A.C.E. 1/ACE CD 1.iso/files/utils/pegger12.dms/in.adf/PEGGER/PEGGERChanges

Text File | 1993-09-29 | 7.6 KB | 167 lines

      Known incompatabilty between PEGGER and other programs

DPS Personal Animation Recorder
-------------------------------

9-28-93

Notes on: The Personal Animation Recorder by
          Digital Processing Systems, Inc.
          and interfacing PEGGER, version 1.2

refer:    Greg Heifner

Several problems and work arounds have been discovered in the operation of
PEGGER and the Personal Animation Recorder (PAR).  Sadly, we could not
obtain a unit from Digital prior to our release of PEGGER.  Only recently I
personaly purchased one for my own use, after hearing from many pleased
users of both PEGGER and the PAR.

The quality of the PAR is superb and PEGGER greatly enhances it's use.  As
a result we will be learning all we can about the PAR in order to
potentialy solve the existing problems.

The PAR in it's simplest form is a digital hard disk based video recording
deck.  Individual framestores or IFF 24 files are sent to the PAR for
processing into an animation file or a series of stills.  These images are
stored and played back through the use of a high speed IDE drive that is
accessed through the PAR software/hardware.  Idealy, PEGGER would be used
to "SNOOP" your directory of stored sequential animation files that are in
JPEG form.  As the PAR file handling software requested the image, PEGGER
would decompress the file and hand it off to the PAR.  Unfortunatly, as
best we can tell now, the PAR file handling software doesn't support
several DOS calls needed by PEGGER to handle the files successfully.  Not
all is lost.  It is just the PAR file handling software that seems to be
trouble for us.  If you use a file system utility (such as DirMaster,
DirOpus or PEGGER's batch decompress (DJPEG) window, you'll see that the
volume "DDR:" is available to you when PAR is running in the background.
The best way to use PAR is to set up PAR for the animation or still process
and then just copy the files you need to the proper directory (Project), in
the volume "DDR:" and the files will be decompressed by snoop, then fed
directly to the PAR.  Or you can just DJPEG the batch to "DDR:" and
everything will also work smoothly.  The conflict is between PEGGER and the
PAR's file handling utility.  When the PAR file handler is active, several
functions within PEGGER stop operating for some, as of yet, unknown reason.
None of these symptoms have any "lethal" properties to your system.

Here is the best proceedure I have found to single frame record an animation
from a sequence of JPEG images;

1)  Launch the PAR system.

2)  Set up the project, filter and anim or still frame functions of PAR.

3) Setup the PAR "Projects" window to highlite the proper project
(directory) for the incoming frames.

4)  Hold left "Amiga" "M" to switch screens to the workbench.

5) Start PEGGER and set up snoop to decompress as IFF24 the directory of
your JPEG files you wish to process.

6)  Start a directory utility such as DirOpus.

7)  Copy the needed sequential JPEG files to volume "DDR:"

8) You will see the frames as they are processed on the video output of the
PAR.  When the copy is complete, hit "Amiga" "M" again to switch to the PAR
screen.  The PAR requester should say "DONE." Hit OK and follow the PAR
requests to name the finished animation file.  You're done.

    Alternate method two involves not using the snoop function of PEGGER
and just using the batch decompress PEGGER module (DJPEG).  The "TO" volume
would be "DDR:.

    All the function of the PAR file system work just fine while PEGGER is
running, it's PEGGER that doesn't like what's going on with the PAR file
handling system.  We will talk to Digital's programer and try to solve the
problem soon.  Although, you may prefer the above methods, as programs like
DirOpus and DirMaster are much more complete file transfer programs than
the PAR system is ever likly to be.


Deluxe Paint AGA
----------------

We have discovered a few problems when using Pegger with Deluxe Paint
AGA which could cause users several headaches.  First, there
appears to be a bug in Deluxe Paint AGA which occurs when trying to
load a 24-bit IFF image.  DPaint will ask you if you want to change
the screen format to that of the file (X-Resolution x Y-Resolution x
24-bit).  If the user chooses "yes" on this option, it is assumed that
the screen format will be one of the AA HAM resolution modes that
would be closest to the actual resolution of the 24-bit image.
Unfortunately, DPaint instead opens up a 256 color screen that
is nearest to the actual image resolution and loads the image as a
256-color dithered version of the original 24-bit image; not the HAM8
image that the user expects!  The only way to work around this problem
is to respond "no" to the 24-bit question that Deluxe Paint asks the
user.  This, of course, assumes that the user has chosen one of
the AA-HAM modes (using 64 colors) when starting Deluxe Paint AGA.  The
AA-HAM modes using 64 colors are HAM8 modes and the images saved in
this format are of the type that Pegger is capable of compressing
(either manually or through the SNOOP process).

Secondly, HAM8 resolution IFF images are normally saved with a 64
color palette.  However, Deluxe Paint AGA saves these images out with
a 256 color palette.  This is incorrect for the IFF standard and we
have had to make Pegger aware of this problem with Deluxe Paint AGA in
order to correctly compress the HAM8 images.  Hopefully, Electronic
Arts will solve these inconsistencies with Deluxe Paint AGA in the
future but fortunately for now, we have been able to establish simple
workarounds for them.


Video Toaster - Toaster Paint
-----------------------------

   Toaster Paint can not load IFF 24 images through PEGGER's SNOOP.
If you try to do this, the image loaded into Toaster Paint will be
all black.  There are two ways around this bug in Toaster Paint.
First, you could setup PEGGER to SNOOP for Toaster Frame Stores,
Toaster Paint can load a Frame Store using PEGGER's SNOOP.  The
other option is to set the SNOOP_CRIPPLE tooltype in PEGGER's
icon to YES.  Refer to your PEGGER manual for more information
on the SNOOP_CRIPPLE tooltype.


      PEGGER Changes

Version 1.2

   We found out the Deluxe Paint AGA has a bug in how it saves HAM8
images.  It was including a 256 color palette instead of the 64
color palette that HAM8 requires.  Since there wasn't a 64 color
palette, PEGGER would not JPEG compress HAM8 files created by
Deluxe Paint AGA.  We made an exception for this, and now PEGGER
will compress the HAM8 files created by Deluxe Paint AGA.

   The CJPEG Background Process was incorrectly reporting an ARexx
Error as a DOS File System error.  Fixed.

   The estimate of Free Disk Space displays in the Snoop, CJPEG Batch
Directory, and DJPEG Batch Directory windows displayed the wrong values
when the estimate was -10 MB or more.  This has been fixed.

   CJPEG was incorrectly identifying IFF HAM8 animation files as a single
HAM8 image it could compress.  If you were doing a REPLACE, PEGGER would
not just JPEG compress the first frame of the HAM8 animation, but delete
the animation.  This has been fixed, PEGGER now recognizes the HAM8
animations as a type of IFF file that it CAN'T compress.

   Added two new ARexx scripts, copy_source.peg and copy_destination.peg.
Read the ARexx scripts for more information about these.

Version 1.1

   The manual incorrectly shows how to get the source and destination
filenames for the Pre and Post ARexx scripts.   The correct way is
to use the ARexx command ARG, not the function, as follows:

    ARG source, destination

   There is also an ARexx script called debug.peg in the Rexx directory
of PEGGER which shows how to debug scripts, and the correct way to
get the source and destination filenames.