Chapter 12: Editing RealMedia Files

RealMedia Editor allows you edit RealAudio and RealVideo clips. You can shorten a clip, for example, but cutting it at its beginning or end. You can change the title, author, and other clip information. You can also can merge image maps or interactive events into a RealMedia file. You can use a command-line editor on Windows and Linux, and a graphical editor on Windows.

Note: RealMedia Editor is included with RealProducer Plus, but not with RealProducer Basic.

Using the Graphical Editor

RealMedia Editor is installed automatically in the RealMediaEditor directory under the main RealProducer installation directory. On Windows, you can use the rmeditgui graphical editor program. To open the graphical editor, give the File>Edit RealMedia File command on RealProducer. The menu items at the top of the window allow you to access different functions of the editor:

• Use File to open, save or append to a RealMedia clip.
• Use Navigate to jump to key frames and edit points.
• Use Tools to access clip and stream information, merge image maps and events, and edit your preferences.
• Use Help to locate information about running the editor.

The editor also has these functional areas:

• The clip viewer is a video window that shows the video portion of the clip.
• The timeline provides a graphical representation of the input file. You can move the slider to any keyframe or edit point. The current time position is also shown here.
• The zoom tool zooms in or out of the timeline.
• The clip info area allows you to change the title, author, copyright, keywords, and description of a clip. You can also view the clip's stream information this area.

Opening a RealMedia Clip

Once you have opened a RealMedia clip, you can play it, navigate through it, and edit it.

To open a clip:

1. In the main window, choose File>Open RealMedia File.
2. Navigate to the directory where the RealMedia file (extension .rm or .rmvb) is located and select it. You can edit RealMedia clips that are under 2 Gigabytes in file size.
3. Click Open to display the clip in the main window. If it is a RealVideo clip, the first frame appears in the viewer.

Tip: You can also drag a clip into the RealMedia Editor main window to open that clip instantly.

Navigating Through a Clip

RealMedia Editor gives you different methods to navigate through a clip to find the points to edit. You can use the slider on the timeline, click the Play and Stop buttons, use edit points, or use keyframes.

Using the Timeline

Using the timeline is the easiest way to navigate along your clip. The red line marks the current position in the clip. To move the line, either click on it and drag it to a new position, or click with the mouse button at a desired point in the timeline. This displays the video frame at that point.

Using Buttons

Using the navigation buttons is another way to find part of a clip. Click the Play button to start playback. Click Stop when you reach the desired point in the clip.

Using Keyframes for Video Clips

Keyframes are video frames that are encoded pixel-for-pixel. A RealVideo clip consists of a number of keyframes. The frames between keyframes are based on the keyframes, and a video clip must have at least one keyframe. Navigating with keyframes allows you to jump to a main section of a clip, such as the start of a new scene. Click the >> button to go to the next keyframe in the clip. Click << to go to the previous keyframe.

Using Edit Points for Audio Clips

Edit points are possible points at which you can edit a clip. These points are designated by the smallest block of audio data that a clip can be split into. There are no edit points in a video-only clip, so you can edit the clip at any point. Click the > button to go to the next edit point in the clip. Click the < button to go to the previous edit point in the clip.

Editing with the RealMedia Editor

This section shows you how use the RealMedia Editor to edit a RealMedia clip. You will learn how to edit out the beginning or end of a clip, how to change clip information, how to merge either an image map or an interactive event to a clip, and how to append another clip to the current clip.

Editing a Clip's Beginning or End

Using RealMedia Editor, you can remove portions from the beginning or end of a clip. This section shows you how to mark the points for editing, and gives you tips on editing a clip.

To edit the beginning or end of a clip:

1. Open the clip and navigate to the point that will be the clip's new beginning.
2. Click the In button. On the timeline, the beginning of this section is marked by a bracket ( [ ). The following parts on the timeline display in a darker grey color.

Tip: You can also modify the beginning of your clip by changing the current time within the In field.

3. Navigate to the point that will be the end of the new clip.
4. Click the Out button. On the timeline, the end of the clip is marked by a bracket ( ] ). The portion of the timeline between the two brackets shows in a darker grey color. The new ending time of the clip is also shown.

Note: You can modify the end of your clip by changing the current time within the Out field.

5. Click Play Selection to play the marked section of the clip and verify that you have selected the appropriate parts.

Note: You cannot change the beginning and end marks until the clip has stopped playing.

6. When you are satisfied with the new clip, select File>Save RealMedia File As and choose a new name for the edited clip.

Editing Tips

The following tips will help edit clips:

• If you set a selection point between keyframes, the cutting may not be precisely accurate. The resulting video may have a black or frozen image, or it may simply begin at the next keyframe.
• A video clip must contain at least one keyframe. If you create a clip without a keyframe, you will be unable to save it.
• You can type time values directly for current clip position using the format days:hours:minutes:seconds.milliseconds.

Changing Clip Information

Clip information tells the audience about a clip and allows the audience to find a clip more easily. With RealMedia Editor, you can add clip information if none exists or you can change clip information that is attached to a file.

To change clip information:

1. Open a RealMedia file.
2. In the Clip Info area, enter new information for the clip:

   Title	In this field, enter the title of the clip or broadcast. Because this title appears in the RealPlayer interface, it is best to use a short title.
   Author	This field holds the name of the person or organization that created the clip.
   Copyright	Here, enter the copyright string, such as (c) 2004 ABC Corporation.
   Keywords	The keywords field holds words that certain audio and video search engines can read to categorize the clip. Add a few words that will help your audience search for your clip. Separate each term with spaces. Unless you are adding a proper name, use lowercase for each term. Avoid overly generic terms such as video or music.
   Description	This field holds a description of the clip that appears when the viewer displays extended clip information. This allows you to describe the clip in detail without creating a long title.

3. To enter rating information, click the Clip Info button. In the dialog, you can enter any clip information described previously, and also set a rating:

• No Rating
• All Ages
• Older Children
• Younger Teens
• Older Teens (15 and up)
• Adult Supervision Recommended
• Adults Only

4. Click OK to return to the main window.
5. To save the new clip, select File>Save RealMedia File As and save the clip under a new file name.

Merging Image Maps or Events

Image maps are text files that create clickable fields within a RealVideo clip. When clicked by a viewer, the image map causes a specific action, such as opening a Web page in the viewer's browser. Events are similar to image maps, except that actions happen automatically without audience interaction. Using RealMedia Editor, you can merge these files into a RealMedia clip.

For More Information: Chapter 13 explains how to write an image or event file.

To merge an image or event file into a RealMedia clip:

1. Open the RealMedia clip.
2. Select Tools>Merge Image Maps or Tools>Merge Events. This opens a file dialog.
3. Locate the image map or event file that you want to merge and click Open. RealMedia Editor merges the file information with the clip, creating a new, untitled clip and closing the original clip.
4. To save the new clip, select File>Save RealMedia File As and save the clip under a new file name.

Appending Clips

RealMedia Editor allows you to combine one RealMedia clip with another. Appending works only when the number and type of streams in each file are identical. Therefore, this feature works best when the source files are all encoded with RealProducer using the same settings.

Note: The total size of the appended clips cannot exceed the editor's 2 Gigabyte file size limit.

To append one clip to another:

1. Open the first RealMedia clip.
2. Select File>Append RealMedia File.
3. Locate the clip you want to append and click Open. RealMedia Editor the appends the selected clip to the open clip. This process can take some time, depending on the size of the second clip.
4. When the appending process completes, you can edit the combined files and save it as a new clip. The editor closed the original clips.

Using Advanced Editing Features

RealMedia Editor provides advanced features that can help you with the editing process. You can view information about all streams within a clip. Plus, you can decide how fast RealMedia Editor previews a clip.

Viewing Stream Information

Every RealMedia clip contains a number of streams. Single rate VBR files contain only one stream, whereas SureStream CBR files can contain multiple streams depending on the number of target audiences. RealMedia Editor allows you to view information about each encoded stream. However, if your file does not contain any recording information, the corresponding field will be blank.

To view stream information:

1. Open a RealMedia file.
2. Select Tools>Stream Info. This opens a dialog that provides the following information:

• Audio Mode—the type of audio for the encoded clip (such as music or voice)
• Video Mode—the quality of the encoded video (such as normal or smooth motion)
• Video Size—the size and width, in pixels, of the encoded video
• File Type—either single rate or SureStream
• Audiences--the audience bandwidth you have selected.

This dialog also gives you the following information about each stream within the clip:

• Bit Rate—the amount of bandwidth necessary to view the stream
• Preroll—the amount of bits needed to download before the stream can play
• Frequency—the frequency response of the encoded audio for the stream
• Codec—the compression/decompression algorithm used to encode the stream.

3. Click Close to return to the main window.

Changing Editor Preferences

RealMedia Editor allows you to change how it previews a clip you open. You view a clip quickly, or more accurately. The accurate view takes more time to render if the clip is large.

To change RealProducer preferences:

1. Select Tools>Preferences to open the preferences dialog.
2. Select a method for opening clips:

• Quick—Plays back the selection without delay. However, audio and video may not play exactly as they do in the saved clip. For example, frames of video at the beginning of a clip may appear different. And audio may not stop precisely at the end of a clip.
• Accurate—saves the selection to a temporary file. This can take a significant time for long clip. The preview, however, will look and sound exactly like the saved clip.

3. Click OK to return to the main window.

Running the Command Line Editor

The rmeditor executable program in the RealMediaEditor directory runs RealMedia Editor from the command line on Windows and Linux. There are three main functions that this program performs:

• It extracts information about a RealMedia clip (also called a "dump").
• It changes metadata, such as title, author, keywords, and copyright information in a clip.
• It cuts clips and can paste clips together.

The following table summarizes the rmeditor options, which have both long and short option flags.

Getting Information from a RealMedia Clip

Use the following syntax to create a text-based dump file that contains information about an encoded RealMedia clip:

rmeditor -inputFile filename.rm -dumpFile filename.txt

Editing Metadata

The following syntax shows how to edit clip information:

rmeditor {-inputFile <filename>} {-outputFile <filename>}

[-t | -title <title>] [-a | -author <author>] [-c | -copyright <copyright>]

[-q | -description <description>] [-n | -keyword <keywords>] [-r | -rating <rating>

Cutting and Pasting Files

Use the following syntax to cut files and paste two files together:

rmeditor {-i | -input | -inputFile <input> [-s | -startTime <dd:hh:mm:ss.xyz>] [-e | -endTime <dd:hh:mm:ss.xyz>] }

[-i | -input | -inputFile <input> [-s | -startTime <dd:hh:mm:ss.xyz>] [-e | - endTime <dd:hh:mm:ss.xyz>] ]

...

{-o | -output | -outputFile <filename>}

[-t | -title <title>] [-a | -author <author>] [-c | -copyright <copyright>]

[-q | -description <description>] [-n | -keyword <keywords>]

Common RealMedia Editor Command Line Operations

The following are frequently used operations.

• View the current title, author, copyright, comments, mobile playback and selective record setting:

meditor -i input.rm

• Change the current title of a .rm file:

rmeditor -i input.rm -t "new title text" -o output.rm

• Enable the allow recording flag:

rmeditor -i input.rm -r 1 -o output.rm

• Disable the allow recording flag:

rmeditor -i input.rm -r 0 -o output.rm

• Trim the duration of a file:

rmeditor -i input.rm -s 0:0:3:2.20 -e 0:0:4:2.20 -o output.rm

Note: The start and end times will be adjusted so the clip starts and ends on keyframe boundaries. Use 0 as the end time to specify the end of the file.

• Paste multiple RealMedia files together:

rmeditor -i input.rm -i input2.rm -i input3.rm -o output.rm

Note: If more than one input file is specified, any start and end time arguments are ignored.

• Add a description to the file:

rmeditor -i input.rm -q "This file contains audio and video of the 1/1/99 meeting" -o output.rm

• Add keywords to the file:

rmeditor -i input.rm -n "travel Fiji resorts" -o output.rm

• Enable the allowing indexing flag:

rmeditor -i input.rm -IN 1 -o output.rm

• Disable the allowing indexing flag:

rmeditor -i input.rm -IN 1 -o output.rm

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