Managing Media Screens

Overview

When you select a Media Item and click the Load button, a Media Screen is created. The Screen can be projected onto a second monitor (onto a TV, screen projector or other digital screen) for performances and presentations.

How to Size a Screen

When you Load a Media Item, a Media Screen is created as a separate window. The Titlebar is initially visible (showing, see Figure 2.). You can use your mouse to resize the window. Place the mouse cursor over the lower, right corner of the Screen window. The cursor will change to a resize arrow. Left mouse click, then drag the window to a new size. As you stretch the Size of the Screen, the Video will resize as well but will maintain its recorded aspect ratio (ratio of width to height). Notice how more or less of the Screen background is visible as you change the size. When the Screen aspect ratio is the same as the video's, no background at all will show.

When you close the Screen (unLoad it), the current size and location is saved with the Media Item for future use.

How to Locate a Screen

First, connect your secondary monitor as described above. When you Load a Media Item, a Media Screen is created as a separate window. The Titlebar is initially visible (showing, see Figure 2.). You can use your mouse to drag the window to a new location. With the Windows Desktop extended across both the computer screen and the secondary monitor, you will be able to position the Screen onto the secondary monitor by dragging it.

Save the Screen size and location (Dimensions) as a Favorite Dimensions before unloading the screen for future use. When you close the Screen (unLoad it), the current size and location are always saved with the associated Media Item.

See the Screens Menu page for more details on how you can manipulate Media Screens.

Screen Context Menu

Select any loaded Media Screen, then click the right mouse button to open the Screen Context Menu (Figure 1) or use the shortcut keys to perform a function. Functions on this Context Menu only operate on the selected Media Screen window (ie they DO NOT consider the current Action Apply Mode ).

• Close Screen  will Close the Media Screen window.
• Screen Capture  - Saves the screen image. See Screen Capture details on the Actions Menu page.
• Play, Stop, Pause, Resume  buttons perform the same functions as the Play Buttons on the Play Controls section of the main program window.
• Full Screen Toggle  will toggle the Media Screen window between Full Screen and normal size.
• Restart  will restart the media if it is frozen. Useful for live feed streams that occasionally freeze due to communications errors or network failures. Restart will not load new changes you have made to Media Item attributes (use the Load button for that purpose).
• Use as Reference Dimensions  sets the Reference Dimensions from the screen's current size and location values. If you change the screen size or location after clicking this item, you will need to click it again to acquire the new values.

Screen Borders and Background

You can configure Screens with or without a border. Border Color (ex. white as in Figure 3) and Width (thickness) can be set in the Screen Layout Attributes . For No Border, Set Border Width to 0. The Screen Background can be set to an image, a single color or a two color gradient ( as in Figure 3). Figure 4 shows a screen with No Border and the Background color set to the same color as the Windows Desktop.