Greetings! And welcome to QuickCards Volume 1- Limited, the Multimedia Card Shop in Your Computer. This ReadMe! file is intended to be used in conjunction with the QuickCards User’s Guide to provide answers to any questions you may have regarding personalizing and delivering your multimedia greetings, complete with text, snapshots, and movies.
This Limited Version of QuickCards allows you to preview all 61 of the cards available in the full version of QuickCards Volume 1. You cannot personalize the cards in the main categories in this Limited Version. We have created a special category of cards, titled "Try These!," which consists of six (6) QuickCards. These QuickCards are fully functional and can be personalized with snapshots, videos, & text in accordance with the QuickCards Users Guide. These cards cover a range of occasions. We hope you enjoy them.
Installing/ Running QuickCards
This Limited Version is designed to be run directly from the CD-ROM. The installer provided is equivalent to the CD-ROM install option described in the User's Guide. The two hard disk installs are not available.
To run QuickCards you will want to run the QuickCards Ltd. Installer and then double-click the application icon in the folder named QuickCards. This will launch the application and run it from your CD-ROM drive.
Online Documentation
The QuickCards User Guide has been provided as an electronic document on this CD-ROM in Adobe's Acrobat (.pdf) format. We have also included the Adobe Acrobat Reader. To install the Adobe Acrobat Reader, simply double-click the ACROREAD.MAC icon in the folder named Documentation. This will install the proper Adobe software required to view the QuickCards User Guide, as well as any other .pdf files. If you already have Adobe Acrobat installed on your system, you do not need to reinstall it. The version of Adobe Acrobat distributed on this CD is version 2.1. Feel free to print out the QuickCard User Guide if you prefer.
QuickCards Version 1.1
When personalizing a card, make sure that the Personalizer window does not cover your video display window. If it does, the Personalizer will end up in your QuickCard with you! (Please refer to the User’s Guide for more detailed information on this situation.)
We have created a few cards that are intended to be used as letters, with large amounts of text. In our testing we have found that up to six pages of text, with a video, will still fit on a single 1.44MB floppy. You can write as much as you like, but may need to find alternate delivery methods if you’re writing a novel! (You can use any of the commercial or shareware compression applications available to further reduce the size of your finished QuickCard.)
When recording a movie, you should have your sound settings set to either 11 or 22 kHz. QuickCards will not playback sounds recorded at 44kHz (your movie will play silently). If recording a movie for playback under Windows, you should record at 8-bits.
QuickCards will allow you to drag and drop a single stand-alone QuickCard for further editing. QuickCards will only allow you to edit one card at a time. If you would like to edit a card on a you have saved on a floppy, you should first copy it to your hard drive.
After you have created your QuickCard, you can name it anything you like, just as you would name a word processing document. However, a Windows QuickCard file name can only be eight characters long followed by "exe."
To obtain the full version of Connectix QuickCards Volume One, contact your local software reseller or your favorite mail order software supplier.
QuickCam Version 1.1 (Black and White Cameras Only)
QuickCards 1.1 ships with version 1.1 of the QuickCam driver software and includes QuickTime 2.1. This means that Apple Multimedia Tuner is no longer required (or installed). If you find that the Apple MultiMedia Tuner extension is still loaded when you restart, simply drag it to your desktop and restart, then throw it in the trash.
NOTE: You should install your QuickCam and its software before installing QuickCards. If you need to install the new QuickCam drivers at a later time, they can be found on the QuickCards Volume One CD-ROM. The files “~QuickCamVideo” and “~QuickCamMic” are located in the “Put into Extension folder” folder in the QuickCards folder. Drag these two files to your System folder and restart. (The new drivers will automatically be installed using the Installer only if you have already installed an earier version of the QuickCam software.)
THE QUICKCAM VDIG
Version 1.1 introduces a number of new features to the underlying driver software, changes you may never use or be aware of, but which are important nonetheless. Here’s a brief list:
* Auto exposure support
* Rotation support
* Support for digitizing any size window
* Multiple use of the vdig (multiple applications use camera simultaneously)
* Better audio support
Of these, the first two are controllable by users. When you select Video Settings/Other in QuickMovie (or Video Settings in virtually any application that supports QuickTime devices directly), you’ll note there is a new “panel” available when a QuickCam is attached to your computer.
You still need to select QuickCam from the Source panel to make it the active video device, but once you’ve done that, select the Connectix QuickCam panel and you have several new options available:
Input—a popup that correctly identifies the port you want to have as your QuickCam source.
Landscape/Portrait—reorients the QuickCam image from a horizontal (landscape) view to a vertical (portrait) view. This also means that what was 320x240 is now 240x320, for example. If you use Portrait mode, you need to turn your QuickCam on its side.
Flip—useful if you need to mount the QuickCam upside down (i.e., tripod socket up); in such situations this option correctly restores the image to what you would expect.
Mirroring—makes QuickCam’s video appear on your monitor as if it were a mirror (i.e., left and right are reversed).
Brightness—the Auto setting turns on a proprietary pixel-differencing algorithm that attempts to correctly set exposure. You’ll note that when you set this option the Brightness slider may move automatically as exposure adjusts. This is normal. Also, we have coded the auto exposure sequence to ignore quick changes. Thus, if you turn off the lights in your room with auto brightness set, it may take a second or two for QuickCam’s exposure to be adjusted correctly. The Manual setting lets you set brightness the old way using the slider.
These video settings are remembered once set (i.e., setting Auto brightness in QuickMovie means that it will be set in ALL applications that use QuickCam, including QuickPICT, until you go back to this panel and cancel it.
Note: if you set mirroring, flipping, rotation, odd screen sizes, or screen sizes other than those in a 4:3 aspect ratio, your frame rates will drop somewhat, since the software is having to calculate new pixel values from those sent by the camera. To achieve the highest possible frame rates, make sure:
• that mirroring, flipping, and rotation are turned off
• the aspect ratio is Constant
• you are using a frame size of 80x60, 160x120, or 320x240.
QuickCards Video Set-Up
We recommend that you have your camera set to landscape mode when using QuickCards. The cards in this collection have been designed and optimized for input via landscape mode. The cards in this collection have also been designed for optimal use with the Connectix B/W QuickCam. QuickCards does support other video sources, including color. Due to video compression used as well as custom color palettes, we are, unfortunately, not able to guarantee that cards personalized from other video sources will fit on a single floppy, nor are we able to guarantee satisfactory color videos or snapshots. (Some of the custom palettes do result in cool special effects to color QuickTime movies!)
Drop Us a Line
Drop us a line and let us know how your QuickCarding is going at cards@connectix.com or contact us using the information given below.
