with three numerical windows (size, height and width percentages) pops up for keyboard entries.

Click on any area outside the object boundary and the controls disappear, deactivating the object and allowing you to work elsewhere.

From the Main menu, you can select the Fill option, revealing sliders and numerical input windows for hue, saturation, brightness and opacity. Upon closing the Fill menu, whatever object was selected will be filled as ordered.

Objects and text may be copied within the page, and using the page copy command, from page to page.

Text is added to the page in a similar fashion. By typing, "Ctrl-T"
a text box is opened, center screen. As you type in text, the box stretches to accommodate the type. Once typed, a word may be selected by sweeping the mouse, or any combination of letters may be selected. Once selected, the text may be font-selected, or effected by any attribute, like color or opacity. Unfortunately, I found that the system indicated that text was selected by changing the color of the screen text slightly. My sore eyes had a hard time discerning the difference.

Once selected, you can order the font type, character size, line spacing, justification and character spacing, shadow displacement and opacity and color of the selected type using pop up menus that allow slider or numeric adjustment. Closing the menus actuates the choices and, as with the circle object, the control squares can be used to size, move, rotate and skew the type as needed with instant feedback.

Unfortunately, PowerScript does not offer an easy means of kerning letters on the screen, but instead features a "letter spacing" slider - which increases or decreases the spacing between letters - in the text entry menu. This is not the same as an on screen kerning control which can quickly adjust the letter spacing while you or a client looks at the results on a monitor. PowerScript's solution, while workable, requires too much effort between the text entry menu and the actual text monitor to provide a useful means of executing this very important Professional function.

Once a page has all its elements created, click the save button and the hardware commits the page to memory. To display the title, press the scroll lock and Return and the page is composed and sent to the preview or program feed in seconds. To cut between several pages, simply press the + key and return to advance through the memory.

Let It Crawl, Rev!

Converting a still page into a scroll or roll is simple with PowerScript. Opening the Transitions menu reveals a set of four roll and crawl options (up, down, to the left, to the right) with a speed setting which is both numeric and slider driven.

Also on the transition menu is an Infinite button and a clock button with "seconds" and "minutes" numeric entry windows. These, obviously, adjust how long the page will remain on screen (or how long it will scroll or crawl). Having used the Video Toaster's CG for years, I highly appreciated this ability of timing a credit roll precisely! It is one of those things that clients are always asking for in supervised sessions, that the Toaster could never deliver!

Below these features, the Transitions window offers a set of seconds and frames windows for inputting the transition-in and transition-out times. There are also keys for saving and playing the transition, but wait, there's more! A key at the bottom brings up another menu of additional transition effects!

Effective Title Transitions

In the Transition Effects menu, PowerScript offers six different default fades and wipes (three, "in" transitions and three, "out" transitions) that may be actuated with a simple button click. You can, therefore, have the title fade in and wipe off, or slide in and fade out. Again, transition times may be entered in seconds and frames. Then, again, there's the "Path" button at the bottom of the menu.

Click this button to see a selection of default paths, similar to effects in the Video Toaster's DVE effects bank, though not as numerous, the Path menu allows for the selection of a path over which the title will animate. This function is better supported in the animation commands, which allow very elaborate paths to be created from off camera, to within the screen's boundaries and then off screen. During paths, objects and titles may execute transitions between size, color, transparency or any of the controllable parameters mentioned above.

The details of the Paths button were not adequately explained in the documentation, but a few minutes of experimentation can fill in the gaps.

Animation

The most impressive aspect of Videonics PowerScript is its ability to animate titles and graphics on individual paths that extend beyond the screen's visual boundaries. Although this animation is 2D, the appearance of 3D can be emulated by initiating changes in size of objects, while they move, thereby making them appear to be zooming in and out on the Z-axis.

Animation controls allow for objects or titles to move on straight or curved paths and "bounces" off the screen boundaries are also possible. Any object that can be identified, such as individual letters within a word, may be independently animated, allowing for sophisticated builds of title and logo sequences.

Animation is real time, requiring only a few seconds for the system to digest your input and then deliver the results to the monitor or VCR. Playback is at full video frame rate.

The process of creating animation is simple. Displaying the Animate menu brings up a simple VCR-control bar (with the five common buttons) and a timeline cursor that represents the length of the animation in increments of 0 to 100 percent. Select an object and give it a starting position with the timeline cursor at the zero position. Move the cursor to the 100% position and then move the object on the screen to the point you wish to end the animation (end key frame). Click the Rewind button on the VCR control to return the cursor to the zero position and then click Play. The animation's duration is equal to the page duration set in the previous menu.

When animating any object, the user can insert as many key frames as necessary to refine the path of the object. The path is represented on the screen as a dotted line, which appears whenever an object is selected. Grabbing the center control square of an object initiates a curved path facility which allows the path to be edited with spine controls that generate gracefully curved paths.

Although PowerScript offers the most sophisticated character animation for such a low price, it does not offer some of the traditional animation that clients often ask for, such as "type on" (also called slow reveal) and character flip-on. Such effects can certainly be created within the controls of the animation software, but such commonly used techniques should be an automated feature on such a sophisticated box as this.

Creating complex animations, where more than one object is moved through the page, takes care and advance planning. I found that the order of objects one chose to animate had a great deal to do with the success of the animation. Work first with the object of longest screen duration. Then base the movement of other objects, with successively shorter durations, on the timeline of the first object.

It also helps to save the page after each object is added, copy it and then begin working on the copied page. PowerScript does not have an undo function, so if you screw up the current animation stage and want to go back to the previous step, you merely have to delete the current page and go back one page effect a one-object undo.
One might imagine many, highly sophisticated animations that can be accomplished in one pass with PowerScript, but this machine, like all computers, has its limitations and they are not clearly defined, so you have to experiment. When PowerScript nears its limits, there are not gauges or warnings. The resultant animation will simply slow down to first a frame rate then to a lower frame rate, until the smoothness of animation is lost and the sequence becomes a series of jerky still frames.

EPS files, for instance, which are the standard sources for pictorial graphics in PowerScript, may be animated, but since they absorb so much data, the results will be jerky to say the least. Complicated shape transitions, especially when coupled with simultaneous animation on the same page, will bog the system down. Large fonts, serifed fonts, size changes and multiple paths all tend to slow the results. One solution is the build several passes of animation, which is facilitated by the PowerScript's key output.

Connecting PowerScript To Other Computers

If you are a sophisticated computer user, you can employ several means of connecting your PowerScript to another computer or network. Such a connection facilitates transfer of PostScript EPS files from such programs as Adobe Photoshop and Fractal Painter to the PowerScript memory.

All standard protocols, such as Ethernet and client-server, are supported over the serial cable connection on the back of the PowerScript unit. PowerScript also features two gpi triggers for external activation of animations and page transitions.

Executive Summary

PowerScript is a powerful stand-alone character generator with broadcast quality output and powerful text animation features.
While the system does not feature sophisticated kerning tools or a means of quickly executing a slow reveal, its rich functions and rugged design will make it a useful tool in post production suites that employ linear videotape editing, are in a transition from linear to nonlinear or whose nonlinear capabilities do not include instant playback character generation.