It's a matter of fact that a superior HDAV show concept usually comprises audio, high-resolution images and video. But there are other factors that need to be considered. Does the presentation run on a TV set, plasma display or video projector, do you want to produce a DVD of the show or multi-channel sound or any other special functions via Show Control?
One of the strengths of Wings Vioso RX is definitely its far-reaching media integration. However, a few physical characteristics with regard to media, standards and devices need to be considered to achieve optimum results for your project.
It is important to clarify the following questions:
What media are used for the project?
What are the properties of these media?
What form of output will you choose?
Only few obstacles need to be overcome with regard to audio. Due to its automatic conversion of sampling rates, Wings allows usage and output of a variety of different formats. To achieve best possible quality, the audio files should be output using the same format (resolution/sampling rate) as they were recorded with.
For multi-channel sound, you need to think about the type of output device to be used. As HDAV productions are almost exclusively presented on computers, it is possible to output on up to 24 channels by using multi-channel sound cards or interfaces. Optionally, output of encoded AC-3 wave files via the S/PDIF ouput is also possible.
Output of surround sound on a DVD is possible by exporting the sound track as a number of stereo files, which are then encoded into a Dolby Digital file (AC-3) by external software.
When it comes to pictures, Wings Vioso RX is capable of accepting more than 40 different file formats. What is important is the picture size, which must at least be as large as the planned maximum output size. For camera movements, the pictures need to be larger, depending on the zoom factor.
In order to achieve color rendering identical with other image editing programs all pictures should be converted to the standard color space sRGB IEC61966-2.1. See also Color management.
For the integration of videos, standards and the resulting differences in image size and frame rate play an important role. It is still quite easy to cope with different video image sizes within one project by choosing the corresponding screen fields. However, when it comes to the frame rate the problem gets quite serious. As a rule, only videos with the same frame rate, only 25 frames/s (PAL standard) or 30 frames/s (NTSC standard) should be used within the same project. When the frame rates differ, some pictures must be left out or shown twice during playback, which results in insufficient timing and the video tends to have a jerky effect.
If your video camera supports progressive recording (non-interlaced mode) you should choose this mode for videos in HDAV shows. The usual recording of double the number of interlaced images only has an advantage for playback on TV and fast movements. For HDAV shows, however, choosing this mode is no good idea, as the interlaced images have to be put together again anyway in a very complex deinterlacing process, which again causes losses.
For reasons of synchronization, output of a presentation video should be at the same frame rate as the video integrated in the show. I.e. 25 frames/s for PAL videos and 30 frames/s for NTSC videos. In critical cases, i.e. for fast movements, the frame rate can be increased to double or three times the value. However, it's usually the computer performance that puts a limit to higher values. H.264 and WMV format provides good preconditions as it allows modern computers to display videos. See also Output of videos and Output of Windows Media Videos.
For optimum playback, synchronization of output devices with the input signal plays an important role. Modern plasma displays and CRT monitors are very flexible in adjusting to a variety of frame rates in the signal. Choose the frame rate of the graphics card to be a multiple of the HDAV video frame rate.
Unfortunately, LC displays or video projectors do not synchronize with the input signal but work, at least internally, at a fixed rate of 60 Hz. If you want to follow the instructions as described above, you should ideally use videos at 30 frames/s for the show and output your HDAV video for presentation at 30 or 60 frames/s. But if you want to produce a PAL DVD (25 frames/s) on top of all this, problems will come up at the other end.
In order to play videos with different frame rates without any problems, the frame rate for output must be a high as possible. This is the case for playback via hardware rendering, which allows frame rates of 60 f/s or more even with very high resolution. For optimum video playback quality, the SmartSync Engine has been developed. See Advantages and limits of the SmartSync Engine.
See also