Preparing multimedia for JWM

The creation and preparation of media objects is an important part of producing custom dictionaries for JWM. The following notes are included to provide you with some assistance in this preparation, and will examine some ways to optimise the quality and reduce the storage requirements of media objects. These notes apply particularly to the Macintosh version of Japanese WordMage, but are largely relevant to the PC, Linux and NextStep versions as well.

Preparing sounds
Sounds can be obtained from a number of different sources. The most direct way to get a sound (especially Japanese pronunciation) is to record it directly with your computers microphone. You can also obtain a range of different sound effects from CD-ROM sound libraries designed to be used with the Macintosh or IBM PC computers. Other sources may include audio CDs, radio or television broadcasts (subject to copyright).

The best way to record and edit sounds on the PC is to use a shareware program such as Goldwave. This product is available for download free from the Lava Software web site, and boasts a range of powerful features which will help you produce very professional results. This product will allow you to save files in AIFF and AIFC formats (with '.AIF' and '.AFC' file extensions respectively), which are compatible to JWM. Note: JWM only reads 8 bit monophonic uncompressed AIFF or AIFC files at this time.

The most basic way to record a sound on the Macintosh is to use the Sound control panel (shown in Figure 1 below) - with it, you can select a source microphone (internal, external and line-in), record a sound and then save it under a file name. No editing facilities are available, however. The sound is recorded as a Macintosh sound file, so is directly compatible to JWM.

Figure 1. The Sound control panel

You can use a sound recording and editing program to gain greater control of the preparation process. With most such sound packages, you can record a sound and then modify it in various ways. You can usually select different sampling rates and compression schemes. For voice, a sampling rate of 11kHz is optimal. You might try using higher sampling rates (such as 22kHz) for sounds with higher pitch.

Irrespective of which sound recording and editing program you use, make sure that you always save the sound in AIFF or AIFC format (as an uncompressed 8-bit monophonic sound file) so that it will be compatible to JWM. Otherwise the program will not recognise it.

The ability to edit sounds can add substantially to the quality of the end result. You can cut off unwanted segments at the beginning and end of recordings - a requirement in producing professional results. You may also wish to adjust the pitch of the sound. For example, raising the pitch of spoken words often increases their clarity to a listener. It has the added benefit of reducing the size of the resulting sound file - an important consideration if you have a large number of sounds to record and store.

Sound effects can be obtained from the substantial number of CD-ROM sound libraries now available. Many are directly compatible to the Macintosh, but there are many good quality CD-ROMs available for the IBM PC as well. These sounds are often stored in PC Wave format, which many Macintosh sound editing programs can read directly. Most IBM PC CD-ROMs are less expensive than those for the Macintosh, so can be well worth consideration.

You may also find sounds stored as uLaw files, and there are a number of programs and utilities available which allow you to convert them to a JWM compatible format. Some are available from Lava Software.

Preparing pictures
Pictures can be obtained from a multitude of different sources. They can be drawn, painted, rendered, scanned from photographs or imported from numerous commercially available clipart collections including CD-ROM libraries.

On the PC, there are a large number of painting and image editing packages, many of which are available as shareware. Paint Shop Pro is a very popular package, and www.shareware.com is a very good source of many such packages (both for the PC and the Macintosh). Remember that when saving pictures for use with JWM, you should always save them in PICT format (they will then have a file extension of '.PCT' on the PC). JWM can only load in PICT format files.

An important consideration when preparing pictures for JWM is to minimise the amount of storage space required. For example, black and white pictures are the most storage efficient, since they can require up to 8 times less space compared to color pictures. Color pictures which use fewer colors are also generally more storage efficient than pictures which use many colors (ie. scanning photographs generally creates fairly large files due to the large number of different colors in the resulting picture).

The size of a picture file usually depends directly on the horizontal and vertical size of the picture. Thus, the smaller you make the picture, the smaller the picture file will be. Selective cropping (ie. cutting off unwanted parts) is an effective way both to focus on the subject of the picture and also to save disk space.

A screen capture utility can be very useful in preparing pictures. It provides a simple way to control the horizontal and vertical size of a picture, quickly crop a picture, and also helps in saving a picture in the system color palette (JWM uses the system color palette to display all pictures). These utilities generally work by having a hotkey assigned to them. When you press the hotkey (from within any application program), a crosshair appears and you can use it to drag out a rectangle on the screen. The image you have enclosed is then saved to the clipboard or to a file. Shareware programs that provide this function are Flash-It on the Macintosh and Clip 'n Save on the PC, and these are available for download free from the Lava Software web site.

If you wish to set a consistent picture size for a collection of pictures to be used with JWM, start by creating a black reference frame in your paint program. This frame can then be used (in conjunction with the screen capture utility) to capture the picture - simply insert the picture into the frame and then capture all of the picture in the frame. Do the same for all the pictures you are preparing for the collection. See Figure 2 below.

Figure 2. Framing to get consistent picture sizes

If you are capturing black and white pictures on the Macintosh, set your monitor to Black and White, if possible (using the Monitors control panel) before capturing. This will capture the picture in true black and white (rather than as a 256 or 32k color image). Of course, you also need to capture the image to a PICT file, so set the screen capture utility to do this.

CD-ROM clipart collections are a good source of pictures, either as full color images or as a B/W image which can be colorised using a painting program (this was how the cartoons in the Cartoon sample dictionary were produced). IBM PC CD-ROM clipart collections can be an inexpensive source of images, and many Macintosh drawing and painting programs now accept PCX or BMP format images (popular with the IBM PC). They can then be saved out as PICT files compatible to JWM.

There are a number of utilities which provide various useful facilities for the preparation of color and B/W images. Some such utilities (and other image preparation programs) are available from the Lava Software web site at www.lavasoft.com.

You should also consider the color table used for your pictures, so that they will be displayed correctly on all platform versions of JWM ie. you should always set your PICT preferences to Use System Color Table, and you may also consider limiting pictures to 256 colors so they can be displayed properly on both older and newer computers with different color capabilities.

Preparing notes
Use the JWM Japanese wordprocessor to prepare the notes you wish to attach to words in dictionaries. You should keep your notes concise so they will fit into the display area available, but you can include any Japanese, English, etc. text you wish in your notes.