Tutorial: How to Play Movies

Requirements
Updating the Preferences
How to Play AVI, DivX, almost anything
MacVCD X Features
Controls

Requirements

MacVCD X
To play SuperVCDs you need: the Quicktime MPEG2 Playback Component available from Apple
To play AVI (Xvid, DivX, other MPEG4 derived formats) you need the following: For Mac OS X 10.4 or later – The Perian Quicktime Component. Pre-compiled, easy to install, version of this component available here: http://www.perian.org/

Updating the Preferences

From the “MacVCD X” menu, select “Preferences” and configure the following items:

Auto Play – Tick this box to have MacVCD X automatically play a VCD when it is inserted in the drive. Default value is “on”. (For this feature to work, MacVCD X must running as the foreground application.)

Auto Eject – Tick this box to have MacVCD X automatically eject the VCD when it has finished. Default value is “on”.

Auto Hide Menu – Tick this box to automatically hide the Menu Bar. Default value is “off”. (To hide the Menu Bar during play, use the “Hide Menu Bar” toggle on the “Controls” menu.)

Auto Hide Controller – Tick this box to automatically hide the Movie Controller. Default value is “off”. (To hide the Movie Controller during play, use the “Hide Controller” toggle on the “Controls” menu.)

Auto Enable “Hands Free” – Tick this box to automatically turn on the speech recognition controls. Default value is “off”. (To turn off Hands Free during play, use the “Hands Free On/Off” toggle on the “Controls” menu.)

Present Movie on Full Screen – Tick this box to automatically present the movie in Full Screen. Default value is “on”. (To present the movie on full screen during play, use the “Toggle Full Screen” toggle on the “Edit” menu.)

Stretch image to fill screen (only available in “Full Screen” playback) – Tick this box to automatically to stretch the image to fill the screen. Otherwise, the aspect ratio will be preserved. Default value is “off”.

Present Movie on Display 2 (only available in “Full Screen” playback) – Tick this box to automatically present the movie on a second display (like a TV) if it is connected to your computer. If there is no second display then MacVCD X will present the movie on your primary display even if this option is selected. Default value is “on”.

Do Not change Display Mode for Full Screen Playback (only available in “Full Screen” playback) – Tick this box to prevent MacVCD from changing your screen resolution when playing in full screen mode. Default value is “on”.

Present Movie in Floating Window – Tick this box to present the movie in a floating window when small screen play is selected. Default value is “on”. To automatically present the movie in small Floating Windows, un-tick the “Present Movie on Full Screen” preference and tick the “Present Movie in Floating Windows” preference.

Show Segment Items – A VCD contains two areas, the Sequence items where movies are stored and the Segment items where photos and menu items are stored. Tick this box to present both a Photo VCD and the menu items on a VCD. Default value is “off”.

Once you have updated your preferences, quit from MacVCD X.

Playing movies

How to Play a QuickTime Movie, AVI, Divx, Xvid

To run MacVCD X, double click the MacVCD X icon.
Open the movie using File>Open, navigate to the QuickTime file and click the Open button.

Note: AVI, Divx, Xvid playback requires that a Component be installed. For more information, see the “System Requirements” section of this document.

How to Play a VCD or SVCD

To run MacVCD X, double click the MacVCD X icon.
Insert a Video CD into the CD drive. It will appear in the VCD menu.

If Auto Play is enabled, the VCD will play automatically.

If Auto Play is not enabled, you need to manually start movie playback using any of the available controls.

Adjust the volume and click the play button. For more information, see the Controls section

Note: SVCD playback requires that the Quicktime MPEG2 Playback Component be installed. For more information, see the “System Requirements” section of this document.

How to Play a Photo VCD (Ulead)

To run MacVCD X, double click the MacVCD X icon.
If you have not already done so, open the Preferences and select the item titled Show Segment Items. You only need to do this once.
Insert a Video CD into the CD drive. It will appear in the VCD menu.

If Auto Play is enabled, the VCD will play automatically.

If Auto Play is not enabled, you need to manually start movie playback using any of the available controls.

Adjust the volume and click the play button. For more information, see the “

Appendix A – Controls” section of this document.

How to Play a Multi Language Soundtrack VCD

Typically, if a VCD supports multi language soundtracks, it does so by recording one language soundtrack on the left mono track and a second language on the right mono track.

To play only one language soundtrack, select Mono Left or Mono Right from the Sound Menu.
If you select Stereo, you will hear both language tracks at the same time.

How to Play a Karaoke VCD

Typically, if a VCD supports karaoke soundtracks, it does so by recording the instrumental track on one mono track and the vocal track on the other track.

To play the soundtrack without the vocal track, select Mono Left or Mono Right from the Sound Menu. Depending on the VCD one of these settings will eliminate the vocal track.
To play both the vocal and instrumental tracks, select Stereo from the Sound Menu.

Features

How to Display the movie on a second screen

There are a variety of video displays that you may be able to connect to your Macintosh, including a TV. To see whether your computer supports this, refer to your Owner’s Manual.

Connect the second display to your computer, following the instructions in your Owner’s Manual.
To run MacVCD X, double click the MacVCD X icon.
In File>Preferences, check “Present Movie on Display 2” .
Insert the VCD.
Play the Movie.

How to Display more than one movie window at a time

You can watch more than one movie at a time using MacVCD X. To watch more than one movie:

Play the first movie.
Open the second movie window (File>New).
With the second movie window in the foreground, open the second movie (File>Open) .
Play the second movie.

How to use the zoom feature

To zoom in:

From the System Preferences, enable Zoom (System Preferences/Universal Access/Seeing/Turn on Zoom).
Using the keys, control Zoom

Zoom In	Apple + Option + +
Zoom Out	Apple + Option + –

How to use the pan feature

To Pan:

Zoom in (For further information, refer to the “How to use the zoom feature” section of this document.
Using the mouse, control Pan.

How to Use the “Hands Free” feature

You can use the Macintosh built-in Speech Recognition feature to play a movie “hands free”. In order to take advantage of this feature you need the following:

The Apple Speech Recognition module installed on your computer. This has to be installed and configured before the “hands free” feature will work. Most Macintosh computers come with this module already installed. If you don’t have it, you can get it from Apple. Please note that this document does not cover how to install or how to configure Apple Speech Recognition. For further information on Apple Speech Recognition, refer to the Apple site at http://www.apple.com/macos/speech/
Because of noise interference caused by the hard drive, we recommend that you use an external microphone when using the “Hands Free” feature of MacVCD X. We used a USB stereo Headset (headphone and microphone.

To use the “Hands Free” feature, do the following:

Ensure that you know which listening method you are in so that you can give commands that will be listened to. For ease of use, we recommend you set you Speech control panel Listening method as follows:

Open the Speech control panel
From the “Option’s” Pop-Up menu, select “Listening”
From the “Method” radio button options, select “Key(s) toggle listening on and off”
From the “Name is” Pop-Up menu, select “Optional before commands”
Close the Speech control panel
For further information about listening methods, refer to “Speech” in Mac Help

Plug in the microphone. For further information, refer to your Owner’s Manual
To run MacVCD X, double click the MacVCD X icon.
From the Control Menu , turn “Hands Free”on.
Insert the VCD.
Play the Movie.

For a list of all the Speech Commands, refer to the “

Appendix A – Controls” section of this document.

When you enable the “Hands Free” feature, the Speech Commands Window will open. This will allow you to verify that MacVCD X has understood your spoken command.

If MacVCD X encounters a problem understanding your spoken command, it will advise you in the Speech Commands Window.
If MacVCD X encounters a problem understanding 6 of your spoken commands in a row, it will turn “Hands Free” Off but will continue to play the movie. If this happens, either use the other controls (menu, controller, keyboard) to watch the movie, or turn “Hands Free” on and try again.

How to Use the “Repeat Track” feature

You can use the “Repeat Track” feature to play one track in a continuous loop.

To use the “Repeat Track” feature, do the following:

To run MacVCD X, double click the MacVCD X icon.
In the MacVCD X preferences, untick “Auto Eject – Eject the VCD After playing it.
Insert the VCD.
From the Track Menu, Select Repeat Track
Select the track you want to loop
Play the Movie.

Editing/Saving Feature

You can use the save feature to make a QuickTime movie, using either an existing QuickTime movie or a VCD as the input. The advantage of doing this is that once you have converted a VCD to a QuickTime movie, you can edit it. You can use this feature to make a QuickTime movie of only your favourite clips from a movie.

There are three types of opens you can do, one from the Track menu and two from the File menu:

Select a Track from the Track menu. This opens that VCD track as a Quicktime movie.
Open movie with all tracks. This opens all the tracks on the VCD as a single large Quicktime movie.
Open. This opens any Quicktime movie using the standard file open dialog. There are no restrictions on the type of file you can open but if Quicktime does not support the file type it may “hang” and you will need to force quit.

There are three types of saves you can do:

Save as Self-Contained Movie. This allows you to create a movie file that contains all of its movie data. Because a Self-contained movie contains all of the movie, the created file will be large.

Note: There is a known Apple bug that results in a clip file saved as a Self-contained movie to be as large as the original movie. (e.g. If you take a 400 meg movie, make a 30 second clip that is 15 megs in size and save it as a self-contained movie, the self-contained movie will only show the 30 second clip, but will store the entire 400 meg file.)

Save as Movie File. This allows you to create a movie file that only contains references to sections (or clips) from a movie that is stored separately. You will need the original movie to play the Movie “clip” file. to insert the VCD into the drive to play the Movie “clip” file (or have the original QuickTime movie on your hard drive.)
Save. This allows you to save a QuickTime movie.

How to Use MacVCD to make a Self-Contained Movie

MacVCD allows you to create a movie file that contains all of its movie data. Such files are called self-contained movie files. You should use this procedure when you want to convert the VCD to a QuickTime Movie that you can play without having the VCD in the CD drive. You can save the entire VCD file or you can select your favorite scenes to save as a self contained movie. Self-contained movie files require a lot of space.

To convert a VCD to a Self-Contained Movie:

Play the VCD. Pause.
Select the entire movie.
From the File menu, select Save As Self Contained Movie.

To save an existing QuickTime movie as a Self-Contained Movie:

Play the QuickTime Movie. Pause.
Select the entire movie.
From the File menu, select Save As Self Contained Movie.

To create a Self-Contained Movie Clip File from a VCD or QuickTime movie:

Play the VCD or QuickTime Movie. Then Pause.
If you are in Full Screen Mode, toggle to small Movie Size (Edit>Toggle Full Scree). This will allow you to see both windows you’ll be working with at the same time.
From the File menu, select New to create a new movie file.
Select the first clip you want to save to the clip file. For more information on the editing commands, refer to the “ Controls” section of this document.
From the Edit menu, select Copy.
Select the new movie window and movie the Scroll Slider to where you want to insert the clip in the new movie. (Typically, this would be at the end of the new movie).
From the Edit Menu, select Paste.
Repeat steps 4 through 7 for each clip you want to paste in to your new movie.
From the File menu, select Save As Self Contained Movie.

How to Use MacVCD to make a Movie File

MacVCD allows you to create a small file containing references to sections of a movie that is stored separately. This is called a Movie File. You can use this feature to create a movie file that will play your favorite scenes from a VCD or QuickTime movie. This will create a very small file containing references for your favourite scenes from the movie. You will need to insert the VCD into the drive (or open the QuickTime movie) to play the movie clip file.

For more information on the editing commands, refer to the “Controls” section of this document.

To create a Movie Clip File from a VCD or QuickTime movie:

Play the VCD or QuickTime Movie. Then Pause. If you are in Full Screen Mode, toggle to small Movie Size (Edit>Toggle Full Screen). This will allow you to see both windows you’ll be working with at the same time.
From the File menu, select New to create a new movie file and open a second window.
Select the first clip you want to save to the clip file. For more information on the editing commands, refer to the “Controls” section of this document.
From the Edit menu, select Copy.
Select the new movie window and move the Scroll Slider to where you want to insert the clip in the new movie in the second window. (Typically, this would be at the end of the new movie).
From the Edit Menu, select Paste.
Repeat steps 4 through 7 for each clip you want to paste in to your new movie.
From the File menu, select Save As Movie File.
To play the movie, insert the VCD into the drive (or open the movie), open the clip file or play it.

Controls

Basic Controls:

Action	Menu Bar	Controller	Keyboard	Speech
Select VCD	Select VCD and choose the VCD Title
Select QuickTime movie	Select File>Open and open the QuickTime file		Apple + O
Open all VCD tracks at once	Select File->Open movie with all tracks
Pause/Play Toggle		Click the Play Button (>) to play and the Pause Button () to pause	Apple + SpaceBar	To Play Movie, say “Start Movie” To Pause Movie, say “Stop Movie”
Stop	Select File>Close		Apple + W
Eject	Select Eject and select the VCD to eject			Say “Eject” to eject the currently selected VCD
Quit	Select File>Quit		Apple + Q	Say “Quit”

Screen Controls:

Action	Menu Bar	Controller	Keyboard	Speech
Original Movie Size/Full Screen Toggle Menu Bar	Select Edit > Toggle Full Screen		Apple + T
Hide/Show Controller Bar	Select Controls > Hide/Show Controller		Apple + [	Say “Controller”
Hide/Show Menu Bar	Select Controls > Hide Menu Bar		Apple + M	Say “Menu Bar”
Hide/Show Volume Button	Select Controls > Hide/Show Volume Button		Apple + ]
Turn Zoom On			Apple + Option + *
Zoom In			Apple + Option + +
Zoom Out			Apple + Option + –

Sound Controls:

Action	Menu Bar	Controller	Keyboard	Speech
Volume	Select Edit > Toggle Full Screen	Click the Volume Button and use the slider to adjust the volume	Up Arrow (^) and Down Arrow (v)	To increase the volume, say “Louder” To decrease the volume, say “Quieter”
Mute	Select Sound > Mute		Apple + /	Say “Mute”
Stereo Soundtrack	Select Sound > Stereo		Apple + E	Say “Stereo”
Mono Left Soundtrack	Select Sound > Mono Left		Apple + L	Say “Mono Left”
Mono Right Soundtrack	Select Sound > Mono Right		Apple + R	Say “Mono Right “

Play Controls:

Action	Menu Bar	Controller	Keyboard	Speech
Select Track	Select Track and choose the track
Next Track	Select Controls > Next Track		Apple + K	Say “Next Track”
Previous Track	Select Controls > Previous Track		Apple + J	Say “Previous Track”
Repeat Track	Select Track > Repeat Track & click the track you want to loop		Apple + L	Say “Mono Left”
Select Chapter		Click on the Chapter Pop-Up Menu and choose the chapter
Scroll Fast Forward/Fast Reverse		Click the Scroll Slider to the right to fast forward to another position and to the left to fast reverse to a previous position in the movie
Play Faster	Select Controls > Fast		Apple + –	Say “Fast”
Play Slower	Select Controls > Slow		Apple + =	Say “Slow”
Play Forward/Play Backwards	To Play Backwards, Select Controls > Backward To Play Forward, Select Control > Forward		Backwards – Apple + B Forwards – Apple + F	To Play Movie Backwards, say “Backward” To Play Movie Forwards, say “Forward”
Frame Forward		Click the Frame Forward Button (\|>) to advance one frame in the movie	Keyboard Forward Arrow (>)
Frame Backward		Click the Frame Backward Button (<\|) to advance one frame in the movie	Keyboard Backward Arrow (<)

Hands Free(TM) speech recognition Controls:

Action	Menu Bar	Controller	Keyboard	Speech
Enable/Disable Speech Recognition	To Enable Speech Recognition, Select Controls > Turn Hands Free On To Disable Speech Recognition, Select Controls > Turn Hands Free Off		Apple + \
Display Speech Commands Window	The Speech Recognition Controller is displayed on the screen when Speech Recognition is turned on. It will disappear if the Menu Bar is hidden, or when Speech Recognition is turned off. To Open the Speech Commands Window, choose “Open Speech Commands Windows” from the Menu at the bottom of the oval window (click on the “\/”)			Say “Feedback”

Editing Controls:

Action	Menu Bar	Controller	Keyboard	Speech
Open New Window	Select File>New		Apple + N
Save	Select File>Save		Apple + S
Save as Movie File	Select File>Save as Movie File
Save as Self-Contained Movie	File>Save as Self-Contained Movie
Undo	Select Edit >Undo		Apple + Z
Cut	Select Edit >Cut		Apple + X
Copy	Select Edit > Copy		Apple + C
Paste	Select Edit > Paste		Apple + V
Clear	Select Edit > Clear
Select Frame	Copy the Frame
Select Clip		Move the Scroll Slider to the beginning of the clip. Hold down the Shift key and move the Scroll Slider to the end of the clip. The area of the Scroll Slider containing the clip willturn dark gray.
Select All	Select Edit >Select All		Apple + A
Deselect		Click on the Scroll Slider. The grayed area of the Scroll Slider will disappear.

The right software for the job.