★ APPLICATIONS ★ DIVERS ★ RUN VT!|Amstrad Action) ★ |
| Run VT! | Applications Divers |
Camcorders. Yes, the things that gave Jeremy Beadle another idea for a TV series are becoming more and more popular, but what do you do when you want to put nice, professional titles on your home masterpieces? As always, there's the public domain solution... Run VT! was written as an upgrade to a listing printed in the July 1990 issue of Amstrad Action, as part of the big Multimedia special. In a nutshell, it allows the user (that's you, mates) to design a slideshow of screens which can then be placed at the beginning of a video cassette. Just think, no more frantic hunting for the televised version of the classic 1957 book by Richard Bertram Coles, 'Skin Diseases for Beginners'... The top of Mr. Beckett's agenda when writing Run VT! was obviously to make it user-friendly. To make sure of this, the program utilises a smooth and incredibly well programmed pointer-system. There are no less than eleven main options to choose from, all chosen by simply moving the pointer over the box and jabbing the COPY key. The options allow you to: Create a new sequence, add frame, delete frame as well as frame manipulation and disk/file utilities. The frame editor only allows text and block graphics (situated on the numeric keypad) to be placed on the screen (sort of like PageMaker Plus on one screen, only much more useful). Also, by placing a dot at the beginning of a line, double height and width text can be used, in order to outline main titles. When a frame is finished, a menu pops-up which allows you to set the method of fade-in, the length of time it stays on the screen and the method for fade-out. There are a total of seven fade methods, including a normal clear screen, horizontal wipe, vertical wipe and screen disintegration. When a sequence is completely finished, it can then be ported across to a video cassette. For this bit, you will need a lead (available from WAVE or as a hardware project in the July 1990 Amstrad Action) connecting your CPC to a video cassette recorder and a video cassette that is badly in need of titling. Then, the contents of the screen are recorded onto the video cassette. You are prompted when to start and stop the video recording. For the true home-movie buff, you can't quite reach perfection without the use of Run VT!, however, those who don't have videos to title have a rather limited text-based art-package. It is just a shame that screen files can't be incorporated into the slideshow along with the text. Oh well, you can't have everything I s'pose...
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