Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet From: af987@yfn.ysu.edu (Adam Benjamin) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: ScalaMM210 multimedia presentation program Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.multimedia Date: 16 Apr 1993 01:51:41 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 232 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <1ql3fd$6f4@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: af987@yfn.ysu.edu (Adam Benjamin) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: multimedia, presentation, commercial PRODUCT NAME ScalaMM210 BRIEF DESCRIPTION A comprehensive multimedia presentation/creation program. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Scala Inc. (USA arm of Scala AS Norway) Address: 12110 Sunset Hills, Suite 100 Reston, VA 22090 USA Telephone: (703) 709-8614 LIST PRICE I'm not sure what the list price is; mail order is around $300 (US). ScalaMM200 was included with the Amiga 3000P [A3000 packaged with some software], so find someone who got it for free and buy it from them! The upgrade to 210 is $40 (US). SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE RAM: 1 Meg of Chip RAM (2 Meg for some wipe effects) 2 Meg of Fast RAM Hard drive is not required; but for creating new scripts, (Scala's term for the presentations you create) I would HIGHLY recommend one. An accelerated processor is not required; but like most video programs, the faster the better. SOFTWARE ScalaMM200 will run under Workbench 1.3. The 210 upgrade requires Workbench 2.0 or higher. Version 200 would crash constantly under Workbench 3.0, but the upgrade seems quite stable, and I have been able to crash the ANIMLAB utility program only a few times. (The main program has never crashed since my upgrade.) COPY PROTECTION Dongle (hardware device attached to either mouse port). It could be worse, but I dislike dongles, and I have heard that this dongle makes using GVP's G-Lock troublesome if not impossible. (I don't own one so I can't confirm this.) The dongle is invisible as far as the user is concerned (unless it is missing of course). It is a small, approximately 1-inch-square red device, and it has a pass-through; but the manual warns of using any program that writes to the mouse ports (hence the trouble with G-LOCK). My main gripe against this dongle will follow in the DISLIKES section. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 4000, 2 Meg Chip RAM, 10 Meg Fast RAM. NTSC monitor. REVIEW If you think ScalaMM is only for multimedia presentations, think again! Here are the features, and just about ANY animation/video user can get some real muscle out of ScalaMM: * Video backdrops/titling (includes over 75 backdrops and 15 fonts). It uses standard BITMAP fonts! You can even title over your animations * WIPES (transitions between screens): OVER 80 different kinds, and each item (text brush, or whatever) can have its own wipe both on and off the screen. Scala dynamically changes the screen palette during the transitions. This allows it to be the ONLY Amiga program (that I know of anyway) to fade from one picture into another with completely different palettes. You have to see this to appreciate it. * Play animations anywhere in your script, and even chain them together easily. Plays anims directly from the hard drive too. Also includes ANIMLAB a utility program to: Build anims from pictures Convert anims to Scala's own 32bit anim format (which plays much faster I might add!) Rip pictures out of anims Index anim frames for playing directly from the hard drive * IFF sampled sound and music MOD file support. (And you can sync your presentations to the music with the click of the mouse! * On the multimedia side of things, you can make completely interactive presentations with buttons, loops, etc. Scala supports MIDI, laser disks, Canon ION still video, CDTV links, and is ARexx addressable. * ScalaMM comes with the main program (the editor), a runtime player which still requires the dongle, Animlab for building and converting animations, and ScalaPrint which prints out the pages of your presentation. * ScalaMM210 has complete AGA support including 24-bit palette "sliding", Scala's term for its cool fading technique. ScalaMM200 tries to support AGA, but it is very buggy at doing so. * Completely multitasking and OS friendly. Reads DEVS:Monitors to work in all video modes of the system it is running on. (See BUGS for some video hiccups.) Building presentations could not be easier. The editor is very well designed and simply lists all the pages you have made. To create a new page, just click on "New." The program then asks for a background. If you don't want one just click on OK, and the program will ask for screen format (size, colors etc.). Then, it opens that page and you get a flashing cursor waiting for you to enter whatever text you want. (You can also load brushes or symbols and they are treated just like text.) Even making interactive presentations is all done in the editor graphically with no programming knowledge required. At any time during your creating process, you can click on "SHOW" to see the current page or the complete presentation so far. The main program also has what Scala calls the "Shuffler" which replaces the line-by-line text listing of your pages with little thumbnail pictures of each screen. This is great for storyboarding or for getting a quick overview of your presentation. DOCUMENTATION The documentation is EXCELLENT! It even tells you on the first few pages where to start reading based on your computer knowledge and previous Scala experience. Of course, it has a "quick-start" at the beginning for all us impatient people who read manuals only when we can't figure out something. The promotional version that ships with the 3000P comes with a cheap, paperback-style bound manual, while the retail version's manual has a nice 3 ring binder. The only problem with the manual comes (I assume) from the translation to English because there are a lot of misspelled words. But even so, it is very easy to understand and very complete. LIKES AND DISLIKES LIKES: The capabilities of ScalaMM210 and the range of applications for this program are enormous! If it has anything to do with getting video on the screen and music out of the speakers, ScalaMM can do it. I have seen some of the multimedia presentation programs for the PC world and this puts them to shame easily. (For a lot less money than some PC programs as well). The speed at which Scala can do things (even on stock machines) is phenomenal. With the 32-bit anim format, even 150K delta 256-color anims play at a good speed. (Around 15 FPS.) DISLIKES: I still have some trouble building 256-color anims with the ANIMLAB program. Sometimes it will result in a crash, but usually it errors out. They do play fine, but only ANIMLAB can build/convert to Scala's 32bit format. (It is not anim8.) Anim-5 works OK, but of course it's not as fast. My main complaint is that there is NO freely distributable player for the animations. So making presentations for clients means they have to fork out the full price for the program just to run my scripts. If CBM can fix AmigaVision for this, then anyone can. I hope Scala changes this soon. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS I have never used AmigaVision, which is probably the closest thing to Scala. I know it lacks some of Scala's features, but AV is cheaper. So if you can, I would suggest checking out both at a local dealer to see if Scala is worth the extra money to you. BUGS For some reason, the 210 version will not display non-interlaced overscan pictures full screen. I'm not sure, but this may be OE (operator error 8^)). I don't think Tech Support knew what I meant when I was trying to explain it to them. (They were helpful, albeit a little curt with me, I thought.) If an overscan non-lace screen comes up, Scala will display it quarter-screen size, centered in the middle of the monitor. Scala uses the monitors in the DEVS: drawer, so that must have something to do with it. Also, as mentioned elsewhere, I managed to crash the program every now and then trying to build AGA anims from stills, and sometimes if fails to convert anim-5 format anims to Scala's 32-bit format. VENDOR SUPPORT Scala Inc. sent me the 210 upgrade 2nd Day Air, and the whole process took only 5 days. (I had to mail in my registration and upgrade money.) I was impressed. I called about the non-lace overscan problem, and they kind of blew me off since I was going to genlock the output anyway; they said I would have to use an interlaced screen. (My Super-Gen does this internally automatically, so it was NOT the answer I wanted to hear.) For now, I am using the MM200 version Player which works fine. CONCLUSIONS I am very happy with ScalaMM210. It makes syncing my anims to MOD music a snap, and the titling software is the best I have seen. It is a bit pricey, but I got it from a 3000P buyer. If you can see it at your local dealer, the demo scripts that come with Scala will knock your socks off. COPYRIGHT NOTICE This review is completely in the public domain. Do with it as you like. - Adam Benjamin, af987@yfn.ysu.edu --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu