| Send Us Your Projects
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We have established a Repository Agent or "publishing point" in our office so you can publish projects directly to Synergy Broadcast Systems. To send us your projects configure your system to publish to 216.253.230.72 - Port:7717. You may need assistance from your IT Department to open port 7717 but this will give you access to publish your projects to our Repository Agent.
Our goal is to offer any assistance we can to help you enhance your projects. We plan to select random projects and provide an enhancement to the project with a tutorial as a training exercise to assist you and other users in your development efforts. Feel free to follow up with an email requesting assistance on any project that you are working on.
The best projects will (with your approval) be included in a list of sample projects we will share with other users and organizations interested in our products.
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Overview - What is Informa Create?
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Informa Create is a graphical compositing and animation software application. It is used to create projects or slides for Informa CG and FireBird Media Server. Informa is designed to use multiple layers of graphics and text to create projects for cable channel branding, news, weather and programming updates, emergency information and more.
Informa is tightly integrated with Synergy Broadcast's Station Automation to provide control and automation flexibility. This means that playback features can be controlled by VLM Automation Software and specific events can be timed to occur automatically thus saving valuable staff time that was previously devoted to manual on-air activities. In addition, Informa has several optional tools that provide additional flexibility such as remote access, limited access and web access so various staff and personnel can update content without being "trained" on Informa.
Informa provides 20 layers of graphics and text which can be used to create multi-layered pages with multiple crawls, scrolls, graphics, motion and even video to create interesting and dynamic graphic presentations that draw much more attention than simple flat slides. Informa is different, in both concept and operation, than a typical CG. This unique difference offers much more flexibility and the potential to smooth workflow and reduce operational man-hours normally required for updates.
Since Informa is a compositing tool it is used to layout and time your projects. You partner Informa with your graphics programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw, GIMP, Paint.Net or a similar graphics development tool. Graphics you create such as logos, background, splash images, and geometric shapes can be imported into Informa and used to layout your projects. Informa can import over 30 different graphic objects and formats so almost anything you create or purchase can be used in a project.
As you layout your project you can "play" the project to see how it will look. When you are happy with the project you can publish it with the click of one button. Once the project is published it can be scheduled as part of daily playback or triggered manually when needed.
Informa Create is available in two versions: A full version that has Administrator privileges and full rights; and a Limited Version that enables the user to create projects, but this version only allows the user to publish projects to a Repository Agent rather than to "air". Projects published to the Repository Agent must be approved by the Administrator before being published or loaded on the system. This version of Create is perfect for workflow applications that need a review before going to air.
Each week we will publish a tip, tutorial or example of how you can use BugCrawler, Informa or FireBird to improve your operation, workflow and communication to your viewers. Please feel free to send us comments, questions or publish your projects to our Repository Agent if you want some feedback or tips. |
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Informa Tip #1 Working with Images
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When working with images it is a good idea to create a directory and organize a few folders with the various images you will use on a regular basis. Example folder names might be: Backgrounds, Logos, Weather Graphics, Meeting Graphics, Misc Graphics, Emergency Graphics, etc.
Create your Background images using the standard for NTSC which is 720 x 480. Name these Background images and store them in a Background folder that you can easily access when creating projects.
Geometric objects such as bars, squares, ovals and similar objects can also be created and stored to access later when creating projects.
Specialty graphics such as station logo's, ID graphics, weather images, emergency graphics, traffic, utility and similar graphics should also be handy. It is likely that most of your existing graphics can be used with Informa. The following formats are compatible:
BMP, CUT, DDS, GIF, ICO, IFF, JNG, JPEG, KOALA, MNG, PBM, PBMRAW, PCD, PCX, PGM, PGMRAW, PNG, PPM, PPMRAW, PSD, RAS, TARGA, TIFF, WBMP, XBM, and XPM. You can also import PowerPoint slides by saving them as JPEG files.
To add an image to the draw surface in Create click on the file open icon and browse to your Images Folder and select the image you need and click okay. The image is now in the bucket under the Images Tab. You can select this image by double-clicking and it will appear in the Preview Pain. From there you can drag the image to the Draw Screen.
To manipulate the image, first select it (a red outline appears). Once selected you can use the tool bar at the top of the draw screen or right click for a menu of options. The wrench allows you to change the size by entering numbers. You can also click and drag the red border to resize the object.
To change the object's location simply click inside the red boarder and drag the image to the proper location. To delete the object just drag it off the screen.
Every object needs a lifespan so click on the clock in the tool bar to create a start time and end time if needed. The lifespan gives you the flexibility to have an object appear for just a short time if needed. If the object needs to be visible for the entire duration of the project just click the box "end on project completion".
For more information on working with images please download the Informa Create Manual.
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