Purchase over the web
|
-
Contact UsFor technical support, please email: support@brightscreentv.net
For feedback and suggestions, please email: comments@brightscreentv.net
You can also initiate an email from within Brewer. Go to the 'Help' menu and choose 'About'. A box will appear with an option to email. Clicking this will open your email application and start a new message to BrightScreen with the serial number as the subject. Try to leave the subject line as it is since this'll help trace your records.
Top of Page -
What is Brewer?Brewer is for use by video (and film) professionals who need summaries of the clips used in their edits.
Say you use track 1 of a library music CD; assuming that your nice editor has imported the music and called is something meaningful, let's say "CD 4567, Track 1", "Track 2", or whatever in their Avid or FCP, then you can get Brewer to list all the instances that CD 4567 or Track 1 occurs in your film.
As well as that, at the bottom of the list will be each of the clip(s) with their total used durations. So if you have 20 seconds of track one in the beginning of your film, 25 seconds in the middle and 30 seconds for the end credits then your list will say that CD 4567 Track 1 has a running total of 75 seconds.
Handy for those music cue sheets, then!
You can do either video or audio EDL's so if you've a certain photographic still that you have to pay for each time you use it, then you can get Brewer to just display the instances in your film where "Still #203345" appears.
Top of Page -
Installing BrewerBoth Windows and Mac versions are similar, but Windows needs Brewer to be in the folder that is un-zipped when you download it (e.g Brewer4_5_1) as well as the 'Brewer Libs' folder that it came downloaded with.
Assuming that's all in order then the folder can be put anywhere - preferably in the Program Files folder, though.
The Mac version is a single application file that can also go anywhere on the system, but it's always good practise to put any app in the Applications folder... Who'd have guessed, eh? There's a handy shortcut in the disk image that automatically mounts when you download the .dmg file - just drag and drop Brewer into it (you may require the Admin password depending on how your system is setup).
Top of Page -
How do I license Brewer?After purchase through PayPal, you should wait for two emails: one will be your receipt from PayPal themselves and the other will be from the BrightScreen licensing server. This second message relies on PayPal sending confirmation to us as well. Please be aware that the internet being what it is, emails can get held up. The license server will add your transaction ID to the database only when it's received from PayPal and then it'll send a confirmation to you. So if you feel like you've waited more than a few minutes for this to happen then please email support@brightscreentv.net.
After this, click the 'Register Software' that's to the right of the load area.
The window that appears will give you the option to either visit the web store on PayPal and/or enter your PayPal Transaction ID.
It's the entering of the ID that will unlock Brewer. Make sure you type in or paste it exactly as it is on the email from the server or the check will fail. Brewer will ask for confirmation of the ID from the server so you need to be on the internet at this point. Once confirmed then Brewer won't need an internet connection as the license is stored locally.
If you want to run Brewer on a machine with no internet connection then please email registrations@brightscreentv.net.
Top of Page -
System requirementsIt'll run on Mac OS X 10.4 and later as well as Windows 2000 and later (XP).
Top of Page -
What kind of EDL's do I need?The short answer is CMX 3600 with clip name included. EDL's from Avid and FCP have been tested but if you have another editing system then try an EDL from it in the demo version before buying - Brewer will load any edl - and have a go!
The longer answer is:
FCP
Export an EDL using the following settings:
Format - CMX 3600
Sorting - Master, Audio Merged
Target Video Track Only checked (that's if you're looking at shots instead of music tracks and make sure the editor has the appropriate target track selected).
Reel Conflicts - Generic Edits
In 'EDL Notes' make sure 'Clip name' is selected in the top left pull-down menu and only tick the box to the left or it - all other tick boxes should be off.
AVID
Export an EDL in CMX 3600 format with Dupe List/Preread type set as 'None', only 'Clip Names' and 'Optimize EDL' checked in the Show section. If there are particularly long reel names in the sequence (that's anything longer than 8 characters) then the editor should also 'include source table'. In fact, if in doubt then include the source table.
Top of Page -
What frame rates does Brewer work with?Any. Even drop-frame.
Top of Page -
How do I use Brewer?Easy! Double-click on the Brewer application.
Once in the main screen, there's a button to 'Load EDL' in the top-left corner. Clicking this or pressing [CTRL]+'L' in Windows or [Apple]+'L' in Mac allows you to choose your EDL file. Please note: the EDL file has to end in '.edl' or Brewer won't accept it!
Now your EDL is displayed in the main area, you can pick which function(s) you'd like to apply to it.
Please see the following topics for a description of the buttons in the application.
Top of Page -
Print EDLDoes what it says: it'll print whatever EDL you've just loaded.
Shortcut: [CTRL]+'P' in Windows/[Apple]+'P' inMac
Top of Page -
Display font sizeAdjusts the size of the lettering inside the display area. All text within the 4 different sections are given this value. The licensed version of Brewer will remember the size you want from session to session.
Top of Page -
Print font sizeAllows the size of just the printouts to be adjusted: do you need larger lettering that could end up being split across two lines on the paper or would you prefer each line of the EDL or list to be on one line of paper? The licensed version of Brewer will remember the size you want from session to session.
Top of Page -
Generate ListClicking this will cause Brewer to search through your EDL and list each shot with it's In-point and duration at that time in the programme. At the end of this list is the "Clip Summary" which shows each clip but with it's accumulated duration in the entire show. So, for instance, you've got track 1 of a CD for 20" in the titles and 30" in your end credits; Brewer will show track 1 as having an accumulated duration of 50" throughout the programme.
Shortcut: [CTRL]+'G' in Windows/[Apple]+'G' inMac
Top of Page -
Save ListSaves just the clip list in a tab delimited format.
Basically, this means you can then import your list in a spreadsheet application like Excel or Open Office. Please refer to the spreadsheets instruction manual for the exact way to import a Tab Delimited File.
Shortcut: [CTRL]+'S' in Windows/[Apple]+'S' inMac
Top of Page -
Save Custom ListThis is for when you'd like to import the generated list into a spreadsheet and want a more tidy layout.
Brewer will save out your list in a form that will look better in a spreadsheet such as Excel. The character that it uses to separate each of the items in the list (which is then needed on spreadsheet import, aka a 'delimiter') is chosen from the preferences window which is accessed by a menu item: in the Edit menu in Windows - [CTRL] + ',' or the application menu in Mac - [Apple] + ','
It's also here that you can choose a heading for each column.
This function doesn't really change any of the content of the list; it's more of a formatting option so it's best to just try it yourself to decide whether you need it.
Shortcut: [SHIFT]+[CTRL]+'S' in Windows/[SHIFT]+[Apple]+'S' inMac
Top of Page -
Print List
-
The display areaHere's where you can view the loaded EDL or the list that you've made.
Drag the small, black lines that separate the EDL from the Clip List to resize the text areas to either see more of the EDL or the list.
Top of Page -
The 'Filters' areaThis is where you place keywords that you'd like Brewer to look for in the generated clip list. The button only becomes enabled once Brewer's made the list.
You can look for more than one word at a time, just separate each word with a "\".
For example, if you only want to see clips from reel 9000 and those with the word 'still' in it then enter "9000\still" into the Filters area and click 'Apply Filter'.
Top of Page -
Applying FiltersOnce you've typed in a keyword or words into the filter area, click 'Apply Filter'. Depending on the size of your list, Brewer will sift through it and discard any lines that don't contain your keyword(s).
Click the 'Clear Filter' to restore the full list and make sure the 'Clip List' radio button is on in the display area.
Top of Page -
Part DurationsHandy calculator for part durations! Enter up to 8 individual part durations in the form of hh:mm:ss where hh are the hours, mm are the minutes and ss are the seconds. You can also just enter the minutes and seconds or just the seconds.
As you enter each part duration, the total will be updated. Use the 'Tab' key to move quickly between the boxes.
If your programme is seamless or you only know the overall running time then enter it directly into the total box. When you do this, the green indicator will go out to show that the total isn't calculated from the parts. You can re-calculate by changing one of the durations.
When you next generate a clip list, Brewer will use whatever the total is to work out what fraction of the programme's length a clip takes up. If there's nothing in the total box then the percentage calculation will be left out.
Click the 'Generate List' button after entering part durations to make Brewer run through the clips and insert their percentages after each clip name in the summary section.
Top of Page -
Find textEnter anything that you'd like to search for in either the list or the EDL in this text box.
Click one of the buttons underneath to start the search. If found, the text will be highlighted - if not, then the filter text box will turn red. Subsequent presses of the buttons (without changing the contents of the box) will cause Brewer to look for the next instance of your search. When the end of the list/EDL is reached then it'll start from the top again.
You can always select and copy-paste text from either the list or EDL area into 'Find text'.
Top of Page -
Preferences windowAccess the user-preferences by pressing:
CTRL+',' on Windows (also in the 'Edit' menu)
CMD+',' on a Mac (also in the 'Brewer' menu)
Here you can enter your own labels for headings that will be included in any saved custom list from Brewer as well as specifying what will be used to separate the columns when you import the custom list into a spreadsheet. If you're unsure of this, just leave it on 'TAB'.
There's also a text box for entering what Brewer will name un-labelled tapes and your option for how to display individual clips' durations; either with decimal places or rounded to the nearest second. If a clips is shorter that half a second, Brewer will always display it as, for example, 00'00.20". This is to prevent what would appear to be zero duration clips. The clip summary section always has seconds rounded up/down. Please also see the note on 'About Durations'.
Top of Page -
Frame rate and Drop Frame (take note!)Important!
EDL's don't contain information about what frame rate your programme has been shot at. As far as the EDL's concerned it could be 12 FPS, 25, or 30 (for example: an In-point of 01:12:30:10 could be any frame rate of 11 and above per second). So you have to tell Brewer what the frame rate is.
It's important because this setting and the Drop Frame check box will affect the amount of seconds Brewer calculates for shot durations! You have been warned.
Top of Page -
About durations.When writing a timecode as minutes and seconds (e.g. 10:45:12:10 written as 10 hours, 45 minutes and 12 seconds) it's common practice to round up the frames if they're half or more than the frame rate.
So with a 30 frames a second EDL:
00:45:12:11 is 45 minutes and 12 seconds
and
00:45:12:20 is 45 minutes and 13 seconds.
If you have a 25 frames per second (PAL) EDL:
00:45:12:11 is 45 minutes and 12 seconds
but
00:45:12:12 is 45 minutes and 13 seconds.
This can lead to what appears to be discrepancies in the timings in the summary section against the overall duration of clips stated at the very bottom of the list - especially when you filter out most of the clips.
If there are rounding errors then they'll be most obvious when you filter for specific shots or tapes - you can always get Brewer to generate lists with decimal places displayed for every shot's duration.
NB: At some point - when going from frame accurate timecodes on an EDL to user friendly minutes and seconds either in Brewer our your own manually created lists - there will be rounding errors!
Top of Page