#to PICT
13 messages in this thread
Hi all…
Just last week my employer got me a spankin' new Macintosh to edit video on.
Problem is, up until now we've been using traditional editing via a Video
Toaster. I'm looking for a utility, preferably free but inexpensive would be
fine, to convert Amiga format files to Mac PICT files. Even better: convert
from Toaster framestores directly to PICT. Added bonus: a program to convert
Lightwave animations to Quicktime movies would be Peachy Keen. Who can help me
out here?
(Amiga programs are what I'm looking for, but Mac programs would be fine too)
-MJ
I don't know of any PD or Shareware solutions for you Mike, but our ImageFX
comes included with PICT loading and Saving built right in. It handles the
PICT format more completely than anything else you'll find.
Quicktime, to my knowledge, isn't supported by anything completely on the
Amiga due to some of the popular Quicktime compression CODECs being under
patents and licensing restrictions.
Kermit Woodall
Nova Design, Inc.
Michael,
<I'm looking for a utility, preferably free but inexpensive would be fine, to
convert Amiga format files to Mac PICT files. Even better: convert from
Toaster framestores directly to PICT. Added bonus: a program to convert
Lightwave animations to Quicktime movies would be Peachy Keen. Who can help me
out here?>
Ok, this is niether free nor inexpensive (depending on what you call
inexpensive), but it should do everything you want (and more) with the possible
exception of the Lightwave to Quicktime conversion, it's ImageFX 2.1. Really
wonderful program, converts to and from dozens and dozens of formats to dozens
and dozens of formats, has great image manipulation tools and some stunning
effects as well. It is a commercial program (and still being well supported)
so it might be worth looking into.
Asha
Another Day Another Million Colors
I was afraid that I was going to have to buy a commercial program, and my fear
grows with each passing day. :-> The problem is that I'm not sure I can
convince my employers to fork out the dough… I've been trying for months to
convince them that I need an uninterruptible power supply for our Toaster…
it's not like we run an entire hour-long live show through it every day or
anything. Well… OK, it's EXACTLY like that, and if we ever have a brown-out
and the Toaster goes down we'll have zip for the next five minutes until
everything boots and loads. But that's what it'll take to get me one… we'll
be off the air one day, and the next day I'll have my UPS.
Point is, it'll take an Act of God to get me anything relatively expensive…
'course, I do work for a church, so Acts of God are expected at all times. :-}
-MJ
Michael,
Best of luck getting your software together for the PICT conversion. There
was a release of the 1.51 (I think) version of ImageFX that came out with one
of the european Amiga magazines (unfortunately I don't know either the specific
magazine or which issue it came with) that you might be able to find with a
little effort.
Another idea is to come to the October 22nd conference (AmigaUser conference
area, room 1, 9:00pm EDT) where Nova is going to give away some "prizes". I
don't know what the prizes are but a copy of ImageFX 2.1 might be amoung
them…:)
As for getting a UPS through an employer, it usually does take a major
outage (possible "act of God"?) to show them the seriousness of the situation.
Hope things go well for you!
Asha
Another Day Another Million Colors
I took a quick look at a Video Toaster User magazine the other day to see if I
could find an ad that looked promising, but I didn't see anything after a quick
look. I think I've got the still-frame problem resolved, but it would still be
nice to get the animations going too. I think I'm going to look for Lightwave
User mag and try to find something in there… heck, maybe I'll even BUY a copy
of LWU! ;->
-MJ
Mike,
LightWave Pro is available by subscription only from Avid Media Group (same
folks who put out VTU) their number is (800) 322-2843. They also take Visa/MC
for subscriptions. If you are doing or planning to do a lot of LightWave work,
this is an indespesnible resource.
Cheers,
Stan
Happiness is just a render away…
Michael,
debabelizer by equilibrium can convert amiga iff to quicktime movies. it is a
mac program and its commercial.
U. Maurer on AP from Zofingen CH
Und Tschuess…
Hi Michael,
There is a nice shareware Mac program called "Graphic Converter V2.1.2" by
Thorsten Lemke. It reads standard Amiga IFF files and saves all Mac files. It
also reads/writes a LOT of others too. It's pretty popular, so you can probably
find it in the Mac Forums somewhere.
I'm using it for making transparent/interlaced GIFs for my WWW home page.
/ / / //ANDRE
HA! :-> I found Graphic Converter not too long ago and downloaded it to my
computer, but there was a catch-22 I had to work out. You'll love this.
(1) I'm on a PC clone. No problem, just save to a DOS disk and take it
to the Mac.
(2) Problem… the program is over a meg, even compressed with SIT, and
I have a low density disk drive. No problem, just modem it to the OTHER PC at
work, the one with a HD disk drive. Put it on a HD disk and take it to the
Mac.
(3) Problem… that razzafrazzin' MacBinary header. I've modemed Mac
programs from my PC to my mom's Mac before to get the header translated, but a
one meg transfer at 2400 (her modem, or actually my old modem)? No thanks. N
Problem, I'll just get a program from CompuServe that translates the header
when it's reading a DOS disk.
(4) Problem… the conversion program doesn't work, at least not how I'm
trying to use it. Maybe it's a system 6 thing.
FINAL SOLUTION:
Modem the program to the PC with the high density drive. Strip the
header with a PC program. Transfer to Mac with PC Exchange. Change the file's
type and creator to SIT! with Norton's Utilities. Unsit the file… TA-DAAAA!
Anyway, I haven't had a chance to really try it out yet, but it looks really
good from the brief look I gave it the other day. I'll probably use it to get
a good recent GIF of myself put together too… doyou know, can it crop and
resize pictures, or does it strictly do conversions? (for $35, all those
conversions si a steal, even if it DOESN'T do anything else!)
-MJ
Glad to hear you finally got it to work! (Whew!) I just copied it off an AMUG
CD-ROM with EMPLANT ;-).
Graphic Converter is definitely more than just conversions (Read the Docs) crop
& resize no problem. Also good for making QuickTime Moovies! I saved a series
of fames from DPaintV transferred them to the Emplant/Mac, selected all the
frames in Graphic Converter and out comes a QT Moovie!
/ / / //ANDRE
I've played with it a little… still experimenting with porting over the
frames from the Toaster. I've rendered a couple of key pages and saved them as
framestores and put them on the DOS disk, but when I access them on the Mac I
get a black screen(!) I've been successful in porting over a single still
frame, though… it didn't come out exactly right (it was a little off center)
but it at least survived the trip. I can crop it a little later.
The more I understand about the animations, the more convinced I become that I
should be able to do what I want to do with them. Only problem now is actually
getting the frames from the Amiga to the Mac… I checked out one of the
animations today and it was in the neighborhood of 3 megs! I expect it's going
to be either networking the two systems, or a null modem cable. <sigh> Anybody
have any 5-meg floppy disks? Ones that'll work on my Toaster and my PowerPC as
well? :->
-MJ
Framestores are peculiar to the Toaster and aren't regular IFF files, I don't
know of ANY Mac software that supports them. Convert to IFF first.
I've used a null modem cable (adapter actually) before and it works good.
(cheap too!)
>> <sigh> Anybody have any 5-meg floppy disks? Ones that'll work on my Toaster
and my PowerPC as well? :-> <<
ZIP Drive! (100MB)
/ / / //ANDRE