Sequence of Images Options (DPX, TGA, etc)
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.
Writing Images
When writing series of stills, there are a number of options available. They are configurable through the registry in version 3.x (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Drastic Technologies) and the DDRConfig/config.xml in version 4 and greater. The setup is in this key:
\MediaReactor\PlugIns\DTLiveStills
<DefaultScale> / <DefaultRate>
1001 / 20000 = 23.98 fps
1 / 25 = 25 fps
1001 / 30000 = 29.97 fps
1 / 30 = 30 fps
<discreetMode>
<DPXVersion1>
<DPXTCContiguous>
<NameEmbedTC>
- 0 = Do not embed time code in file name
- 1 = Use the frame value of the time code as the numeric part
- 2 = Embed the starting time code (initial) as a string in each file name
- 3 = Embed the starting time code and user bit (initial)
- 99 = Embed the starting time code with a tc=
<Separator>
[basename](separator){####}.ext
so, '_' would be
test_000000.dpx
or '.' would be
test.00000.dpx
Reading Images
Often when reading a series of still images there is no way to determine the frame rate they should be played at. DPX files do contain a frame rate in their headers, but it is most often set to invalid, or is sometimes wrong. To set a default frame rate for your system, there are a number of places you can change it. In each case, it is a Rate/Scale setting that you will be changing. The most common Rate/Scale combinations are:
Rate | Scale | Frame Rate |
60 | 1 | 60p |
60000 | 1001 | 59.94p |
50 | 1 | 50p |
30 | 1 | 30p |
30000 | 1001 | 29.97p/59.94i |
25 | 1 | 25p/50i |
24 | 1 | 24p |
24000 | 1001 | 23.98p |
When loading a series of stills where the frame rate is unknown, the reader will look for a default rate and scale in the following places, in the following order. Once one is found, it stops looking:
- A local metadata xml file in the same directory as the stills, with the same base name. A sample file is available at the end of this article
- In the config.xml, the <MediaReactor> <MetaData> <Default> OriginalScale and OriginalRate keys
- In the config.xml, the <MediaReactor> <PlugIns> <DTLiveStills> DefaultScale and DefaultRate keys
- The default rate of any hardware Drastic software is using directly (e.g. videoQC, MediaNXS, DrasticDDR, etc)
The config.xml is a standard text xml, and it is available in these locations:
Windows
C:\ProgramData\Drastic\config.xml
OS-X
/Library/Application Support/Drastic/config.xml
Linux
~/.Drastic/config.xml
Sample XML Metadata File:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="/http://www.drastictech.com/metadata/drastic-metadata.xsl"
<!DOCTYPE dtm:dtm PUBLIC "-//DRASTIC MEDIA METADATA//DCMES DTD 2001 01 01//EN" "http://www.drastictech.com/metadata/dtmes-xml-dtd.dtd">
<dtm:dtm xmlns:dtm="http://www.drastictech.com/metadata"
xmlns:dt="http://www.drastictech.com/metadata/elements">
<dtm:Description dtm:about="default*.dpx">
<dt:OriginalRate>25</dt:OriginalRate>
<dt:OriginalScale>1</dt:OriginalScale>
</dtm:Description>
</dtm:dtm>