Comixware Help - Save Section: Export Movie: Export Settings

Range

The first thing to define for your export is the range of scenes you wish to output from your Comixware movie. You may select to export all scenes or to export only selected scenes from your movie.

Track

The second thing to define is the selection of track you wish to output from your movie. Click on the Track menu to show the 3 options in its drop-down menu:

Screen Ratio & Resolution - These 2 settings are presented in a consequential fashion. The contents of Resolution menu are determined by the Screen Ratio selection. There are 3 sets of resolution menus corresponding to 3 types of screen ratio choices:

SCREEN RATIO	PANARAMA 2.35 : 1	WIDE 16 : 9	NORMAL 4:3
RESOLUTION	564 X 240 1128 X 480 1354 X 576 1692 X 720 2358 X 1080 custom	426 X 240 854 X 480 1024 X 576 1280 X 720 HD 1920 X 1080 HD custom	320 X 240 640 X 480 768 X 576 960 X 720 1440 X 1080 custom

Other than those preset resolutions listed in each menu, user can also define his/her own resolution for the respective screen ratio. When "custom" is selected from the Resolution menu two input fields will appear below: the left one for screen width and the right one for screen height. Simply enter a desired number in EITHER field and the other one will be filled in by the corresponding aspect ratio automatically. The maximum output resolutions for respective screen ratios are:

-	PANARAMA (2.35 : 1): 4092 x 1741 pixel
-	WIDE (16 : 9): 4092 x 2302 pixel
-	MORMAL (4 : 3): 4092 x 3069 pixel

HINT: You may want to use the Field Guide tool in Compose window as reference for your output setting.

Frame Rate - The next menu is to set the playing speed of your output movie in terms of number of frames displayed per second (fps). The frame rate choices for output are current, 12fps, 24fps, 36fps, 48fps and 60fps.

"current" is the default frame rate for output. A "current" frame rate means the output movie is to take the highest frame rate among all media included in the original movie as its overall frame rate. For instance, when using "current" frame rate to export a movie that contains an AVI background of 30fps and a swf element of 12fps, the resulting export would be 30fps.

Generally speaking, the higher the frame rate the better the playback quality of a movie. Higher frame rate also means larger output file size. But larger file size doesn't always mean better playback quality especially when the output frame rate exceeds that of original media. An export can only be as good as its source material.

Compression - There are 4 compression choices for user to apply to his/her output movie: NONE, H.264, MULTI-TRACK and MPEG-4. When H.264 or MPEG-4 compressor is selected, additional adjustment UI appears: the Quality slider and the Keyframe box.

COMPRESSOR	WHAT IT MEANS	ADDITIONAL ADJUSTMENT	FLATTENED
NONE	No compression is to be applied to the output movie. The original picture quality is maintained for the export. Picture tracks are flattened. This is the default setting for compression.	N/A	Yes
H.264	Use H.264 compression for the output movie. Additional adjustments for Quality and Keyframe control are available for fine-tuning. Picture tracks are to be flattened. Arguably this compressor offers the best balance between picture quality and file size for the output result.	Quality / Keyframe	Yes
MULTI-TRACK	No compression is to be applied to the output movie and all picture tracks will be maintained as they are. No flattening applied. This is the most faithful reproduction of the original movie that could be useful in certain post production circumstances. But output by this method may not always be compatible with all video editing tools. Also the playback may become problematic when the movie contains too many tracks.	N/A	No
MPEG-4	Use MPEG-4 compression for the output movie. Additional adjustments for Quality and Keyframe control are available for fine-tuning. Picture tracks are flattened.	Quality / Keyframe	Yes

Quality Slider - The default slider position is at the middle of the track. The default setting should give you the best balance between picture quality and file size under most of circumstances. Dragging the slider to the right will increase your output picture quality as well as file size. Dragging the slider to the left will decrease your output picture quality as well as file size. Please note that the output quality doesn't always correspond to the slider position "proportionally". Because the compression algorithm works on many different levels and factors that its result could vary greatly depending on the nature and the status of the picture involved. Try-and-error is the only way to go for the absolute control.

Keyframe Box - When the Keyframe box is not checked it means the program will set keyframe routine for your export "automatically". This is the default setting. When the Keyframe box is checked, a keyframe field will come to live next to the check box. User may enter a desired number in this field to specify every how many frame(s) a keyframe is to be set for the output movie.

"Automatic" means that base on your source movie's frame rate and data rate the program will assign a "suitable" keyframe interval for your output movie automatically.

"Keyframes" are signature frames of a movie that appear by certain interval serving as motion reference for respective in-between frames.

Audio Settings

Audio Settings are for you to define the output property of your soundtrack. The interface includes user definable output settings for Sample Rate, Channel and Sample size. The options for each output parameter are nested in the form of a drop-down menu. Click on individual menu to access respective selections.