From: drapeau@sioux.stanford.EDU (George Drapeau)
Subject: New Release of the MAEstro Multimedia Authoring Environment
Keywords: multimedia, distributied, RPC, (long)
Organization: Stanford University
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 16:34:05 GMT


The Academic Software Group, Libraries and Information Resources
division of Stanford University is pleased to announce the latest
release of the MAEstro Multimedia Authoring Environment.  This
release contains a number of improvements since the last public
distribution in mid-summer (more on that later in this message).

MAEstro is a Unix-based, distributed multimedia authoring environment
designed to simplify the process of creating multimedia documents.

MAEstro is freely available to anyone via anonymous ftp from
sioux.stanford.edu (36.190.0.100), in the directory "pub/MAEstro".
The full source distribution, containing source code, documentation,
and other materials, is in the file "MAEstro.tar.Z".  There are other
files in the "pub/MAEstro" directory on sioux; for details, please
retrieve the file "pub/MAEstro/ReadMe".

There is an electronic mailing list for the discussion of MAEstro,
both for using the environment for building multimedia documents and
presentations, and for developing new MAEstro applications.  To join
the mailing list, please send a message to
"maestro@sioux.stanford.edu".



How To Read the Rest of This Message
------------------------------------

* If you have retrieved a previous version of the MAEstro software,
  you may be interested in reading about the improvements made since the
  last release.  The section "New Features" describes these
  improvements, which we think make it worth your while to obtain the
  latest version of the software.

* If you are already familiar with MAEstro (whether you have actually
  used the software or have simply read about it), you may want to skip
  the section "More About MAEstro".

* To find out about what is contained in the current distribution,
  read the section "MAEstro Components".

* To find out how to obtain the MAEstro distribution, read the section
  "Getting MAEstro".

* To find out about future plans for MAEstro development, read the
  section "Future MAEstro Development".


New Features
------------

This release contains significant additions to and improvements on
previous releases.  They include:

Additions:

* DisplayTool -- a new application to replace the old "ImageEdit"
  application.  DisplayTool is more stable than ImageEdit, and
  somewhat simpler to use.  DisplayTool is used for presenting images
  as part of multimedia documents.  Currently it supports GIF, TIFF,
  Sun Rasterfile, JPEG, and PBM image types.

* MaMA -- a new application contributed to the release (see the
  section "MAEstro Components" for more information).  MaMA stands for
  "MAEstro - Maker Association"; its purpose is to let authors use
  Frame Maker documents as part of their multimedia presentations.

Improvements:

* TimeLine now includes a feature for better synchronization of
  documents.  Synchronization is a big problem in any multimedia
  system, and MAEstro is no exception.  However, the MAEstro protocol
  was designed with some synchronization solutions in mind, and this
  release of TimeLine takes advantage of these solutions.  As a
  result, TimeLine documents will tend to perform more "as advertised"
  than before.  If you have used TimeLine to create documents, you
  will notice that synchronizing your documents with the new TimeLine
  will make performance seem a little more responsive.  Additionally,
  the performance of TimeLine itself is more responsive.

* The VideoObject library now has support for the VISCA protocol, a
  Sony-supported protocol for video device control.  It is our belief
  that VISCA will be an important standard for future video-based
  products (tape/disc players, effects boxes, monitors, etc.), similar
  to the way in which MIDI has become a standard for the music
  industry.  Our first VISCA driver, included in the current release,
  is for the Sony "Vdeck" (CVD-1000), a Hi-8mm videotape recorder
  designed for cost-effective, low-end editing and video production.

  In addition, implementation of several drivers in the VideoObject
  has been improved, the most notable improvement being to the NEC
  PC-VCR driver.  The NEC driver is more stable and responsive.

  Lastly, two new methods have been added to the VideoObject.  Both
  are used by application programmers for recording and editing video.

* The NetworkProtocol has new features to enhance synchronization.
  These features are largely transparent, the interface only shown
  through two functions to enable and disable synchronous messaging.
  TimeLine takes advantage of these new features to achieve a greater
  level of synchronization.

* Various minor error fixes have been made to several applications,
  such as a fix for positioning errors in QuoteMaker.

* Portability is enhanced in this release: the applications have been
  compiled on SVR4 and BSD 4.3 operating systems, and should be easily
  ported to other vendor-specific OS's, assuming XView has already
  been ported.



More About MAEstro
------------------

The primary goal of the MAEstro environment is to make as simple as
possible the process of creating multimedia documents.  Many current
tools for working with multimedia focus on "courseware" (software
written for a particular domain of instruction or research), where the
focus lies in the structured presentation of media.  Such tools are
often oriented toward programmers, making it difficult for a large
number of "students" (or viewers, if you prefer) to use such
multimedia tools for their own learning.  By focusing on the
authorship process, we hope to turn students into authors, giving them
widespread, simple access to a wide variety of media.

MAEstro is really an inter-application messaging system; this release
includes a suite of applications that use the messaging system to
create multimedia documents.  As opposed to many multimedia authoring
tools that try to control a wide variety of media from within a
single, monolithic application, MAEstro was designed to support
separate media with separate applications.  Each medium in the MAEstro
environment has an application dedicated to the control of that medium
(they are called "media editors" in the MAEstro environment).  For
example, one of the MAEstro applications is built to control the Sun
CD-ROM device; the application is responsible for control and editing
of audio CD's, but not text, graphics, video, or any other medium.
Similarly, the VideoEdit application is responsible for editing video,
but not for editing text or sampled audio.

Authorship in MAEstro is distributed; it is distributed in the sense
that an author chooses which media she will use for her multimedia
document, then use the appropriate applications to edit those media.
To combine the separate media into a coherent multimedia document, an
authoring application is launched.  The role of the authoring
application is to communicate with and coordinate the actions of the
separate media editors, using the inter-application protocol around
which MAEstro is designed.

The MAEstro messaging system is built on top of Sun RPC, being
designed to work in a setting that supports workstations from a number
of vendors.

The first release of MAEstro was developed on Sun workstations, but
the protocol has been compiled and tested on NeXT, DEC, and Sony
workstations.  If you are interested in developing applications for
any workstation platform, we would be interested in hearing from you.


MAEstro Components
------------------

This release of MAEstro consists of the following components:

Applications:

cdEdit --	Used for annotating audio CD's via the Sun
		CD-ROM drive. 

vcrEdit --	Used to annotate computer-controlled videodisc and
		videotape devices.  Currently we have drivers for the
		Pioneer4200, Pioneer6000, Sony{1450,1500,1550},
		Panasonic Optical Disc Recorder, NEC PC-VCR, and Sony
		"Vdeck" (CVD-1000 Hi-8mm video deck).

VideoEdit --	An application similar in function to that of
		vcrEdit (actually, VideoEdit is vcrEdit's precursor),
		this is the last release in which VideoEdit will
		exist, since vcrEdit now does everything that
		VideoEdit can do, and vcrEdit does it better.
		VideoEdit supports the same devices as vcrEdit, since
		they both rely on the MAEstro VideoObject library for
		video device control.

vcrDub --	An application used for editing of video materials.
		The most common use is to record edits from one
		videotape player to another, eliminating extraneous
		video material and thereby reducing search time to any
		edit meant to be included in a final multimedia document. 

QuoteMaker --	Used for quoting from online texts.  QuoteMaker is
		typically used for adding titles or short text quotes
		to a multimedia document.  It is not a full
		word processor.

DigitalTapeRecorder --
		An application built around the SPARC audio
		capabilities.  Used to record, play, edit, and
		annotate sound files so they can later be used in
		multimedia documents.

ShellEdit --	A "bridge" between applications that speak the MAEstro
		protocol and those that do not.  Used to include
		applications in a multimedia document that are not
		normally part of MAEstro.  For example, ShellEdit can
		be used to launch a PostScript previewer so that the
		PostScript document can be included in a multimedia
		document.

DisplayTool --	Allows the author to include still images in
(new for	multimedia documents.  DisplayTool is a replacement
 this release)	for the older and less stable "ImageEdit" application,
		which has been removed from the MAEstro distribution.
		We thank those of you who made comments and
		suggestions about ImageEdit that led to its
		improvement and eventual release as DisplayTool.  We
		continue to welcome suggestions on DisplayTool,
		as well as the rest of the MAEstro suite.

MaMA, SaM, --	MaMA is the MAEstro-Maker Association, and application
OMa		that allows authors to include Frame Maker documents
(new for	as part of multimedia documents.  This application was
 this release)	kindly donated to the distribution by its developers
		at Sun Microsystems in the Netherlands.  It is one of
		the most interesting applications in the environment,
		and shows the potential of MAEstro to integrate
		commercial-quality applications into a flexible
		authoring environment.
		For more information about SaM and MaMA, please read
		the file "ANNOUNCEMENT" in the MaMA source directory.


TimeLine --	Our current "authoring application" (the application
		that coordinates the actions of the media editors
		above).  TimeLine presents the author with a timeline
		track for each currently open media editor, allowing
		the author to temporally arrange media from all the
		applications and play them in rough synchronization.

PortManager --	An application that facilitates inter-application
		communication.  It is always running, and should be
		transparent to the author.  The PortManager should
		always be running before the other applications are
		launched.


Tools:

MAEstro Messaging Library: An ANSI-C library used for
inter-application communication.  All MAEstro applications (with the
exception of the vcrDub application) use the MAEstro library for
inter-application communications.  This is the core of MAEstro;
MAEstro at its heart *is* the messaging system.

VideoObject Library: A library of serial-line video drivers, used by
application programmers to gain device-independent support of a
variety of videodisc and tape players (and recorders).  We welcome new
drivers to the library in order to make the VideoObject library more
functional to application programmers who wish to use video.

XView File Browser Object: originally written before XView/DevGUIDE
3.0 were available (which included a file browser package), the
MAEstro File Browser code provides what we believe to be a superior
file browser in several ways to that of the XView file browser.  The
File Browser provides a set of routines that gives your XView-based
application the ability to easily browse through filesystems and
choose files.  The Browser can be completely mouse-driven (you needn't
type anything), or you can use the escape-completion features of the
Browser (by using the Tab, Escape, and tilde ("~") keys).  In
addition, the Browser will do simple filetype checking (assuming that
your documents have a header line at the beginning that uniquely
identifies their type).  This allows authors to choose any file name
they want, instead of always having to worry about using arbitrary
filename extensions (e.g., ".ras" or ".rs", etc., for Sun raster
files) in order to do file typing.


Documentation:

The User's Guide is a 150+ page document in seven chapters that
explains in detail how to use the various applications in the MAEstro
environment to create a multimedia document.

The MAEstro Programmer's Guide documents the MAEstro messaging system
and instructs programmers on how to write applications for the MAEstro
environment.

The VideoObject Programmer's Guide shows how you can write
applications that use video devices such as videodisc and videotape
players, without having to put a lot of device-specific code in your
applications.  It also shows how to add support for new video devices,
allowing existing applications to transparently take advantage of the
new drivers.

There is also a short ReadMe file that explains the use of the File
Browser object.


Getting MAEstro
---------------

MAEstro is freely available via anonymous ftp from sioux.stanford.edu
(36.190.0.100), in the directory "pub/MAEstro".

MAEstro is available in two forms:

* Binary-only release -- The MAEstro applications have been
  pre-compiled for Sun SPARCstations running SunOS 4.1.X, for those
  who might be interested in using the MAEstro environment but are not
  interested in maintaining source code or adding new functionality to
  the environment.  This release occupies about 3 MB of disk space
  uncompressed.

* Full Release -- The full release contains source code and
  documentation for all the applications.  This release is useful for
  those who are interested in the MAEstro architecture and those who
  wish to write their own applications to "plug into" the MAEstro
  environment (more about that later).  This release occupies about
  13 MB of disk space uncompressed.

Other Places You Can Get MAEstro:

MAEstro is also available via anonymous ftp from the SunSite archive
at the University of North Carolina via the host "sunsite.unc.edu"
(128.109.131.201).

In addition, you can get the MAEstro source on CD-ROM as part of the
Prime Time Freeware product, a set of two CD's containing a wealth of
publicly-available software.  For more information about Prime Time
Freeware, please send mail to "rdm@cfcl.com"



Future MAEstro Development
--------------------------

Although the current release of MAEstro consists solely of XView-based
applications, MAEstro was designed to be toolkit-independent.  We have
written MAEstro applications using other toolkits, most notably
NeXTStep and the Athena Widget Set (our NeXTStep software was written
as a test of the protocol, however, and is not available for
distribution).

MAEstro was developed with GCC, the GNU C Compiler.  Gcc gave us the
flexibility of writing ANSI-C code and at the same time using toolkit
libraries that had not yet been written to ANSI-C standards.  In order
to compile MAEstro, you must use gcc (or another ANSI-C compiler).

We are making MAEstro freely available in the hope that people at
other universities, vendors, and the like will find MAEstro of some
use.  In order to realize MAEstro's full potential here at Stanford,
we encourage others to use MAEstro and send us your suggestions,
criticisms, error reports, and any code you wish to contribute.

We hope that some developers will be encouraged to write applications
for the environment that we neither had the time, resources, nor
imagination to develop ourselves.

If you have any comments, suggestions, error reports (or fixes), or
source code that you would like to contribute, please send mail to

	maestro@sioux.stanford.edu

There is an error report form in the full distribution to help you
report errors more accurately.

For a more detailed technical discussion of the MAEstro architecture
and issues that went into its design, please refer to the paper
"MAEstro - A Distributed, Multimedia Authoring Environment" presented
at the 1991 Summer USENIX Conference in Nashville, Tennessee.  A
PostScript copy of the paper is also included in the Documentation
subdirectory of the MAEstro distribution.  The paper discusses some of
the other important features of MAEstro such as its ability to scale
to different media delivery sites, the ability to quickly add support
for new media when they become available, and the simplicity of the
protocol.

We hope that you will find MAEstro to be a useful and enjoyable
package.  We will do our best to make it a worthwhile software
environment.


	George Drapeau
	MAEstro Project Leader
	Libraries and Information Resources
	Stanford University