Portable Player
Macula Portable Player is a standalone application designed and optimized to play back media exported from Macula as well as native Macula archive. Original archive playback also includes the opportunity to save snapshots and export video clips into the player own library.
Portable player can be optionally appended when you copy exported files from Macula Monitor to an external location (burn to CD/DVD etc.), and can also be obtained from GSF. This application can be transferred to any Windows machine that does not have Macula installed and used for viewing archive recorded by Macula and video clips exported from such an archive.
The player has three tabs:
Media Playback: for video clips that have been exported from Macula Monitor or Portable Player (*.avi and other file types)
Proprietary Archive Playback: for the native archive playback (original Macula archive structure)
Library: own Portable Player library containing video clips exported from the native archive playback mode
Below, you will find details on each mode.
Player main menu, located in the upper right corner, gives you the following options:
File
Add file/folder/archive: append a file or directory contents to the current playback list (Channels section on the left)
Exit: close the application
Edit
Settings: overlay, language and media export preferences (see below for details)
Help
About: software version and legal information
Settings
Application settings are pretty much alike Macula Monitor settings and include the following:
General tab: change the language and set the default setting for aspect ratio here
Viewport overlays: choose what overlay elements and controls appear on top of the video
Library: set the directory where exported files will be stored (for clips and snapshots exported from the proprietary archive playback mode)
Snapshots export: set snapshot export defaults here
Video export: set defaults for video clip export here
Media Playback
This mode allows single-channel playback of video files exported earlier from Macula archive via Macula Monitor or portable video player.
Go to the main menu File -> and choose Add File to load a single video file, or Add Folder to open the contents of the whole directory. The selected files will appear on the left-hand panel, under Channels. Note that only valid Macula files will be appended to the playlist. Use the Search field on top of the panel to filter the displayed items.
Double-click or drag and drop any channel onto the main viewing area to start playing it. Buttons below the timeline let you control the process.
Controls, from left to right:
time: current playback position/total file duration
play: click the buttons to make them work
jump to beginning
jump 24hrs, 1hrs, 10min, 1min or 10sec back
go back frame by frame
regular play button
go forward frame by frame
jump 24hrs, 1hrs, 10min, 1min or 10sec forward
jump to the very end
speed: drag the blob or use the plus and minus buttons to change playback speed (from 0.5 to 128x)
Controls that overlay the video are similar (less functionality present) as for normal Macula Monitor playback, including digital PTZ.
Native Archive Playback
The Proprietary Archive Playback tab allows you to access and play back the native archive recorded by Macula.
The archive structure must be integral (intact) for the player to be able to read the data, i.e., if you copy a part of the archive to a different machine, make sure to copy all index files (all those not having an MDAT suffix). We strongly recommend that you only use the whole archive in order to maintain its integrity and guarantee normal data playback.
If you only need a part of the archive in the native format, please use the Archive Backup Wizard: Macula will then ensure that all necessary files are copied correctly. This wizard can be launched from any workstation running Macula either from the Windows Start Menu, or from the Macula Monitor application with the current user account.
o add an archive to be displayed, click main menu File -> Add archive and locate a directory where Macula archive is stored (default path is DISK:\Macula\Archive Files). If the target archive is encrypted, you will be prompted to enter a password.
All contained tracks will be listed in the Resources panel on the left.
This mode is multichannel, meaning that you can use layout templates from the Resources section on the left and fill them with channels for them to be played pack simultaneously.
Controls and timeline elements here are essentially the same as for regular Macula Monitor playback, including video export, digital PTZ and motion search but excluding some things like bookmark search and multichannel snapshot export.
For fisheye cameras: if the target channel was set to be dewarped on the Macula Console side, enabling DPTZ will automatically activate dewarp in the PTZ simulation mode. You can use it in the same way as in regular playback mode in Macula Monitor: simply click the picture to re-center. Overlay buttons in the bottom left corner of the video will allow you to use presets, and also switch between region, 180-, and 360-degree panorama modes.
Library
This section displays the contents of the folder that has been set up as destination for the files exported from Portable Player. You can change the path via main menu Edit -> Settings -> Library tab. Both snapshots and video files are shown, and the list is retained when the application is restarted.
Section functionality is almost the same as that of the Library section of Macula Monitor, except for the file export to CD/DVD and other external media.
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