What can Moving Picture do that cannot be accomplished with a basic moving path?
	How does the speed of Moving Picture compare with that of a moving path in the video editor?
	What is the workflow of Moving Picture and how comprehensive is its feature set?
	What are the highlights of Moving Picture?
	What issues were encountered during testing?
	What features should be added to the next update of Moving Picture?

	Adobe Premiere (Win/Mac)
	Adobe After Effects (Win/Mac)
	Apple Final Cut Pro
	Avid (All Editors Win/Mac)
	Canopus RexEdit/DVEdit/DVStorm
	Discreet edit
	DPS Velocity
	FASTStudio
	IMC Incite
	In-Sync SpeedRazor
	Lightworks
	Media 100 (Mac) and 844/X (Win)
	Pinnacle Edition and Liquid Series
	Ulead (All Editors)

The yellow box around the photo is called the camera and is the area of the photo that is displayed in the viewer window.  You can drag the camera around the screen using the mouse and make precision adjustments using keyboard commands.  Moving Picture includes often used keyboard commands such as align camera to center of picture (ctrl home),  align camera to picture right or left (ctrl right, ctrl left), constrain the camera movement horizontally or vertically (hold shift while dragging camera), and expand camera to picture height or width (control page up, control page down) to name a few.  By grabbing the corners of the camera you can scale the camera.  If you’ve purchased the rotation option, you can rotate and skew the image using the top left corner of the image.  At the bottom left of the main screen there are zoom controls for the stage and a display that shows current camera position, width, and rotation parameters. 

The viewer window can also be scaled by grabbing it anywhere on its perimeter.  Stagetools warns that the preview function may stutter if the preview window is made too large.  Using a 2200x1600 jpeg I was able to preview in real time until the preview window was about 800x600 pixels in size.  Even at that size, it was only dropping a frame or two per second of playback.  As I wrote earlier, Moving Picture is fast and if you have a reasonably fast computer you won’t have any problems making critical editing decisions without rendering.  If you do, there is a lower quality draft preview mode that will be discussed later in this review. 

Moving Picture inserts the first keyframe into the project for you.  After that, keyframes will automatically be inserted into the timeline at whatever location in the timeline the cursor is currently located after altering the camera window.  You can scrub from the timeline by dragging the cursor back and forth over the timeline.  This action was very responsive on my system.  

The Timeline

The basic editing process consists of adjusting the camera window for first keyframe, selecting a location in the timeline where you want the next keyframe, and then adjusting the camera window again.  The new keyframe will be dropped into the timeline at the cursor position with whatever the camera parameters are when you finished adjusting it.  If you want to adjust the location of a keypoint you can easily drag it forward and backward in time using the mouse.  If you hold down the shift key while dragging a keyframe, all of the keyframes after that keyframe will also move by the same amount of time. 

This is the default behavior when “auto-add keys” insert keyframe is turned on.  This option can be found under the “option” menu.  If you turn this feature off then you will have to manually insert keyframes into the timeline by pressing the keyframe icon in the preview display (to the right of the time counter). 

Whenever you highlight a keyframe in the timeline, the camera size and position corresponding to that keyframe are displayed and the keyframe turns red to indicate that it has been selected.  In addition, by right clicking the keyframe you can view its attributes and adjust them manually.  Since copying and pasting keyframes is a common occurrence, this action can be accomplished by either using the copy/paste controls in the file menu or by using keyboard commands.  Keyframes are deleted by selecting the keyframe and pressing delete on the keyboard or from the command in the file menu.  Moving Picture also has 32 levels of undo. 

After creating all of the moves on your photo you may press “ok,” close the application from the upper right corner of the application, or select “apply changes and close” from the file menu to save your changes.  At this point you can also save the project show by selecting “Save Show” from the File menu if you wish, but the show will be saved in the host application so this is not really necessary.  That’s it.  That’s all there is to creating a sequence of moves using the Moving Picture plug-in!

Now when you preview the place holder in your host application you will see the photo with the Moving Picture moves applied.  You can render the project to whatever format your host application supports.  If you wish to edit the project at a later time, you will find all of your Moving Picture projects just as you left them in the timeline.

The Edit Menu
The first set of options under the edit menu are undo, redo, cut, copy, paste, and delete.  There are also key stroke commands for these functions.  The next option is called uniform speed.  When you select uniform speed the keyframes in the timeline will be spaced by a distance proportionate to how they are separated on the picture.  In other words, this will make the camera move across the image at a constant speed.  This feature is useful if you want to create a nice, even pan across a large panoramic picture that uses multiple keyframes across the image, perhaps in an arc or some other nonlinear fashion. 

The final option under the edit menu is the prep picture dialog as shown below.

The video safe color option will compress your color space into one that is NTSC/PAL compatible.  This feature is set to “on” by default.  The next option is pre-blur, which applies a slight Gaussian blur to the image.  This may be useful to help reduce noise on very crisp pictures or pictures that you have zoomed beyond their native resolution.  You may also apply a border up to 50% of your image size if you are zooming very close to the edge of the image and need a clean border.  Next are contrast and brightness controls and the ability to ignore the alpha channel, which stagetools claims reduces processing overhead by 25%.  Stagetools also claims that the prep pictures options require very little processing overhead.  To test this I selected pre-blur, a border, and adjusted the contrast and brightness from the default settings and noticed very little degradation (if any) in preview performance.  Impressive considering that Gaussian blur is generally a processor intensive process.

The Options Menu
The first feature that differentiates Moving Picture from a normal moving path is the ability to use interpolated curves from one keypoint to the next.  This feature is a global setting called curves located under the “Options” menu.  Let’s say you want to make the camera move straight up vertically and then make a 90 degree turn to the right.  Using a moving path this right turn will appear very harsh, not pleasing at all for most uses.  The same effect rendered in Moving Picture will appear as a pleasing curve since the hard right angle will be softened through the use of an interpolated curve.  Of course there may be times when you don’t want the curve and Moving Path has the ability to turn curves off. 

Moving Picture also has a global setting called “slow in/slow out,” also located under the “Options” menu.  Let’s say the window is stationary on one part of a photo and then it moves to another point of the photo and stops.  Without using slow in/slow out, the window will move with constant speed from the beginning to the end of the move.  The “take off” will appear to jump and the stop will be quite abrupt.  With the slow in/slow out feature engaged, the window will accelerate to its average speed and then decelerate to stop at the end of the move; a much more pleasing effect.  It emulates someone actually moving a camera over the image by hand, but without error or shaking! 

You can also override the global settings of curves/no curves or slow in/slow out and no slow in/no slow out for each individual keyframe by right-clicking on the keyframe and selecting the parameters you want followed until the next keyframe.  As you can see from the options dialog to the right can even control the ease speed from 0-100 with 100 being the fastest.  Moving Picture receives high marks for its ability to set global keyframe parameters and then override them on a keyframe by keyframe basis.  Keyframe data can also be entered manually from this dialog box. 

The final adjustment that can be accessed from the “Options” menu is the ability to turn on the camera path so it’s visible.  Below is a screen shot of the camera with the “show camera path” option activated.  If you click on a keypoint on the camera path, the camera window will revert to the parameters of that keyframe, and that keyframe will then be selected in the timeline.  However, it would be nice to be able to drag these keyframes around on the picture so the camera path could be altered quickly. 

The Render Menu
The render menu contains the option to switch between a 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratio; a feature that may become more useful for semi-pros as 16:9 cameras begin to hit the market.  There is also the option to switch the preview to a lower processing overhead draft quality mode.  I experimented with the draft quality preview and did notice a small loss of quality, but in return there was a significant increase in preview performance.  This is a good addition for those who are waiting for their next computer upgrade.

Motion blur will dissolve between one frame and the next to smooth out extremely fast motion and make them appear smoother.  I tested this feature on a picture that employed some very fast pans.  I rendered two versions of the project, one with motion blur applied and one without.  The clip with the motion blur applied was subtly smoother, not a huge difference, but detectable.  Of course the results of this effect will depend heavily on the picture and the moves applied to it.  Also remember that this feature may be very hard to detect in the preview window, especially with less powerful computers, since any dropped frames due to inadequate processing power will look like the stuttering image artifacts that you are trying to minimize.

The next option in the render menu is for enabling dual processing.  Stagetools claims that Moving Picture is optimized for dual processing and for Intel’s hyperthreading.  Since I don’t have a dual processing system or a hyperthreaded P4 I couldn’t verify these claims.  To be honest, performance was more than adequate with my 2.4GHz P4, but as always, any performance improvements are always welcome in the world of video editing.

The final option in the render menu is the “Advanced Option” dialog shown below.

Stagetools provides options to fix field order problems and a good explanation of how to accomplish this is included in the on-line manual.  I’ve noticed quite a bit of confusion in various video editing forums regarding field order and I commend stagetools for taking the time to address this issue.  Next up is an option to correct viewing problems certain dual processing systems may exhibit.  The “Special Aspect Ratio” selection is used for creating multimedia movies with different aspect ratios.  The “Alternative Image Folder” tells Moving Picture where to look for pictures if it cannot find them.  This could happen if you have archived the original project or are moving it from one computer to another.  This feature is similar to the “Smart Relink” feature for those of you familiar with Ulead products. 

Finally, we have the “Show Pic Errors” selection.  If there is a problem with an image that Moving Picture is trying to load or it cannot find the picture, the default action is to have a dialog box appear (box checked).  If you uncheck this box then a dummy picture file will be loaded in the original pictures place.  I think this feature is more useful with the stand-alone Producer version of Moving Picture since when I moved a picture and then restarted MS Pro 7, MS Pro alerted me to the fact that it could not find the picture before loading the timeline.  Your media can be re-linked at this point. 

The View Menu
The default location of a picture imported into Moving Picture is the top left part of the stage.  I find this to be the optimum location since there is more room for the preview window, but you can change the location of the image to the center of the stage from the view menu.  Moving Picture also has the option to “Show TV Safe Area,” which displays a border around the preview window roughly approximating the area displayed on a TV.  The square box represents the safe image area and the curved box represents the safe title area.  You can also zoom in and out on the stage from the view menu, as well as from the zoom controls located at the lower left portion of the stage (see stage screen shot above). 

The final options under the view menu are “Enlarge Timeline” and “Contract Timeline.”  If you select enlarge timeline, it will be doubled in length, for example from 5 to 10 seconds, but all keyframes will keep their original positions.  You can then re-adjust your keyframes to fit your new timeline length.  Note that you will have to manually extend your place holder clip in the host video application if you want to see these newly added keyframes.  Contracting the timeline will shorten the timeline by a factor of two, deleting any keyframe data beyond the new end time.  Again, you will have to manually shorten your place holder clip in the host video editing application to reflect the new time.

Conclusion
So, does Moving Picture succeed in emulating a motion control rig?  Yes!  If you are currently using moving paths to animate your still photos, I strongly suggest that you give Moving Picture a try.  The results are fantastic; stagetools must have spent quite a bit of time getting the behavior of this software “just right,” and it shows.  Moving Picture is also extremely fast.  About the only edits that were not real time on my system were moving paths on images.  Now, with Moving Picture, they are real time as well.  Moving Picture has enabled my system to become one step closer to “real time all of the time.” 

While $199 for the base package, may be overkill for the home video editor shooting family events.  If you do work with stills on a regular basis, or want to try your hand at creating a documentary type video, you will be amazed at the high quality photo animation you can create with this software.  Also keep in mind that free lifetime upgrades are included in the purchase price.  It’s rare for software to actually do what it purports to these days, kudos to stagetools on a job well done!

Highlights

	Plug-in works from the host video editor, speeding up editing.
	Handles images up to 8000x8000 pixels.
	Interpolated curves and slow in/slow out functions for smooth moves.
	Ability to override global settings to tailor individual keyframe attributes.
	Real time previews with most systems and a scalable preview window.
	Dual processor and Hyperthreading support.
	Easy to use intuitive user interface.
	Extremely high quality rendering.

	Rotation option should include the ability to rotate around the x and y axis, not just skew.
	Dialog boxes should be able to be dragged about the work space, especially pre-render options since it often appears on the image.
	Add shortcut keys for “align camera to image horizontally,” and “align camera to image vertically.”
	When right clicking on the camera window, add the following options: Align camera to image horizontally Align camera to image vertically Center camera on image Scale camera to image width Scale camera to image height

	Add Copy/Cut/Paste options when right clicking on a keyframe.  Same rationale as above.
	When selecting “Show Camera Path,” the keyframes over the image should be able to be moved by dragging them.
	Right-clicking on the loaded picture should show image attributes.
	Add a zoom level of 33%.  Sometimes 25% is too small and 50% is too large.
	After clicking “OK” and closing the Moving Path plug-in the user should be directed back to the host video editor, not any other application.
	A feature should be added to the “Options” menu called “scale timeline in the host application.”  When checked, if the placeholder clip in the host application is increased or decreased in length, all keyframes should move accordingly.  When unchecked the program should behave as it does currently.
	Add support for compressed tiff images.
	Add the ability to drag keyframes on the picture when “view camera path” is activated.

Somehow the default show became corrupt so that whenever I start a new project the camera window is larger than the stage.  If I manually shrink the camera window by inputting parameters, every time I move the camera the window grows.  By selecting “New Show” upon starting a new project, this issue is avoided.