Creating video files
Before creating video file you need to make sure that your song looks good.
There are several ways of changing the appearance of karaoke video:
Once the song looks good you are ready to write it to video file.
You may play video karaoke with any multimedia player installed on your computer.
Karaoke Video Creator does not burn DVD discs. To do this you need Karaoke DVD Burner. To learn move visit Karaoke DVD Burner website.
USING VIDEO PREVIEW WINDOW
Video preview window is located above the lyrics editor.
It displays the preview of the current part of the lyrics -- this is how your song will look on the TV screen. Please observe that the content of the preview window changes as you change the position of the cursor in the lyrics editor -- it always displays the page cursor is currently at.
TIP: If your computer is slow, rendering preview make take a long time and your work will be uncomfortable. To avoid this either hide the preview window or disable automatic updates (clicking Update button will render the preview at the current cursor position).
To view how lyrics will be highlighted click Video Preview button.
It allows to change the time of the preview snapshot -- the slider at the bottom of the window represents playing time. This window allows to preview how lyrics will look in the result video.
USING STYLES
To apply a predefined visual style to your song click Styles button on the toolbar (
) or select Styles command from Create menu.
Song details section of the dialog box allows you to enter title of the song, artist name, and text that will be displayed as your company information (probably something like Presented to you by DOBLON). Credits are displayed after the song is finished.
Tip: To force a new line in Title, Artist, or Company name fields, use ^ character.
What is style?
Karaoke Creator allows to set styles for:
· Title: image displayed before the song
· Credits: image displayed after the song is finished
· Song: colors, text formatting, page layout, and image (in Pro version only) of the lyrics
Each of this styles can be applied individually, or it is possible to use presets.
Style preset combo box allows to select one of predefined templates. It will change all styles in Applied styles. You may store your combination of Title, Song, and Credit styles using Add button. To save changed combination use Save button. Delete button removes your preset from the list.
Applied styles lists styles used for each of the sections of the song. To change the style select it in Applied styles list and then choose the new style from Available styles combo. Selecting (Unused) will disable the style.
Style editor button starts Style Editor dialog box which allows you to create your own styles.
Preview window displays the preview of the style selected in Applied styles list.
Selected styles will be applied to the song when you select OK button.
To continue with the tutorial select Rock style preset and click OK button.
MODYFYING VIDEO SETTINGS
Usually you will want to adjust video parameters to your liking. To open Video Settings dialog box click Video Settings button on the toolbar (
) or select Video Settings command from Create menu.
Input/Output
Input
Here you can define the audio track that will be used in the video and choose the background image or video.
There are three possible options for background. You may use a video or image file of your choice, you may use one of the predefined scrolling backgrounds (they are located in %APPDATA%/Doblon/Karaoke Video Creator/Backgrounds folder), or you may use a solid background.
Output
This defines the location of video file that will be created. You may choose the format of the video:
|
AVI |
Windows video file format. Use to play on computer or on DivX-capable players |
|
MPEG |
Universal video format. Use for DVD creation and iPod and iPhone files |
|
FLV |
Flash video. Use for web |
If Run default video player when done Karaoke Video Creator will open the newly created file and play it using system's default player for AVI files..
Compression
Video
This section defines video compression and frame rate. Compression button allows to choose from video encoders that are installed in the system.
With MPEG encoding selected you may choose one of the predefined MPEG encoding presets (VideoCD, DVD, iPod, iPhone) or choose custom format and adjust all encoding parameters.
Audio
Choosing MP3 will result in audio channel encoded to MP3. You may change MP3 encoding parameters with Settings button.
Choosing ACM allows to choose from Audio Compression Manager codecs installed on your computer. Use Settings button to select the encoder and adjust the parameters.
Display
Width/Height
Defines the resolution of the created video. Set text area button allows to define which part of the video should be used to display lyrics. You may use Common sizes list to quickly select one of common resolutions.
Display mode
You may also select the text display mode. Choosing Page by page will result in the standard paged display. Overwrite will disable the screen erasing and the new words will overwrite the already sang. And Scrolled mode will generate the long flow of text that will move upwards with the highlighted line always in the middle. Half by half will cause lyrics to appear in turns at the top and at the bottom half of the screen.
Mode information on display modes can be found in Display modes section.
Squeeze text and do not break lines
When this option is selected Karaoke Video Creator will not break lines -- it will resize it horizontally so every line fits the screen. This may help placing the text in the song, but if the lines are too long may decrease the readability of the text.
Vertical alignment
Allows to change the placement of the lines of the text. You may select Center, Top, or Bottom which would place the text at the appropriate part of the screen, or choose Space evenly, which makes sure that the first line is at the top, the last at the bottom, and all the spaces between the lines are equal.
Horizontal alignment
This setting controls the way the individual lines of text are placed. You have the choice of Center, Left, and Right.
Font
This setting specifies which font will be used for the lyrics and how large the letters should be. If you are trading you PK2 files make sure that you use fonts that are installed on the destination computer.
Colors
Allows to change the background, border and text color. Simply choose the appropriate color from the list or use More button to select the custom color.
Lines per screen
Allows to specify the maximum number of lines to be shown. Note that if the font size is too large, the actual number of lines may be lower.
Number of highlighted lines to keep
If using scrolling or overwrite display mode this parameter controls the number of lines that have already been sung but are not erased yet.
Additional spacing
The number of pixels to insert between the lines.
Outline/Shadow
This values control the effect added to the text. Setting them to zero disables the effect. The color of the text effects can be set in Colors dialog box.
Word fade time
To make the video look better words are faded in when displaying and faded out when erasing. This value controls the time fade takes.
Line scroll time
This value defines the time used to scroll the lyrics in scrolling display mode.
Highlight mode
Here you can select whether word should be simply swept with the color or somewhat nicer 'fade' effect should be used.
Syllable separator
Allows to select the character that separates syllables in the song text. By default the syllable separator is a hyphen (-).
Hard space
This option allows to change the default character that will be displayed as a space, but does not split the word (e.g. hard_space will be treated as a single word). By default the hard space character is an underline (_).
Gradient
To make the lyrics look better %APPNAME% applies gradient effect to the text it displays. This setting allows to control the intensity of the effect.
Apply blur
If you would like to blur the final image, you may define the level of blur to apply.
Pan background images with aspect ratio above X
If an image selected for the background is at least twice as wide as it is tall, %APPNAME% will scroll it from left to right and back. This creates a very nice visual effect. You may define the speed of the animation. We have provided a set of wide images to use as backgrounds, they are installed with the program.
Title/Credits
This group of options allows to select the pictures that are to appear before the song and after the song. By default these pictures are disabled.
To learn more about using images in Karaoke Video Creator see Images section.
Presets
You may save a current set of options and use it later for different song using the Save button. To invoke the preset select if from a pop-down list. To delete the existing preset use Delete button.
If you would like to use current settings every time you start the program, click Use current as default button. You may also revert to this saved default settings using Reset to default button. It is also possible to revert settings to factory defaults.
DISPLAY MODES
Karaoke Video Creator has 4 display modes.
Page by page will result in the standard paged display. Full page of lyrics is displayed, and when it is fully highlighted, a new page is presented.
Overwrite will disable the screen erasing and the new words will overwrite the already sang.
Scrolled mode will generate the long flow of text that will move upwards.
Half by half mode causes lyrics to appear in turns on the top and on the bottom half of the screen
WRITING VIDEO FILES
Click Create Video File button on the toolbar (
) or select Create Video File command from Create menu. You may also press F2 key on the keyboard.
See the Modifying video settings section if you want to learn more about choosing your video settings.