Drastic Technologies' VTR and DDR products include the necessary conversion hardware for RS-232 (your computer's serial port) to RS-422 (broadcast VTRs and controllers).  If you are evaluating Drastic DDR software such as MediaNXS, you will need to set up this conversion to test the serial control capabilities of the system. 

On supported hardware, Drastic software provides control of any up or down video conversion.  This can be set up in real time from the QuickClipXO, MediaNXS, VTRIF, DTReplay or dTouch interfaces.  The parameters and advanced settings in the configurations are provided below.

There are a huge variety of MXF types and directory styles.  This article goes through some of the most common types, and describes how Drastic DDR, MediaNXS, DrasticPreview, MediaReactor and most other Drastic products work with them.

Java on Dual Monitors - NVidia vs. Java.  There are setups required on some systems to allow QuickClipXO and VTRIF to display full screen on the second DVI or VGA monitor.

All Drastic software uses a similar keyboard layout for control.  There are some variations for program-specific functions, but the general transport control is shared.  Currently supported software includes:

• DrasticPreview, DrasticPreview Pro
• QuickClipXO
• DTReplayLive
• MediaNXS
• DTouch
• VTRIF
• CineDDR

Drastic software supports a wide range of metadata elements.  These elements are stored within the actual media files when available, and also stored in a side bar XML file.  Please see each file format's specification for its metadata.  The XML file metadata format is outlined here.

Drastic VVW and Titan Series DDRs, QuickClip, MediaNXS and Drastic DDR software can be used to capture single or multiple frames into a sequence of still images which can be played back in real time immediately after recording. These still image files can be stored into individual, time based directories, or into a single directory.

Drastic software can read many file formats which it does not natively understand.  Formats that have a fixed video frame size and are logically organized can be described using the industry standard HDR text file format (NOTE:  Not the still image HDR).  This page describes the file format. 

The Drastic LOG format uses the same basic layout as a LOG/~ALG/~ALE. This page describes the file format used for the Drastic log format.

In QuickClip, QuickClipXO, MediaNXS, DTouch, VVW Series DDRs and Titan Series DDRs, VTRs appear as EXT (external) channels. External channels can be set up in either LocalConfig, DDRConfig or the Drastic Setup Wizard utilities.  This page describes the settings in detail to allow customization or advanced setup.

Drastic software requires a license to run without demo limitations, such as a watermark on output, file duration and format restrictions and so on. This page describes how to obtain a license for your Drastic product.

The Drastic Technologies YCbCr codec for QuickTime, Video For Windows (VFW/ICM) and Direct Show allows third party applications to use files (AVI and MOV primarily) generated by VVW, Titan Series, QuickClip and MediaReactor.  Please note, this codec has been deprecated.  The new codecs are available as part of the MediaReactor Workstation.

MediaReactor and MediaReactor Workstation integrate tightly with installed operating systems and applications.  This section has tips and tricks on getting the most out of MediaReactor and/or MediaReactor Workstation.

The Drastic EDL format uses the same basic layout as a CMX, GVG or Sony 91xx series EDL. This page describes the exact format used.

The QuickClipXO interface is written in the Java programming language. It supports custom message strings which can be used to display alternate text for most of its controls and displays. The displayed text is chosen based on the language and country code to which your operating system is set and the inclusion of a corresponding properties file. Once the appropriate properties file has been translated, send the file to Drastic for inclusion in the standard exe compile.

Drastic software supports a wide range of 3D LUT formats.  These include the following:  3DL, MGA, M3D, TXT, CUBE, DAVLUT and LOOK. Please see the article for more information.

There are some flags that can be used to modify QuickClipXO.

Drastic software supports a wide range of still image formats including TIFF, TGA, DPX, CINEON, PSD, SGI, VPB, ARI, RAW and others.  They are processed as a series of images to create a video stream.  How they are processed can be controlled by a number of configuration settings.

Drastic server software includes an HTTP server for local or remote control / access from a standard web browser. One of the files, FileBrowse.html, allows for file selection from selected drives using the web browser. Depending on the command line, FileBrowse can be used to save, load, add or open files without direct access to the file system.

Drastic products can support up to 16 mono (or 8 stereo pairs) of audio. There are file formats that are supported like wave file extensible that can contain all 16 channels in a single file, but these are not necessarily the most useful file types for production. In general, Drastic products prefer to store audio in a series of uncompressed, stereo files on disk in WAVE or AIFF format.  The primary types for these stereo files are as detailed on this page:

Drastic products generally support closed captions.  Video I/O products can capture and play back closed caption information.  MediaReactor can convert closed caption formats along with the video and audio files.  DrasticPreview products can decode and display both 608 and 708 captions for preview and confidence monitoring.

Drastic supports a wide variety of audio and video hardware for products such as MediaNXS, DrasticPreview Pro and Drastic DDR. The current product families Drastic supports are AJA, BlueFish444 and BlackMagic adapters for audio/video I/O, and AMD or NVidia for video processing. For a more detailed list of hardware and versions, please continue reading.

Drastic products like Drastic DDR and MediaNXS support a wide variety of timecode sources.  The default selectable configurations are most likely the correct ones for most standard work flows.  For some workflows, the timecode sources need to be more finely controlled.  This document covers the time code source precedence setup for Drastic products

The Drastic DT3D stereo file is an XML based re-director file that can merge two separate 'eye' files into a stereo pair, as well as adding audio and optional closed captioning.

Drastic software supports a variety of GPI interfaces.  This document describes the setup and use of GPI devices with Drastic DDR, MediaNXS and other Drastic software.

When working with RS-422 protocols (Sony 422, Odetics, Pioneer, VDCP, etc) it is often useful to directly monitor the incoming, return or both serial streams.  This is a cable that can be built to use two RS-422 ports to monitor one or both streams. 

Connecting single and dual link inputs incorrectly can cause odd looking signals.  Here are each of the incorrect paths shown as they would be with a standard SMPTE bars input.

Drastic software supports the following standard 1D LUT formats for software conversion, and hardware I/O with AJA video boards.

The IndieCam cameras are small, light, HD and 2K recording RAW bayer pattern cameras.  They provide the raw data via HD-SDI by embedding it into a SMPTE standard signal that can be recorded by most uncompressed recorders.  Because the type marked by the recorder is SMPTE YCbCr 10 (v210 in general), the RAW data cannot be automatically detected.  To use these files in Assimilate Scratch and MediaReactor, the system must be set up to re-label these files.

Drastic Digital Disk Recorders that include more than one channel of HD or SD I/O (VVW 5002/3/4, VVW 7002, Typhon 2) may be used to combine some or all of the inputs and outputs into a single control channel. In this state only one channel appears to the RS-422, GUI or network control system, but when media is recorded or played, two or more channels of I/O are run locked together.

AJA video boards generally include a Mixer Keyer element.  The non-OEM versions of Drastic software (Drastic DDR, MediaNXS, QuickClipXO) do not directly control the Mixer Keyer, but they are designed to allow the user to use the Mixer Keyer alongside the main software.

Drastic server software supports different front panel options:  The original 422 Jog/shuttle, the 4 line LCD with command keys and the newest touch screen VGAs.  This page describes the configuration for these front panels.

We are always happy to receive product ideas, new file/codec format information and bug/issue reports.  To make these reports as effective as possible, please read the following article on what we need to know to solve the issue in the quickest possible way.

Tutorials on various Drastic Products

Some Drastic software now supports the BlackMagic series of DeckLink and Intensity cards.  BlackMagic has a wide range of current and legacy cards.  This article lists the in house and third party tested BlackMagic cards and provides some useful operational tips.