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Working with Digital Hotcakes Animated Backgrounds
 QUESTION: How can I use Digital Hotcakes animations in my Casablanca ANSWER: First let me clarify what we're talking about for others who may be reading this -- Digital Hotcakes is one of several companies who create animated computer graphics primarily used for backgrounds in video productions. Most of these companies provide their provide their customers with their product on DVD as a computer file, usually a Quicktime file (.MOV). Some also provide other formats like AVI files to increase compatibility with other editing software. Digitasl Hotcakes is one of the companies that provides multiple file formats so they are one of the best for Casablanca customers (especially if you're working on a Casablanca running the Smart Edit OS. Working with these products in a Casablanca depends on which model/editor you're working with... SMART EDIT You will need to install & activate the Disk Transfer software - this is add-on software that is available from your Casablanca dealer (or distributor). It allows the importing and exporting of AVI files. This is useful for backing up & transferring your own work but is also the method to import these motion graphics from Digital Hotcakes. Once the software is loaded, enter the Project where you want the motion graphics to go. 1. Enter the Edit menu of the project where you want these scenes to appear 2. Place the Digital Hotcakes DVD into the DVD drive 3. Click on ‘New' and then scroll to find ‘Disk Transfer' 4. Left click on ‘Ok' and the Disk-transfer import menu appears 5. The DVD must have enough time to get up to speed and read the data on the disk - once the disk has been in the drive for a few moments, click on ‘Display contents'. If you get the message ‘No supported AVI file found' - wait a little longer (15-30 seconds) and try again... usually that does the trick. 6. You will hear the DVD being read and the file names will populate the menu screen. You may choose to import a single scene by selecting it (scrolling so it is highlighted in blue) and then click ‘Ok'. The progress bar will indicate the download and the menu will disappear and the scene will appear in the scene bin. 7. If you wish to import all the files on that Disk, click ‘All' and all the files will be read into the Scene Bin. 8. Note the names of the scenes are the same as the file name from the Digital Hotcakes album - you can change them to your own name for easy management. BOGART SE OS3 if you are working on the newer Generation 3 Casablanca video editors, running the Bogart SE OS Version 3 (and higher) - you can load both AVI _and_ MOV files directly into the project via the Record Menu. 1. Enter the project where you wish your animations to go 2. Insert the Digital Hotcakes DVD into the DVD Drive 3. Click to enter the Record Menu - 4. Left Click on the USB icon and it should display the files on that DVD (it may take a moment - if you do not see a listing of the files, ensure the source is properly selected as CD/DVD). 5. Click to select/place a checkmark by the file/s you wish to import 6. Left clik 'oK'. Your selected animation clips should now load into the Scene Bin. You can check out the Digital Hotcakes Animations on their website here:
http://www.animationsforvideo.com/html/products.htm |