Cue Points

Cue Points are useful for setting up chapter navigation, and for changing data or firing off events in a SWF. If the video to be encoded will not have cue points, you may skip ahead to the next section; however, it is advisable to read through this brief explanation of cue points.

In order for the final encoded USM to make use of cue points, press the Browse button next to the Cue Point File field and locate a cue point text file.

Figure 4: Browse to a Cue Point text file.

A cue point text file contains a line by line listing of each cue point. The first line of the file should contain the display interval in milliseconds — typically 1000. This interval is used as a base to determine the time value of each cue point. A time value of 5000 would be 5 seconds — 5000 / 1000 = 5. Each line following the interval lists an individual cue point to be used by the encoded video.

There are two types of cue points: navigation and event. Navigation cue points are used for chapter selection, much like the chapter menu on a DVD. Event cue points are used to set parameters. Each Event cue point can have multiple parameters. Parameters are listed as key = value. Multiple parameters may be listed for a single cue point, separated by commas. For a detailed explanation on how to use cue points in Flash files, please refer to Getting Started: Working with Videos in ActionScript.

Single Line Cue Point Format

time, cue point type (0 or 1), cue point name, parameter1, parameter2, … paramter10

Example:

1000, 0, cue_point_1, my_param=5, my_other_param=10

Contents of an Example CuePoint.txt File

1000
0,0,start
1000,0,cue1
2000,1,cue2,name1_0=value1_0,name1_1=value1_1
3000,0,cue3
4000,1,cue4,name4_0=value4_0
5000,0,cue5
6000,1,cue6,name6_0=value6_0,name6_1=value6_1
7000,0,cue7,name7_0=value7_0,name7_1=value7_1,name7_2=value7_2
8000,1,cue8,name8_0=value_0
9000,0,cue9
10000,1,cue10,name10_0=value10_0,name10_1=value10_1
11000,0,end

1. Open the Scaleform Video Encoder.
2. Load C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Scaleform\GFx SDK 4.6\Bin\Tools\VideoEncoder\sample.avi
3. Press the browse button next to the Cue Point File text field, and locate and load the file sample_cue_points.txt — this file is found in the same location as sample.avi
4. Press Encode to begin encoding the sample movie with default settings.
5. When the encoding process completes successfully, the Preview button will become available. Press the button to preview the USM encoded video.
6. Use the fast forward and rewind buttons in the video player to move forwards and backwards from cue point to cue point.