Helix Mobile Producer 10 ReadMe

April 27, 2004

Thank you for choosing Helix Mobile Producer powered by Envivio. This document is designed to help you get started using the software quickly. Please read through (or at least skim) this document for information on installation and required license files.

Table of Contents

1. What's New in this Release
2. System Requirements
3. Installation
4. Using Helix Mobile Producer
5. Troubleshooting

1. What's New in this Release 

Helix Mobile Producer 10 comes in two versions: Standard and Professional. Professional is the upgrade path from Helix Mobile Producer 2.0.x, while Standard provides a lower-cost low-volume encoder.

1.1 New Features in Professional

• GUI Batch Encoding
• RealMedia encoding up to VGA dimensions (640x480)
• Improved support for broadcasting RealMedia through firewalls.

2. System Requirements

The following system requirements must be met in order to run Helix Mobile Producer

• Operating System
  • Windows 2000 or Windows XP (Latest service packs recommended)
  • Other Windows versions are not supported.
• Hardware
  • Pentium II or equivalent
  • 128 MB of RAM (256 MB Recommended)
  • A Video card and display supporting 1024x768 or greater.
• Required Software Components
  • Direct X 8.1 or Later (to read .avi, .wav, and windows media files)
• Recommended Software Components
  • QuickTime 6.5 (to input .mov, .mp4, .3gp, and other filetypes)
  • A DirectShow MPEG-2 Decoder (to input MPEG-2 files)

• Capture Device Requirements
  • A capture card with Video For Windows drivers.
  • A card with both audio and video inputs is recommended.
• Recommended Capture Cards
  • Viewcast Osprey 200, 210, 220, 500, 500 DV, or 540

3. Installation

You should have received your license files through email. If you are installing a trial or demo version, these trial license files will expire 30-60 days after you receive them. If you are installing a purchased copy, your license files will never expire.

1. Launch the Helix Mobile Producer Offline or Helix Mobile Producer Live installer on the machine you will be installing the software on.
2. Click the next button on the welcome screen. You will be taken to the license file screen where you will be prompted to select a license file. Click the Browse button and select the license file you wish to use, then click Next.
   NOTE: Your license files will arrive as a zipped email attachment. You need to unzip the license files before selecting them in the installer.
3. Read and agree to the end user license agreement, then follow the remaining steps to install the software.

4. Using Helix Mobile Producer

To perform a basic encode follow these steps.

1. If you are using Helix Mobile Producer, click the Browse button in the Input group box to select a source file to encode. The output file will be named to match the source file and placed in the same directory, with the new file type extension. If you are using Helix Mobile Producer Live, select devices from the dropdown menus in the Input group box.
2. The list of folders in the lower-center of the Mobile Producer window is called the presets list. Double-click on a folder to show the presets contained in that folder, and click on a preset to select it,
3. You can see and adjust all of the preset settings by clicking on the different tabs on the lower-right of the Mobile Producer window.
4. Click the Encode button, and your selected source will be encoded to the settings specified in the preset.

See the Helix Mobile Producer User's Guide, included with the software, for more information on the available settings, and how to use the command-line interface in the Pro version.

5. Troubleshooting

1. GUI Batch Processor concatenates filenames with periods.
   If you specify an output filename with a period (.) in the GUI Batch Processor, the portion of the name after the last period will be truncated. To avoid this problem, do not use periods in input or output file names, or preset names.
2. Live Broadcasting to QuickTime Player is out of sync with AMR-NB audio.
   To do a live broadcast to QuickTime Player, use MPEG4 video and AAC audio.
3. H.263 broadcast video is not displayed when streamed to a QuickTime Player.
   H.263 static files playback with video, but a live broadcast with H.263 video only plays the audio in QuickTime Player. To do a live broadcast to QuickTime Player, use MPEG4 video and AAC audio.