Chapter 1. About This Guide

Your IRIX™ software includes a suite of end user digital media tools that enable you to capture, edit, record, play, compress, and convert audio, video, or image files. Applications for these tools include developing and editing digital media files to put on the World Wide Web, creating material for multimedia presentations, and playing or creating content for movies and CD-ROMs. This online book is your guide to using this software.

The icons for these tools can be found on the Media Tools page of your Icon Catalog. To open this page, select “Media Tools” from the Find toolchest on your desktop.


Note: For information about digital media software for programming, refer to the IRISŪ Digital Media Programming Guide, which you can view from the IRIS InSight™ viewer.

Chapter 2, "Capture," describes how to use the Capture tool to record audio, video input, and still images.

Chapter 3, “Media Convert,” describes how to use Media Convert to change the format and compression scheme of various media files.

Chapter 4, "Sound Editor," describes the Sound Editor tool that lets you record sound into and edit audio files.

Chapter 5, "Sound Player," describes the Sound Player, a sound-playing tool with Stop, Rewind, and Play controls.

Chapter 6, “Movie Maker,” describes how to use Movie Maker, a tool for creating movies.

Chapter 7, “Movie Player,” describes Movie Player, a tool for playing movie files.

Chapter 8, "CD Manager," describes the CD Manager tool, which lets you play and record from a compact disc drive attached to your workstation SCSI port.

Chapter 9, "DAT Manager," describes the DAT Manager tool, which lets you play and record to and from DAT tapes on a DAT drive attached to your workstation SCSI port.

Chapter 10, “MIDI Keyboard,” describes MIDI Keyboard, a graphical tool for the sound synthesis process.

Chapter 11, “Synthesizer Panel,” describes the Synthesizer Panel, a tool that can be used for auditioning and experimenting with sounds, as well as monitoring sounds as they are generated by the software MIDI synthesizer or by an external MIDI device.

This guide assumes you are familiar with the IRIX system software and the terminology that describes it. If this is not the case, please refer to the online book IRIS Essentials for general instructions on using the system.

Conventions

This guide uses the following conventions:

  • References to other documents are in italics.

  • References to other chapters and sections within this guide are in quotation marks.

  • Names of buttons are in italics.

  • Names of menu choices are in quotation marks.

  • Step-by-step instructions used to perform a task are shown as numbered sentences. These may be followed by additional instructions, marked with a small box, that further explain the step.