Mpeg Advance Xtra supports creation of cuepoints in the Director authoring environment and dynamically at runtime. Cue points can be assigned in the Properties Dialog box that appears when you create or when you double-click an Xtra cast member. The number of cuepoints you can mark on each castmember is limited only by memory or performance. It is usually recommended to create at most 500 cuepoints, but your limits may be different depending on your applications. Cue points times are measured in milliseconds, and the name of the cue point can have up to 32 characters. To create a cue point you should first locate the time using the preview movie in the Properties Dialog window. Click the CUEPOINTS tab, and then select "ADD". A window will appear for you to define the name of the cue point. If you need to modify a cue point later you can double-click its name on the list of cue points and edit its name and time directly. You can use the "GOTO" button to check the location of a cue point, and the "REMOVE" button can be used to delete a cue point.

Mpeg Advance Xtra does not modify the video file in any way. The cue points are maintained by your Xtra cast members, so you do not need to leave Director or mark them again if the original video is recompressed.

CREATING CUE POINTS FROM LINGO

There are two functions that you can use in Director to create and remove cue points using Lingo or JavaScript syntax.

member(x).addcuepoint(cuepointtime, cuepointname)

member(x).removecuepoint(cuepointindex)

USING CUE POINTS

Mpeg Advance Xtra cue points can be used just like Director built-in media cue points. You can use the "Wait for cue point" option in the Tempo channel of the score for easy synchronization of media, as shown in our sample movies. For advanced scripting users, the following properties are supported:

sprite(x).isPastCuePoint(cuepointnumber)

sprite(x).mostRecentCuePoint

member(x).cuepointtimes

member(x).cuepointnames

The following callback handler is also available to Mpeg Advance Xtra sprites and cast members:

on cuePassed me, whichChannel, cuePointNumber, cuePointName

Please consult Director's documentation if you need additional information about the standard cuepoint properties and functions.

IMPORTANT: The "Wait for cue point" setting in the Tempo channel does not work correctly if an Xtra sprite is in the very last frame of the score. This is also true for SWA and Quicktime sprites. It is always a good idea to avoid using the very first and the very last frame of the score in Director, since they do not behave exactly like all the others.