User`s guide

Pro Tools Reference Guide372
Using a 14-inch monitor for playback
If you capture 320 x 240 (NTSC) movies
and have a second monitor with 640 x 480
resolution (a standard 14-inch monitor),
clicking on the Movie window will route
movie playback to that monitor. The
Movie will “bounce” over to the second
monitor, and will be pixel-doubled so that
it takes up the whole screen.
Tips for Optimizing Movie Playback
Since Pro Tools uses Apple’s QuickTime
technology to play movies, the quality of
the playback is dependent on the speed of
your Macintosh CPU and hard drive, the
size (in pixels) of the movie, and the qual-
ity of the video hardware used to capture
and playback the digitized video. While
QuickTime doesn’t produce broadcast-
quality playback, it is frame accurate when
spotting to picture.
On PCI-based computers, Pro Tools contin-
uously re-syncs the movie. The movie re-
solves to the audio sample clock. This al-
lows the movie to smoothly track the audio
even when your system is varispeeded.
For more consistently smooth movie play-
back, here are some suggestions:
◆ Use a Digidesign-approved video cap-
ture/playback card for 25/30 frames-per-
second full-screen movie playback.
◆ Display the movie on a separate monitor
driven by a video capture/playback card.
◆ If you don’t have a video capture/play-
back card, set the movie playback priority
to Medium Priority Playback or High Prior-
ity Playback using one of these commands
in Movie menu. This gives priority to
movie playback, rather than other screen
graphics tasks such as moving faders.
◆ Use the fastest CPU possible.
◆ Capture and play QuickTime video from
a separate hard drive other than your
Pro Tools audio drive(s).
◆ Remove unneeded System software Ex-
tensions and Control Panel items.
◆ Disable AppleTalk and other background
tasks on the CPU, such as File Sharing,
screen savers, Calculate Folder Size and any
fax or electronic mail software.
◆ Disable Moving Faders During Playback
in the Automation Preferences.
◆ Set No Auto Scrolling in Operations >
Scroll Options.
◆ Reduce the size of the Edit window to the
smallest possible size.
◆ Close unnecessary windows.
◆ Reduce the overall length of the SCSI
chain of your computer system for im-
proved throughput.
◆ Reduce the pixel size of the movie (e.g.
reduce it from 640 x 480 pixels to
320 x 240 pixels).
Setting the Movie Start
Time: Movie Offset
When you import a movie into your ses-
sion, the first frame of the movie defaults
to the start time of your session. In some
cases, however, you may need to offset the
movie by some amount forwards or back-
wards so that you can accurately spot audio
to the movie.