About the disk:

CREATED November 1990
REVISED and amplified June 1992
REVISED November 1, 1992
Minor revision to electronic addresses, etc.: June 1, 1997
Formatted and slightly revised for use on the web: September 21, 1998
Discontinued supplying physical floppy disk: 6/1/2003

WELCOME to the Programs and Resources disk for The Amiga Desktop Video Workbook!
by Jay Gross

This disk contains things of interest to video, including programs, art and animation, and databases.  This disk is NOT freely distributable, NOT public domain.

Here's what's on the disk: 

• In the main drawer ("root directory"):
  • BidForm.TEXT
    This is an example Video Production Bid and Budget Form, that you can load into your wordprocessor and edit as necessary.  Also use this form as a checklist, to see if you have everything covered when you're calculating your expected costs of doing a video job. You can also use this as a starting point for a budget for your video business. BidForm.TEXT is NOT freely redistributable.
    Revised and improved June 1992
  • BidForm.PW
    This is BidForm.TEXT already saved in ProWrite version 3.2 wordprocessor format. It's the same file, but in a form that's palatable to ProWrite version 3.2 (and higher). It, too, is not freely redistributable.
    Revised, reformatted, and improved June 1992.
  • CountDownAnim
    The first thing you record onto your release video tapes should be a colorbars pattern.  The NEXT thing should be a countdown sequence.  This is so the people operating taping, dubbing, or broadcast equipment can easily get your work "cued up" correctly.  A countdown sequence does just that. It counts down, blacking out when it hits "3".  That gives the operator a couple of seconds of blank screen in order to get the equipment operational without the risk of getting the trail of the actual counting graphic into the "line out," whatever that might be - either broadcast or video recording.

    CountDownAnim was produced in DeluxePaint III by Dana Dominiak especially for The Amiga Desktop Video Workbook.  It is set to run at 15 frames per second, which with a standard Amiga 2000 produces the required one-second intervals.  You should test the timing for to-the-second accuracy before depending on this.  Also, the timing might vary depending on whether you play the animation back with DeluxePaint III, DeluxePaint VI or some other animation display utility such as SuperView, which is on this disk.  If you have an accelerated Amiga, you probably won't notice much difference in timing depending on what else is running in the computer at the same time.  If your Amiga is still "vanilla," however, you'll need to watch out for this possibility.

    CountDownAnim is NOT freely distributable.  You may use it and record it as much as you need to, and include it in your videos for its intended purpose, but please do not alter it or redistribute it.

  • BarsNTone
    Aha!  Here's how you GET those colorbars and the audio test tone that you start your tapes with.  BarsNTone is a tiny, but ingenious program by Mike Berro, author of many Amiga video programs, including Video Tools on Tap, which provides many useful software tools for video.

    Click its icon, and it'll do its thing, which is, quite simply, display colorbars and play a thousand-cycle tone until you quit it.  It displays a screen of directions when you start. You can turn off or fade out the tone if you don't need it.

• In the RESOURCES drawer:
  • VideoVendors.mff   *** Updated June 1992 by the author ***
    VideoVendors.mff is a database of names and addresses for companies mentioned in The Amiga Desktop Video Workbook. This database is an application of Microfiche Filer Plus, an Amiga graphically-oriented database program.  The database includes many names and addresses for suppliers of such services as videotape duplication, standards conversion, special effects equipment, etc.  "Standards conversion" means preparing tapes for distribution in countries which have different television technical formats ("standards") from the one in use in North America.

    NOTE:  This database was created for publication with The Amiga Desktop Video Workbook in December of 1990, and has been revised as of June 1992, to reflect changes, amplifications, and deletions since the original information was assembled.

    VideoVendors.mff is NOT freely distributable.

  • Addresses.mff    *** Updated June 1992 by the author ***
    The Addresses.mff database is a demonstration of the principles for developing a client/prospect list explored in The Amiga Desktop Video Workbook.  You can use the application as is, or alter it to suit your needs.

    Addresses.mff is NOT freely distributable.

  • CAN_Storyboard.mff
    CAN_Storyboard.mff is a demonstration of Microfiche Filer Plus that shows how to do a graphics database, and how to do a storyboard. This application is part of the release disk for Microfiche Filer Plus, and is included here with the company's kind permission.

    CAN_Storyboard uses the following files, which are also stored in the RESOURCES drawer: CCA.pic1, CCA.pic2, CCA.pic3, CCA.pic4, and CCA.pic5. These are the actual IFF images that the application loads and displays in its storyboards.  If you produce your own storyboard application of Microfiche Filer Plus, you would of course provide your own illustrations, suitably named for easy retrieval.

    CAN_Storyboard.mff is not freely distributable, except under the conditions set out by the Microfiche Filer Plus Demo. It is not possible to assemble the correct demo disk from parts included on this disk. Please contact the company or AmiGadget Publishing Company for instructions on obtaining a demo disk in redistributable form.

• In the AnimationPrograms drawer:
  • Anim2IFF.Convert
    Anim2Iff.Convert converts animations into editable, re-combinable, IFF pictures.  It has a documentation file, Anim2Iff.Convert.doc, which explains its usage.  Taking apart a large animation will require a large amount of disk space, so watch out.

    Anim2IFF.Convert is a redistributable program by Andy Thut, who has written many Amiga animation programs for Mindware. It is Copyright THUT Inc. 1988.

  • MakeAnim
    MakeAnim MAKES anims.  It will put Amiga IFF pictures together in any sequence you specify, and create an anim-format animation for you.  It has a documentation file to explain its use.  MakeAnim is by Keith Doyle, who wrote The Director.  It is freely redistributable.
  • CombineANIM
    This neat program is by Cryogenic Software, part of a collection of animation utilities called "CryoUtils."  CombineANIM makes one contiguous animation out of multiples.  Easy as pie.  All of the Cryogenic animation utilities included here are freely redistributable.
  • SplitANIM
    Another nice utility from Cryogenic. SplitANIM splits anims (what else!).  Handy, to say the least.
  • ANIMInfo
    Yet another Cryogenic animation utility.  ANIMInfo provides information about an animation file, such as its name, the number of frames in the animation, the size of the animation in bytes, the screen resolution and display modes of it will require, and the average compressed delta size of its frames. The delta parameter is a measure of how thoroughly compressed the data is in the anim.
• In the MicroficheFilerPlusDEMO drawer: The several database applications on this disk will do their thing for  you using the DEMO version of Microfiche Filer Plus in this drawer. For more information, see the "Read Me" file.  Although the demo program is freely redistributable, you should contact  your local Amiga dealer for a copy of the full Microfiche Filer Plus Demo Disk, which comprises several other elements not included here.
   

  Microfiche Filer Plus Demo doesn't run correctly under AmigaDOS 2.0 and  higher. The real program, Microfiche Filer, runs better under the newer Amiga operating systems, but still exhibits some serious cosmetic flaws that make using the program annoying.  The company has not released any updated versions, and doesn't plan to, but has announced (but not shipped as of November 1992) a major revision of the product to address its shortcomings and add extensive functionality.

• In the sMOVIE drawer:
  sMOVIE is cool.  It scrolls titles up the screen while you tape, and it does this with enough simplicity to bring a smile to your face every time you use it.  What you do is edit a simple text file, and put in sMOVIE's simple commands where appropriate.  The program will scroll the text file ("Titles" by any other name), and you can control the speed of the scroll by moving the mouse.  Stop it at any time with a click of a mousebutton.

  The program will also scroll its own documentation file for you, as well as Demo_1, Demo_2, and Demo_3.  For the programmers in the crowd, sMOVIE is distributed complete with source code in the C programming language, but the source is not included here, for space reasons.  The full source is available on Fred Fish Disk Number 362.

  sMOVIE is by Martin Round.  Click the mouse on the sMOVIE DEMO icons to see the program work its wonder.

  In addition to scrolling titles, the program can be used as a simple teleprompting device, controllable by the speaker, if need be, by simply concealing the mouse from view.

  If you don't have a source for Fred Fish and other public domain and freely distributable Amiga software disks, write to:

  Lab Software
  1514 N. William St.
  Joliet, IL 60435-4152

  and ask for their current list and pricing.

• In the ConversionPrograms drawer:
  • Giffy and HamGif
    If you do much work in video, you're likely to find your customers expecting to supply pictures, logos, and such in graphics formats that are foreign to the Amiga.  These include a "machine independent" but proprietary one called "Gif".  That stands for Graphics Interchange Format.  It's rather common on MS-DOS and Macintosh computers, but the Amiga, having its own Interchange File Format, doesn't need Gif.  There are, however, programs which attempt to display these pictures on the Amiga screen.  Two of these are Giffy and HamGif.

    Check the file, Giffy&HamGif.information for more information. These programs are freely redistributable.

• MacView
  MacView does for MacPaint pictures from the Macintosh world what Gif and HamGif do for Gif's.  This program displays the MacPictures quite nicely on the Amiga's high resolution screen.  The reason the MacPictures don't fill the whole screen horizontally is that the MacScreen is not quite as many pixels wide as the Amigas' high resolution one.  More information on this and other minutæ is in the documentation file for MacView. MacView is a shareware program by Scott P. Evernden.

  tiff2iff
  Another popular picture format on non-Amiga computers is "Tiff," also known as ".tif".  This program makes Amiga IFF's out of TIFF's. It's by Doug Teeter.  Freely redistributable.

  NOTE:  If you do much conversion from one file format to another, these and many other conversions are performed to their utmost by Nova Design's ImageFX, a commercial program.  The programs on this disk are cheaper, but they have a reason to be.  'Nuff said.

•  In the ColorBars-etc. drawer:
  Just for those extra times when you need to calibrate the "heck" out of a monitor, here's Bluebars, NTSCbars, and Bars&notes.  These gems display color test patterns so you can calibrate away.  See the file Barsdoc for more information.  The archive discussed in that file has been de-compressed for inclusion on this disk.  Its contents remains unchanged, as proscribed in the documentation file.  These programs are freely redistributable.   See conditions set out in the documentation file.
• More
  This program is here so the documentation files on here can display on your screen without troubling you for your Workbench disk.  Just ignore it, and it will kindly return the favor. This is the AmigaDOS 1.3 version of the program, which will still operate under AmigaDOS 2.0.  This permits users of both systems to have easy access to the text files--the 2.0 version would not work under AmigaDOS 1.3.  If you're using the newer version of the operating system, you can substitute your newer (and better) version for this one by changing the default tool (click the icon for the text file and pull down "Information" from the "Icons" menu) to "Sys:utilities/more".  Don't do this if you have only one floppy disk drive, however; it'd drive you nuts bugging you for disk swaps.
• SuperView
  This exquisite display program will show Amiga pictures or animations, and it offers much control over how it does both.  You can make up your own slide shows with it by feeding it a list of filenames to display. You can also step through an animation one frame at a time, to see what makes it tick.  So to speak. Superview is Copyright 1989 by David Grothe, All rights reserved. It is a Shareware program.  See its documentation file for more information.

  *** New VERSION ***  The version of SuperView on this disk is 3.12, which adds time code support, so that you can control the program from within Bars&Pipes Professional. A "Paccess" program is included to enable that MIDI program to deal with SuperView.
  

 OTHER INFORMATION

That's it.  Enjoy, and please be considerate of the wishes of the authors of these and all other programs, in regard to distribution of their works.  Please do NOT distribute this disk as a whole.  It is NEITHER in the public domain, NOR is it freely redistributable, although some of its contents are.

This disk MAY NOT be included in any "public domain" or "freely distributable" software collection, nor sold for any price except as part of The Amiga Desktop Video Workbook, nor given away, except when included with the complete, store-bought book, nor included in any disk-based publication, whether non-profit or otherwise, without the written permission of the author, Jay Gross.  The address to write for such permission appears below.

If you wish to pass along those portions of this disk which are freely distributable (see the documentation files), please drag the icons (or copy the files with CLI) of only those programs onto a formatted disk which you can then distribute.

Thank you!
     J:

Lexington, South Carolina, November 22, 1990

Comments and suggestions are welcome.  You can reach Jay Gross at the following addresses, electronic and otherwise:

email: j a y @  f o t o a r t i s t a . c o m
US Mail:  P.O. Box 1696, Lexington, SC 29071-1696
www.fotoartista.com/amigadget

The Amiga Desktop Video Workbook is an AmiGadget publication formerly licensed to MicroSearch, Inc. of Houston.

Amiga is a trademark of Amiga. Other trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.
AmiGadget Publishing Company is an independent publisher, not connected with Amiga.

The Amiga Desktop Video Workbook Support Disk is for AmigaDOS only. Nearly nothing (except maybe the readme) on the disk will work or is of any use to a non-Amiga computer.  The disk is no longer available.   However, if you're a member of The AmigaZone...  you are a member?  If so, the head Zoneman, Harv Laser will be glad to provide you the disk's files electronically, and even tutor you in making the disk from the Zone's files.

AmiGadget Press
P.O. Box 1696
Lexington, SC 29071-1696