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Audio Encoding
This release fixes a number of audio encoding issues, which also requires
libdv version 0.99. Kino 0.6.3 will still use libdv 0.98, but libdv 0.99 is
required to completely fix it. Movie projects with mixed audio formats work
better now not only in FX. In addition, with mixed audio format projects, new resampling options in Export provides a more
consistent stream to IEEE 1394 devices or DV output files.
Audio Crossfade Effect
Also, while speaking of audio, the FX/Audio/Transition/Switch has been changed to a Cross Fade with user-definable spline-based controls for the fade out of clip A and the fade in of clip B.
dv1394
This release adds support for dv1394. dv1394 is optional and is not the
default for both capture and export. As a result, Preferences has
changed quite a bit to accomodate this change. If you have previously
had trouble exporting DV back to your camera because your camera did
not accept the signal, then you should try dv1394. It reportedly works
for nearly everyone where video1394 would not work. dv1394 is a new
module in kernel 2.4.19 and later, or you can get it from Linux 1394
Subversion. A special new feature with dv1394 is a "Preview on external
monitor" preferences display option. With this enabled, as you work
in Edit or Trim, all video preview is also output using dv1394! Carefully, read
the new dv1394 help page at http://www.linux1394.org/dv1394.html before
attempting to use it.
Quicktime
The release also adds support for Quicktime DV that is compatible
with Heroine Virtual's Broadcast 2000 or Cinelerra. This is native support
meaning you can capture to it, edit it, and export it using Export/DV File.
You must explicitly configure Kino for Quicktime using the --with-quicktime
configure option.
Capture
A major bug affecting Capture and AV/C was located and fixed. Enabling
AV/C would start a thread to poll for transport status and timecode.
There was a bug in the timecode routine that can deadlock the thread. For some
devices AV/C has not worked well. This was addressed partly with libavc1394 0.4.1
but Kino has made some improvements as well (including the above bugfix :-).
One additional improvement, which seems to help, is the AV/C Poll Interval
in preferences. The polling thread appears to be too intensive for some devices.
The default is now 200ms, which is a fairly safe value, but you can try
increasing it up to 999. On the other hand, my camera handles the lowest value
of 10ms just fine. Also, now Kino waits for 3 failures to retrieve this information
in a row before giving up and resetting the state of Kino's transport buttons.
Eye Candy
There is some nice new user interface features too. First, there is the
More Info panel that expands to show detailed information about the file, video
format, and audio format for the current frame. Second, in the scene strip
on the left of the window, the current scene highlights. The previous two
additions only work when timecode update is enabled, so if you are constrained
on CPU power, you can leave all these things disabled for better performance
although the overhead is very slight on and, for example, an AMD 800MHz shows
no penalty. Third, there is a newly designed scrub bar and trim control.
Finally, a convenient command reference window is available under the
Help menu or by pressing Ctrl+F1.
MPEG Export
A cleanup option is added to Export/MPEG that is enabled by default.
Disable the option to prevent the exporter from deleting temporary
files in case mplex fails. Also, there is a bugfix to properly split
into separate mpeg files for each scene--this option does not use mplex
splitting, so this works very good for creating multiple chapter DVDs
with dvdauthor.
Jog/Shuttle Controller
If you are a USB Jog/Shuttle user, then we now use the HID driver and not
custom modules. We do not know if this works OK with the Sony controller. If
you use the Sony controller, let us know. It it still easy to compile Kino
for use with the custom modules. However, the HID driver works good with the
Contour ShuttlePRO, loads nicely with hotplug, making this a more simple
ready-to-use option for users.Using a shuttle controller in conjunction with
the new Preview on External Monitor feature is very nice! Note that keymappings
have changed some with the move to the HID driver; however, key mappings are now
configurable in Preferences. One can press the key (combinations too!) on the
controller with the dialog open to select it.
FFMPEG Libavcodec
If you are trying to use Kino on a PowerPC, you can try to enable FFMPEG
libavcodec using the --with-avcodec options. The libavcodec DV decoder adds
accelleration for PowerPC whereas libdv does not. See configure --help or the
README for more information. We will not be embedding any libavcodec source
code at this time to avoid any legal ramifications. Therefore, this option
may be out of sync with the latest libavcodec API from time-to-time.
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