ZS4 Manual

Installation

Windows Install

To install ZS4 on Windows, just run the exe file after you have downloaded it.
Since v0.936 ZS4 can be installed wherever you like.



Linux Install

On Linux, extract the tar.gz file somewhere and launch the installer which is produced. The installation directory is t@b in your home folder.



Installation Remarks

Every new version gets its own subfolder (ex. 0.925) inside a .t@b/ folder.
Icons will be created on the desktop with the version number.



Uninstall Remarks

Under windows, since v0.936, an uninstall icon is provided in the startup menu
To uninstall ZS4 on Linux or with Windows v0.935 and earlier, just delete the t@b directory (or just the version folder) and kill the desktop icons. 
On Windows you can use the add/remove programs dialog to uninstall as of v0.936.



Using the Distro Package for Linux

There's a linux "distro" package for ZS4 available at http://devel.zs4.net/zs4distro_linux.html. This version is suitable for both: The integration of a zs4 install within a larger install (like a linux distro) and the installation of ZS4 for linux when other means have failed.

Import Media Files

Input Formats	Windows	Linux	OSX
iyuv/i420, yv12 and yuv9 avi, mjpg avi, mpng avi, wav, jpg, png, bmp	x	x	x
Other avi files (depending on installed codecs)	x
mpg (audio may not work for mpg files) aif, snd, ico, cur, gif	x
pnm, pbm, pgm, ppm, xpm, xbm	x	x


There are two steps to importing a file.  The first is selecting the file and the second is bringing it (or a selection of it) into the project. 

To select a file, either use the file tab at the top, visible when the program starts up, or use the browse button, located at the bottom left.  If the file is ZS4 readable, it should appear in the import tab.  If the file has audio and has not previously been imported, it may take a few minutes to draw the audio wave form.

In the import panel you can preview video and audio using the playback controls below the waveform display. 
To select only one section of a video or audio file to add to the project, either draw the area with the mouse, or use the start/end selection buttons located to the left of the playback controls.  These buttons allow precision when viewing the audio tab, as one can zoom in to find the appropriate location to set the in and out points, and when using the video tab, as the video may be covering the position indicator.
Note that the import tab is the only panel which allows the playback of a video file, so any precision trim procedure must occur before importing the clip into the project.  In the track arrangement area, clips can only be lengthened and shortened.

Also note the dig buttons to the right of the play controls.  The dig button (single heart) can be used to save one or more selections (digs) for future use.  These will still be available the next time the file is loaded into ZS4.  Use the next dig button (multiple hearts) to navigate between digs.

To import the file or selection into the project, drag the green arrow into the track display or the treeview. Dragging a track onto another track makes it a child track of that track. 
All tracks are descendents of the MediaMixer which is the main project track, but all tracks can have unlimited descendents.   This allows for an easy and powerful way of making subarrangements.  For an example, see the sub-mixer tutorial.

For video or audio files which have an audio sample rate of something other than 48khz, you may consider converting the audio prior to import into ZS4 to avoid possible quality loss.  See this article for conversion methods.

MMImport_Dig toggle add2proj button sa_startsel button sa_endsel button MMImport_NextDig button MMImport_PlayPause toggle MMImport_Stop toggle MMImport_av_video toggle MMImport_av_audio toggle

Related Items
Upsampling Audio Rate in Video Files

Track Arrangement

All tracks in the ZS4 project arrangement area are organized hierarchically including effects which each have their own track.

Any track can be a child of any other track.  Children only affect their immediate parents and are also restricted by their parents.  Tracks can be grouped into sub-arrangements using a submixer track or any audio or video track (generally more restrictive).

Effects are normally added as child tracks of the intended recipient of the effect although they can also be added on the same level as other tracks in order to affect more than one simultaneously.
Tracks are drawn bottom to top so if an effect is on the same level as three video tracks but higher up, it will affect all three whereas if the effect were a child of one of the video tracks it would affect only that track.

Tracks can be moved up and down in the tree using the keyboard arrow keys or the buttons on the track properties tab (i icon on track).  They can be cut or copied (includes all children/grandchildren etc.) and pasted on any other track.  Pressing delete while hovering over a track deletes that track and all its children.  Tracks can be lengthened, shortened and moved on the timeline using the set start, end and duration controls at the top of the track properties tab.

To select the "current" track, the one to work with, click it in the track treeview or hover over the track in the track display and hit enter.  The "current" track and its rectangle are highlighted red.  To manipulate the variables for the current track, select the "current" tab, next to the arrangement tab (track display).

Related Items
Video Mixing and Effect Objects
Mixers, Mixing

Track Properties

The properties tab is located under the track button.  It can be accessed with one click by pressing the i icon on the track.

The track properties tab provides information about the current track including frame dimensions, frames per second and length.
 
For some types of tracks, the start, end and duration times can be altered using the controls near the top of the panel.  For example, to set the duration of a video track to 10 seconds, click the right arrow until it says duration (says start by default), enter a 10 into the text entry field and press the = button.  Note: tracks can also be made shorter by pressing the shift key and dragging the end of the track in the track arrangement area.

There are also video and audio on/off toggles.  By default these toggles are depressed (when the track has audio or video) which means that the audio or video is turned on.  Press the toggle to turn off the video or audio.

Below the on/off toggles is a row of red buttons.  The first four are for moving the current track up or down in the track display.  These can be used to rearrange the position the track has inside its parent.

The buttons to the right of those are for cutting/copying and pasting the current track.  Tracks can be cut or copied and pasted onto any other track in the track display.  Bring up the properties tab for the destination track to paste.
Note that copying a track copies it and all its children/grandchildren/etc.
Even the MediaMixer can be copied and pasted.  This can come in handy when you have imported a bunch of tracks and realize that they should actually all belong to a sub-arrangement/sub-mixer.

prj_expvid toggle, mmtrack_TimesteinProps toggle, curchoice_dim_choice, track length, delete sound, shorten tracks

Project Tree View

The project tree view displays the hierachical structure of the current project. There are a few things which deserve noting about this treeview.

• The basic interaction with treeviews is described in the treeview gadget article.
• When rendering/exporting video the tracks contained in the treeview are rendered bottom to top, (background to forground)
• Items selected in this tree view will appear in the track display (arrangement tab in the bottom right pane/window)
• Hints: CTRL or ALT click (de)selects the item/track clicked on. SHIFT click selects the item clicked on plus all its imediate children. keyboard 'a' or 'A' select ALL items.

editorview_Content gadget

Related Items
Treeview Gadget

Track Display (Arrangement Tab)

The track arrangement area shows all tracks in the project which are selected on the left project treeview (ctrl click selects and deselects).

You can change the current time in the arrangement display by either dragging the slider at the bottom, clicking the white strip directly above the MediaMixer, or using the arrow buttons to the left and right of the slider. The innermost ones move the time slider 1/10 of a second.

The icons below the track arrangement display can be used to set the selection area, zoom in and out, or set a marker on the current track and position it in relation to the other tracks.

zs4help VEES

Track Variables

Every track has its own set of variables which can be changed over time.  Video tracks have variables for cropping, transparency, size, position in parent track, volume, etc.  Each effect track has a different set of variables depending on its function, however they all have left, right, top and bottom crop variables so one can set the area to which the effect applies.

Track variables can be manipulated using:
current track tab - for using drawing tools to set variables/variable sets
vars tab - for selecting variables in the properties tab and for roughly setting values
variables tab - for setting exact values for individual variables and manipulating entire envelopes
parent rectangle - for moving/scaling the current track in the parent rectangle.

Video Track Variables

Every media track has its own variable set including crop settings, opacity/transparency settings, volume, rotation, rotation center, etc.  Not all tracks will make use of all settings but they appear for all tracks regardless.

Most simple operations are performed using the track variables.  These variables can be manipulated in the track variables treeview tab, and for more precise control, in the track variable property tab which can be accessed by clicking the variable button on the track, or the track properties button to the right of each variable strip in the treeview display.

There are also a few drawing buttons for things like rectangle crop/placement and rotation angle below the image on the current track tab (to the right of the arrangement tab).

See the below links for a list of video track variables.

Related Items
Right Edge Crop
Left Edge Crop
Source Opaquity (opacity)
Volume
Full Rotations
Output Opacity
Top Edge Crop
Bottom Edge Crop
Horizontal Position of Image Centre (center x)
Center Y of Video Frame
Angle (Rotate)
Distance
Z-Stretch/Thickness
X-Stretch
Y-Stretch
Media Time Offset

Current Track Display

Select the "current" tab next to the arrangement tab in order to manipulate properties/parameter/variables related to the "current track", which is highlighted red in the project tree view (lower left pane).

For video/image tracks, use the toggles below the image display to select drawing tools allowing you to set the centre of the image, crop the source rectangle, move the source rectangle, select which part of the image displays in the parent rectangle, and set the rotation angle. 

For effect tracks, use the toggles below the image display to select drawing tools to set and move the source crop (area to which the effect applies), and perform effect specific manipulations.  The toggles vary depending on effect. 

Hover over the buttons (and optionally press F1) to find out what the toggles are for.

Note: Some variable changes such as image centre, rotation angle and many effect parameters will cause no change in the display of the current track.  The top rectangle display appears automatically when the drawing tools are used.  Always check the parent rectangle (upper right) to see the results.

veecur_display gadget mmtratab_veecur toggle

Vars tab (variable selector)

The track variables can be manipulated in the vars tab (next to project treeview tab, bottom left panel) by clicking on the strip, or pressing right, left and enter keyboard shortcuts to set maximum, minimum and default values.

The buttons located below the variable strips (copy, paste, delete, add key frame etc.) affect all track variables which have a keyframe at the current time.  To manipulate individual track variables, click the variable settings button to the right of the variable strip, or navigate to the track -> variables tab at the top.

variable settings button


Related Items
Right Edge Crop
Top Edge Crop
Bottom Edge Crop
Left Edge Crop

Variables Tab (Settings)

The variables settings tab can be accessed by:

a) clicking the variable button on the track
b) clicking the track properties button to the right of each variable strip in the vars treeview display
c) navigating to the track button at the top and clicking the variables tab.

On the variables tab you can set precisely the value of the active variable using the text entry field and the + - / x = buttons.
The buttons with the yellow icons can be used to perform operations such as go to next/previous key frame, add key frame, set to default value and cut/copy/paste key frame value.  Hover the mouse over a button to get a tooltip explaining what it does.

The orange buttons affect entire envelopes.  These buttons affect all key frames for the current track which fall into the selection range in the track display. (To select a range, draw with the mouse starting at the grey strip above the track display or use the buttons below the track display)
Envelopes can be cut, copied and pasted onto other tracks, scaled and moved around using the orange buttons.

On the variable settings tab there is also a selector for the interpolation for that variable.  Possible interpolators include linear, quadratic, plateau and weird1 which is an attempted spline interpolator.

mmtrackvars

Related Items
Bottom Edge Crop
Right Edge Crop
Top Edge Crop
Left Edge Crop

Effects

In ZS4, every effect has its own track in the arrangement tab (track display).  Thus it can be moved around, copied, pasted, and used to simultaneously affect multiple tracks.  They can also be used together to build more complex effects using effect containers.

Simple effect track usage involves choosing an effect from the folders on the f/x treeview tab and dragging it onto the media track which needs altering.  This will make the effect a child of that media track.  A track can have multiple effects and their order will affect the final influence on the parent.

Tracks are drawn bottom to top.  To use one effect for multiple media tracks one could add the effect track at the same level as the media tracks (ex. to the MediaMixer) and move it above those tracks in the treeview.  This can be easily accomplished by hovering over the track with the mouse and pressing the up arrow on the keyboard.

The "current" tab, like for video/image tracks is used to manipulate the effects variables, in combination with the vars tabs and the rectangle display.

To change the settings for an effect (many effects have default settings of no change and require manipulation of effect variables), select the effect in the track treeview and click on the "current" tab, next to the arrangement (track display) tab.  Here there is a large representation of the current frame with several drawing tool toggles below it.  Depress the toggle you want to use and then use the mouse to draw on the frame.  Every effect will have different toggles allowing you to draw the affected area, colour pick, set rotation angle etc. depending on the effect.

In addition to the drawing tools you can manipulate the variables directly using either the vars tab list view or the variable settings tab.

For more information about effect organization see the article Video Mixing and Effect Objects.

For individual effect descriptions, see the related items links below. mmlistab_effview toggle

Related Items
Alpha Modifiers
Bitmap Filters
Convolution Filters (Matrix Processors)
Pattern Related Effects
Pixel Filters

Effect Containers

effect containers take advantage of zs4 track architecture by allowing the user to create their very own effects by building their own "Macro-Effects".

effect containers may represent a shape by which all contained effect filters are bounded. an oval container may limit chroma key, tint filter etc which it contains to an oval shape.

other containers may bound contained effects by "drawmode". this means that however the child-effects manipulate your video frame, the containing effect will only allow modifications to the alpha channel to be transferred to the actual video image. or anything but (the alpha channel)

this effects-within-effects approach allows the creation of uncountable video processing chains and expands hugely the amount of possible processing.

See below for specific container details. viff_container classview_ZS4Effect
Related Items
Destination Blend
Destination Blend (inverted)
Oval Inside (Container)
Oval Outside (Effect Container)
Rectangle Inside (Effect Container)
Rectangle Outside (Effect Container)
Keep Alpha Container (Use Alpha Changes)
Keep Non-Alpha Container (Use Color Changes)

Submixers

Submixers can be thought of as "sub-projects" and essentially allow a "group" or collection of tracks to be composited/mixed down and then treated as if it was a single track in a project (or an other sub-mixer).

For an example on how to use a submixer, check out the submixer tutorial.

ZS4TimeEffect classview_ZS4Effect
Related Items
Time Reverse Mixer

Signal Generators

See text generators for text strings and clocks.

Related Items
Text Generators

Exporting / Output

To get to the export tab, one can either click the export icon on the appropriate track (normally the MediaMixer) or select the appropriate track in the treeview and click the track button at the top, followed by the export tab.

To save a jpg, bmp or png still image (png preserves transparency), type a file name in the output-file text entry field followed by a an extension of .jpg .bmp or .png.  It will be stored in home/t@b/export/todaysdate or N:\My Documents\t@b\export\todaysdate on Windows.

To export only audio, use a .wav extension.  If the export video button next to the text entry field is depressed, be sure to undepress it, else export will fail miserably.

To export video, either don't specify an extension (avi is default) or use .zsv for exporting mpng files (in case you run Windows and have no decoder for this format.  This way ZS4 will be able to read the file, bypassing wmp)

To specify a folder to save the file to, you might use something like this under Windows:
C:\My Documents\My Videos\My Stuff\myvideo or this on Linux /home/me/whatever/video, or you can use the browse button to select a location and file name.
The default save location for video and audio is My Documents or home.

The audio and video toggles are used to mute video or audio output in the exported file. 

The quality slider should NOT be set to 100 and should potentially not be set to anything above 0.  See here for details.

If you export video, there is a choice of four encoders.

IYUV/i420 (uncompressed format)
mjpg (this is included with libavcodec which comes with mencoder)
mvjp
mpng

output make generate
Related Items
What is ZS4 "Motion PNG"?
Export Audio Toggle Button
Export Video Toggle Button
Adjust Render Quality Slider

Keyboard Shortcuts

Important: Keyboard shortcuts affect the area under the mouse pointer.

Main

The program has 3 main window areas which are dragable by grabbing the crossbars. To quickly move the crossbars, position the mouse pointer over the one you wish to move, it should turn into a drag pointer.
Press enter to position it in the middle.
Press the up/down/left/right arrow keys for the extreme positions.

Track Displa / Arrangement View

Position the mouse pointer over a track.
Press down arrow to move the track down.
Press up arrow to move the track up.
Press enter to make the track the current track.
Press home key to go to the very beginning of the track.
Press end key to go to the very end.
Press the left arrow key to go to the previous visible key frame.
Press the right arrow key to go to the next visible key frame.
Press i to zoom in.
Press o to zoom out.
Press a to see all.

Project Tree View (Project tab, bottom left)

Position the mouse pointer over the track name.
Press the ctrl key and click a track to toggle the visibility in the track display.
Click a track to make it current.
Press up arrow to move up.
Press down arrow to move down.
Press delete key to delete the track.
Press shift key and click a track to select it and all its children.

Variables List (Vars tab, bottom left)

Position the mouse pointer over any variable name.
Press space bar to make a variable the active one
Press + to add a key frame.
Press - to delete a key frame.
Press enter for the default value.
Press up key for maximum value.
Press down key for minimum value.

Selections

When you are selecting an area of a media clip or project in the import, wave or track display, position the current time indicator (with slider) at the correct position and
Press s for start of selection
Press e for end of selection.
Press esc to remove selection altogether.
There are also buttons for these functions and more below the track display.