Tutorial - Working with Video
One of the powerful features of Dise is how Dise playbacks video. Dise can playback many different video formats, since Dise uses DirectX and DirectShow for video playback you can test if a video format can be played by trying it out in Windows Media Player.
There are three ways you use to add video.
1. You can use drag and drop from any application that supports dragging of video files. Example Windows Explorer.
2. You can use the File Browser Tab in the Dise application or if your movie is stored on the Dise Content path you can use the Library Tab.
3. Create a new video object by selecting the video button on the Objects Tab. This brings up the video preferences dialog box.
In this example I will add two video objects. One that will be used as a background and the other will be a standard video.
The background video object is located in the Library so I will use Drag and drop from the Library Tab.
The second object will inserted by creating a new video object and adding the file using the Browse Dialog Box.
Step 1 - Start the Dise Composer.
Step 2 - Select the Library Tab to the left and browse your way to the Background Video folder. Select the file labeled AnimetadBG1.WMV and drag it on to the checkered editing area. This will insert the background video.
Step 3 - We would like to use this newly added video object as a background. Then we right click the object and select the menu Use Object As Background. This will adjust the position of the object so that it fills the size of our presentation. It will also lock the position so that it cannot be altered by mistake.
Step 4 - Since this is a background video we would also like it to loop so that it will be playing during all over the scene regardless on how many objects we add to the scene or how long the scene actually is. To do that we need to select the video object (since we specified it to be a background object we cannot select it on the edit area) on the timeline. Select the timeline Tab at the bottom and select the Movie timeline.
Step 5 - Then select the "Edit Selected Object" menu from the Edit Menu. This will bring up the Video Preferences dialog box
Step 6 - In this dialog box you will se the list of video files that belongs to this object. Since we only have one video file (our background video) that is the only one showing. What we want to do is to specify that this movie will loop or repeat itself when it has played to the end. To do this : Check the Repeat checkbox at the bottom of the dialog box. Then Click OK. We have no created a scene with a background video that will continue playing for the duration of the scene.
Step 7 - Now we will add your own video to be played on top of the video background. To add a video using another approach select the button as shown in yellow below. This will add a new video object and show the video object dialog with no movie added.
Step 8 - Once there click the Add button and select the menu Video file(s) and select a movie on your hard drive. Your video will be added to the list. Note! you can add several video files to the same video object. All videos will be played in a sequence resulting in an object that is as long as the total duration of all added video files. Click OK.
Step 9 - Now we will add your own video to be played on top of the video background. To add a video using another approach select the button as shown in yellow below. This will add a new video object and show the video object dialog with no movie added. Once there click the Add button and select the menu Video file(s) and select a movie on your hard drive. Your video will be added to the list. Note! you can add several video files to the same video object. All videos will be played in a sequence resulting in an object that is as long as the total duration of all added video files. Click OK.
Step 10 - As default when you create new objects it will automatically lock its duration to the duration of the scene (this feature can be disabled). This means that since our background video was 10 seconds long and the second video object that I added was 15 seconds long it will only display 10 second of the 15 seconds video. To change this we have to unlock the timing of the second video object and lock the background video object to the end of the scene. This is done by selecting the video object and right click to bring up the popup menu Lock/Unlock| Time. Select the background video object on the timeline and select Lock/Unlock| Time To End Of Scene.
Step 11 - You will now have an editor looking like this. If you press play your top movie will play for the entire duration of the video file and the background object will loop in the background. No you can continue by adding effects such as fade and movement to your video or add other objects to your scene. A related feature that will be discuss in a future tutorial is the ability to include live streams and/or live video from capture card/webcam instead of using hard drive based video.
