1 <TITLE>Secrets of Cinelerra: Configuration</TITLE>
3 <H1>Secrets of Cinelerra: Configuration</H1>
6 Because of the variety of uses, Cinelerra can not be run optimally
7 without some intimate configuration for your specific needs. Very few
8 parameters are adjustible at compile time. Runtime configuration is
9 the only option for most configuration because of the multitude of
12 Go to <B>settings->preferences</B> and run through the options.<P>
24 These determine what happens when you play sound from the timeline.<P>
26 <B>SAMPLES TO READ FROM DISK:</B> Cinelerra uses a pipeline for
27 rendering audio. The first stage is reading large chunks of audio from
28 disk, the samples to read from disk. This is followed by processing
29 small fragments in a virtual console.<P>
31 <B>SAMPLES TO SEND TO CONSOLE:</B> - The second stage is rendering
32 small fragments through the virtual console to the sound driver. A
33 larger value here causes more latency when you change mixing parameters
34 but gives more reliable playback.<P>
36 Some sound drivers don't allow changing of the console fragment so
37 latency is unchanged no matter what this value is.<P>
39 <B>VIEW FOLLOWS PLAYBACK:</B> - Causes the timeline window to scroll
40 when the playback cursor moves out of view. This can bog down the X
43 <B>USE SOFTWARE FOR POSITIONING INFORMATION:</B> - Most soundcards and
44 sound drivers don't give reliable information on the number of samples
45 the card has played. When playing video you need this information for
46 synchronization. This option causes the sound driver to be ignored and
47 a software timer to be used for synchronization.<P>
49 <B>AUDIO PLAYBACK IN REALTIME:</B> - Back in the days when 150Mhz was
50 the maximum, this allowed uninterrupted playback on heavy loads. Now
51 you'll probably only need it for playing video and audio when the load
52 is to high for uninterrupted audio.<P>
54 <B>AUDIO DRIVER:</B> - There are many sound drivers for Linux. This
55 allows selecting one and setting parameters specific to it. Some of
56 the common parameters for a sound driver are <P>
60 <B>DEVICE PATH:</B> - Usually a file in the <B>/dev/</B> directory
61 which controls the device.<P>
63 <B>BITS:</B> - The number of bits of precision Cinelerra should set
64 the device for. This sometimes has a figuritive meaning. Some sound
65 drivers need to be set to 32 bits to perform 24 bit playback and won't
66 play anything when set to 24 bits. Some sound drivers need to be set
67 to 24 bits for 24 bit playback.<P>
69 <B>CHANNELS:</B> - The number of channels Cinelerra should set the
70 device for. Regardless of the number of channels in the project, the
71 number of channels set here will be written to the device. When this
72 is set to 2 and the project has 1 channel you'll hear sound through the
73 left speaker and not centered as expected for a monaural project. When
74 this is set to 1 and the project has 2 channels you'll hear the left
75 channel centered and not 2 channels mixed together.<P>
96 These determine what happens when you play video from the timeline.<P>
98 <B>FRAMERATE ACHIEVED:</B> - The number of frames per second being
99 displayed during playback.<P>
101 <B>SCALING EQUATION:</B> - The algorithm used in all video resizing in
102 the virtual console. This doesn't affect scaling to the size of the
103 compositor window.<P>
107 <B>NEAREST NEIGHBOR ENLARGE AND REDUCE:</B> - lowest but fastest
108 quality. Produces jagged edges and uneven motion.<P>
110 <B>BICUBIC ENLARGE AND BILINEAR REDUCE:</B> - highest but slowest
111 quality. For enlarging a bicubic interpolation is used, which blurs
112 slightly but doesn't reveal stair steps. For reduction a bilinear
113 interpolation is used, which produces very sharp images and reduces
114 noise. The bilinear reduced images can be sharpened with a sharpen
115 effect with less noise than a normal sized image.<P>
117 <B>BILINEAR ENLARGE AND BILINEAR REDUCE:</B> - when slight enlargement
118 is needed a bilinear enlargement looks better than a bicubic
123 <B>PRELOAD BUFFER FOR QUICKTIME:</B> - The Quicktime/AVI decoder can
124 handle CDROM sources better when this is around 1000000. This reduces
125 the amount of seeking. For normal use this should be 0.<P>
127 <B>VIDEO DRIVER:</B> - Normally video on the timeline goes to the
128 compositor window during continuous playback and when the insertion
129 point is repositioned. Instead of sending video to the Compositor
130 window the video driver can be set to send video to another output
131 device during continuous playback. This doesn't affect where video
132 goes when the insertion point is repositioned, however.<P>
134 Various parameters are given for Video Driver depending on the driver.<P>
138 <B>DISPLAY:</B> - The is intended for dual monitor
139 displays. Depending on the value of Display, the Compositor window
140 will appear on a different monitor from the rest of the windows.<P>
142 <B>DEVICE PATH:</B> - Usually a file in the <B>/dev/</B> directory
143 which controls the device.<P>
145 <B>SWAP FIELDS:</B> - Make the even lines odd and the odd lines even
146 when sending to the device. On an NTSC or 1080i monitor the fields may
147 need to be swapped to prevent jittery motion.<P>
149 <B>OUTPUT CHANNEL:</B> - Devices with multiple outputs may need a
150 specific connector to send video on.<P>
152 <B>PORT:</B> - The IEEE1394 standard specifies something known as the
153 <B>port</B>. This is probably the firewire card number in the system
156 <B>CHANNEL:</B> - The IEEE1394 standard specifies something known as the
157 <B>channel</B>. For DV cameras it's always <B>63</B>.<P>
175 These determine what happens when you record audio.<P>
178 <B>RECORD DRIVER:</B> - This is used for recording audio in the Record
179 window. It may be shared with the Record Driver for video if the audio
180 and video are wrapped in the same stream. It takes variable parameters
181 depending on the driver. The parameters have the same meaning as they
185 <B>DEVICE PATH:</B> - Usually a file in the <B>/dev/</B> directory
186 which controls the device.<P>
188 <B>BITS:</B> - The number of bits of precision Cinelerra should set the
189 device for. This sometimes has a figuritive meaning. Some sound
190 drivers need to be set to 32 bits to perform 24 bit recording and won't
191 record anything when set to 24 bits. Some sound drivers need to be set
192 to 24 bits for 24 bit recording.<P>
194 <B>CHANNELS:</B> - The number of channels Cinelerra should set the
195 device for. Regardless of the number of channels in the record
196 operation, the number of channels set here will be read from the
197 device. When this is set to 2 and the record operation has 1 channel
198 you'll record the left speaker and not a mix of the left and right
199 speakers as expected for a monaural project. When this is set to 1 and
200 the project has 2 channels you'll record the left and right channels
201 mixed into the left speaker and not 1 channel spead across two
205 <B>SAMPLES TO WRITE AT A TIME:</B> - Audio is first read in small
206 fragments from the device. Many small fragments are combined into a
207 large fragment before writing to disk. The disk writing process is
208 done in a different thread. The value here determines how large the
209 combination of fragments is for each disk write.<P>
211 <B>SAMPLE RATE FOR RECORDING:</B> - Regardless of what the project
212 settings are. This is the sample rate used for recording. This should
213 be the highest the audio device supports.<P>
221 These determine what happens when you record video.<P>
224 <B>RECORD DRIVER:</B> - This is used for recording video in the Record
225 window. It may be shared with the Record Driver for audio if the audio
226 and video are wrapped in the same stream. It takes variable parameters
227 depending on the driver. The parameters have the same meaning as they
230 <B>FRAMES TO RECORD TO DISK AT A TIME:</B> - Frames are recorded in a
231 pipeline. First frames are buffered in the device. Then they're read
232 into a larger buffer for writing to disk. The disk writing is done in
233 a different thread as the device reading. For certain codecs the disk
234 writing uses multiple processors. This value determines how many
235 frames are written to disk at a time.<P>
237 <B>FRAMES TO BUFFER IN DEVICE:</B> - The number of frames to store in
238 the device before reading. This determines how much latency there can
239 be in the system before frames are dropped.<P>
241 <B>USE SOFTWARE FOR POSITIONING INFORMATION:</B> - Video uses audio for
242 synchronization but most soundcards don't give accurate position
243 information. This calculates an estimation of audio position in
244 software instead of the hardware for synchronization.<P>
246 <B>SYNC DRIVES AUTOMATICALLY:</B> - For high bitrate recording the
247 drives may be fast enough to store the data but Linux may wait several
248 minutes and stall as it writes several minutes of data at a time. This
249 forces Linux to flush its buffers every second instead of every few
250 minutes and produce slightly better realtime behavior.<P>
252 <B>SIZE OF CAPTURED FRAME:</B> - This is the size of the frames
253 recorded. It is independant of the project frame size because most
254 video devices only record a fixed frame size. If the frame size given
255 here isn't supported by the device it might crash Cinelerra.<P>
257 <B>FRAME RATE FOR RECORDING:</B> - The frame rate recorded is different
258 from the project settings. This sets the recorded frame rate.<P>
277 You'll spend most of your time configuring this section.<P>
281 <B>INDEX FILES GO HERE:</B> - Back in the days when 4 MB/sec was
282 unearthly speed for a hard drive, index files were introduced to speed
283 up drawing the audio tracks. This option determines where index files
284 are placed on the hard drive.<P>
287 <B>SIZE OF INDEX FILE:</B> - Determines the size of an index file.
288 Larger index sizes allow smaller files to be drawn faster while slowing
289 down the drawing of large files. Smaller index sizes allow large files
290 to be drawn faster while slowing down small files.<P>
292 <B>NUMBER OF INDEX FILES TO KEEP:</B> - To keep the index directory from
293 becoming unruly, old index files are deleted. This determines the
294 maximum number of index files to keep in the directory.<P>
296 <B>DELETE ALL INDEXES:</B> - When you change the index size or you want to
297 clean out excessive index files, this deletes all the index files.<P>
299 <B>CACHE ITEMS:</B> - To speed up rendering, several assets are kept
300 open simultaneously. This determines how many are kept open. A number
301 too large may exhaust your memory pretty fast and result in a crash. A
302 number too small may result in slow playback as assets need to be
303 reopened more frequently.<P>
306 <B>SECONDS TO PREROLL RENDERS:</B> - Some effects need a certain amount
307 of time to settle in. This sets a number of seconds to render without
308 writing to disk before the selected region is rendered. When using the
309 renderfarm you'll sometimes need to preroll to get seemless transitions
310 between the jobs. Every job in a renderfarm is prerolled by this
313 <B>FORCE SINGLE PROCESSOR USE:</B> - Cinelerra tries to use all
314 processors on the system by default but sometimes you'll only want to
315 use one processor, like in a renderfarm client. This forces only one
316 processer to be used. The operating system, however, usually uses the
317 second processor anyway for disk access so this option is really a 1.25
322 <B>RENDER FARM:</B><P> To use the renderfarm set these options. Ignore
323 them for a standalone system.<P>
327 <B>USE RENDER FARM FOR RENDERING:</B> - When selected, all the
328 <B>file->render</B> operations use the renderfarm.<P>
330 <B>NODES:</B> - Displays all the nodes on the renderfarm and which ones
331 are active. Select the <B>ON</B> column to activate and deactivate
332 nodes. Select the <B>HOSTNAME</B> and <B>PORT</B> columns to edit a
333 node. Computer freaks may be better off editing the
334 <B>~/.bcast/.Cinelerra_rc</B> file than this if they have hundreds of
337 <B>HOSTNAME:</B> - Edit the hostname of an existing node or enter the
338 hostname of a new node here.<P>
340 <B>PORT:</B> - Edit the port of an existing node or enter the
341 port of a new node here.<P>
343 <B>REPLACE NODE:</B> - When editing an existing node, hit this to
344 commit the changes to <B>HOSTNAME</B> and <B>PORT</B>. The changes
345 won't be committed if you don't hit this buttoin.<P>
347 <B>ADD NODE:</B> - Create a new node with the <B>HOSTNAME</B> and
348 <B>PORT</B> settings.<P>
350 <B>DELETE NODE:</B> - Deletes whatever node is highlighted in the
351 <B>NODES</B> list.<P>
353 <B>SORT NODES:</B> - Sorts the <B>NODES</B> list based on the
356 <B>FILESYSTEM PREFIX ON REMOTE NODES:</B> - Sets the relative location
357 of all the assets on the nodes. If the assets are in <B>/mov</B> on
358 the master and the master filesystem is mounted under <B>/mnt</B> on
359 the nodes, the filesystem prefix should be <B>/mnt</B>. Ideally the
360 assets should appear under the same directory on the nodes as the
361 master. In this case the filesystem prefix can be <B>/</B>.<P>
363 <B>TOTAL JOBS TO CREATE:</B> - Determines the number of jobs to
364 dispatch to the renderfarm. The more jobs you create, the more finely
365 balanced the renderfarm becomes.<P>
381 These parameters affect purely how the user interface works.<P>
383 <B>USE HOURS:MINUTES:SECONDS.XXX</B>Various representations of time are
384 given. Select the most convenient one. The time representation can
385 also be changed by <B>CTRL</B> clicking on the time ruler.<P>
387 <B>USE THUMBNAILS:</B> - The Resource Window displays thumbnails of
388 assets by default. This can take a long time to set up. This option
389 disables the thumbnails.<P>
391 <B>CLICKING IN/OUT POINTS DOES WHAT:</B> - Cinelerra not only allows
392 you to perform editing by dragging in/out points but also defines three
393 seperate operations which occur when you drag an in/out point. For each
394 mouse button you select the behavior in this window. The usage of each
395 editing mode is described in editing.<P>
397 <B>MIN DB FOR METER:</B> - Some sound sources have a lower noise
398 threshold than others. Everything below the noise threshold is
399 meaningless. This option sets the meters to clip below a certain
400 level. Consumer soundcards usually bottom out at -65. Professional
401 soundcards bottom out at -90.<P>
403 <B>FORMAT FOR METER:</B> - This option allows you to select the format
404 for all the VU meters. If you're a CS major select percentage and if
405 you're a EE major select DB.<P>
407 <B>THEME:</B> - Cinelerra supports variable themes. Select one here
408 and restart Cinelerra to see it.<P>