 Juicer
Fundamentals
An Introduction
to the Juicer 2 Software Utility
by Chuck Peters
If you think the Juicer is something that whips up frothy energy drinks,
you're reading the wrong magazine. In the world of video production,
the Juicer 2 is the browsing and processing application that comes
free with any Digital Juice product. While the Juicer won't blend,
puree or liquefy fruits and veggies, it does help you squeeze the
most value out of the Juice products you own by letting you find,
fiddle with, and format any of the animations, graphic elements or
music clips in your Digital Juice collection. In essence, it is a
conversion utility that makes our media compatible with your editing
software, broadcast standard or distribution format.
PLUG
IT IN
The first step to working with the Juicer is plugging it in (a process
that computer-types call "installation"). Pop the Juicer 2 CD into
your drive, click the Installation button and follow the prompts.
Once it's installed, click the Juicer icon on your desktop to launch
the program. If you use a Mac®, browse to the Juicer 2 folder and double
click the Juicer icon in the root directory.
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| Figure 1 |
Next, load the catalogs for the Digital Juice products that you have
into the Juicer like so many soybeans and supplements. Drop the index
DVD-ROM disc from your media volume (such as Jump Backs or VideoTraxx)
into your DVD-ROM drive and select "Install Previews" from the Juicer's
File Menu. The catalogs populate the Juicer with compact previews
of each animated element, video clip or audio file that you have on
hand.
FIND IT
The Product Browser window (Figure 1) lets you view and select items
from any of the installed catalogs. By clicking an icon in the Product
Browser, a preview appears in the Preview Window (Figure 2). You can
play animated clips and music by clicking the Play button. This is
also where you can resize graphic clips after selecting Element Mode
in the Batch Window.
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| Figure 2 |
You can go clip by clip through all the content in the Product Browser,
but with so much media (there are nearly 10,000 clips in VideoTraxx
library alone) finding just the element you're after can be daunting.
The keyword search tool in the Juicer makes it easy to find what you
need quickly. Narrowing your search is as easy as typing in a keyword.
FIDDLE WITH IT
After dropping a preview clip from the Product Browser into the Batch
Window, fiddling and formatting are the final steps. Within the Batch
Window, you can modify the clip before you output it. The Batch Window
contains three tabs on the bottom: Settings, Effects and Output (Figure
3). The Settings and Effects tabs allow you to manipulate your media.
The Settings tab presents customization options including: clip length,
speed, frame rate, resolution and size. The Effects tab has optional
elements that let you easily modify the color, orientation, frame
blending and cross dissolving.
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| Figure 3 |
FORMAT IT
The third tab in the Batch window is the Output tab. The Output tab
provides final render options for format, codec and save location.
Here you can convert your Digital Juice media to whatever format you
need to make it completely compatible with whatever editing system
you work with, Mac® or PC. Whether you're searching for a VideoTraxx
clip, auditioning StackTraxx music or just enjoying a Jump Back, the
free Juicer utility makes the process of finding, fiddling and formatting
fast and easy.
Chuck Peters is Director of Promotions
at Digital Juice and Editor in Chief of Digital Juice magazine.
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