Main Window (left side)

The left side of the Spike's Main window displays Spike's main controls and reports.

Analyze button
The Analyze button prompts you to select a folder of QuickTime movies for analysis. Note that nested folders are also included in the choice. Non-QuickTime files are ignored. Pressing this button is equivalent to selecting "Check data-rates" from the "Tools" menu. Hold the optionKey down while clicking this button to select an individual file instead of an entire folder.

Pre-sort button
If you enable this checkbox, you can notify Spike of a Movie Cleaner Pro log file pertaining to the batch. Prior to processing, Spike will pre-sort the movies into "low" and "high" data-rate folders based upon Movie Cleaner's "average data rate" figure logged for each movie. In many cases, this pre-sort will eliminate between 20% to 60% of all the movies thus reducing the amount of time required to process the entire batch. See the "Introduction" section of the Help for more information about the dangers of using average data-rates as a predictor of playback performance.

Report Field
The report field displays summary information about each movie after a batch analysis (you can see more details for the currently selected movie on the right side of the main window after clicking the "Show detail" button). Reading from left to right this field displays 1) a bullet (·) if the movie passed the data-spike requirements as defined in the "Settings" window; 2) the filename; 3) the maximum data-rate in kps for video-only and video-plus-audio movies (note that this is not the average data-rate); 4) the frames per second; 5) the "temporal" quality (as a percentage with the abbreviation, "tQ"); and 6) the "spatial" quality ((as a percentage with the abbreviation, "sQ"). The placement of the colon after the filename will conform to the preferred filename length specified in the "Settings" window. If this display doesn't appear to be correctly formatted, you may need to install the "Monaco" font in your system. Note: Sound-only QuickTime movies are currently displayed with a 0 kps data rate. Tip: The up-arrow and down-arrow keys can be used to navigate the selected movie in this field. If the "Details" portion of the window is open, selecting a movie name in this field either with a mouse-click or by way of the up-arrow or down-arrow will display the details about the selected movie.

Status box
This box displays a summary of the field above it. For example, here you will find how many files passed in the recent batch.

Batch settings display
This box displays five items about the settings that were used to generate the list in the Report Field above. Remember that you can load Spike Logs and overwrite the data in the Report Field to re-examine previous batch reports. The Batch Settings display retrieves the settings information from the Spike Logs rather than the current "Settings" window. The five crucial settings are: Line 1) Maximum acceptable data rate (settable in the "Settings" window). This represents the point where the "Spike Tolerance" kicks in. Line 2) This is Spike Tolerance factor, the amount (in kilobytes) that the Maximum acceptable data rate may momentarily be exceeded by. If the Maximum acceptable data rate plus the Spike Tolerance factor are exceeded, then the movie will not pass (i.e. it will appear on the list without a bullet). Line 3) Consecutive spiking frames sets the number of consecutive frames that may exceed the Maximum acceptable data rate by an amount less than or equal to the Spike tolerance factor. If more consecutive frames than this figure exceed the Maximum acceptable data rate plus the Spike Tolerance factor are exceeded, then the movie will not pass (i.e. it will appear on the list without a bullet). Line 4) The Frame after option displays whatever "Frame After" option was chosen in the "Settings" window. In the case of the example at the left, the data-rate of a frame following a data-spike must drop to the target rate (the Maximum acceptable data rate) or below in order for any particular data-spike to "pass." Note that "Target rate" is the most lenient setting -- you will probably have better results with any of the of the other (more restrictive) options for this setting available by way of the "Settings" window. Finally, line 5 displays whether or not movies with variable frame durations are permitted. One of the reasons you might end up with a movie of variable frame durations is because you changed the fps rate from the movies natural rate to something that was not an even divisor of the original rate. In some cases you may wish to disallow such movies.

Current settings display
The Current Settings displays the settings currently active in the "Settings" window. These are the settings which will be used the next time a batch is processed. The information follows the same format as that of the Batch Settings box described previously. Normally, the information here will be the same as in the Batch Settings box. Conditions that could make the two boxes differ include 1) loading a Spike Log file to re-examine the results of an earlier batch processing session; 2) Having just processed a batch with one set of settings and subsequently altered the settings in the "Settings" window.

Settings... button
The "Settings..." button takes you to the "Settings" window where you can configure the batch processing defaults and other aspects of Spike. Pressing this button is equivalent to selecting "Settings" from the "Tools' Menu. Pressing this button with the optionKey (or selecting the Settings menu item with the optionKey down) will open the Settings window directly to the Actions area. Pressing this button with the shiftKey (or selecting the Settings menu item with the shiftKey down) will open the Settings window directly to the General area.

Open Batch... button
This button lets you reload a Spike Batch file from a previous Spike session and display the results in the report field, at the same time reconfiguring Spike so that all other features of the program will function exactly as if you had just run the selected batch, provided that you haven't moved any of the movies. Contrast this to the "Open log..." menu item which does not reconfigure the program or load its data into the report field but rather, opens a log file in a text window. Use "Open Batch..." when you want to completely reload a batch session; use "Open Log..." when you need to compare a log with information that you're looking at in the report field.

Play movie... button
With a movie selected in the report field pressing this button will play the movie at full size in a separate window. There are other ways to preview movies that are accessible from the "Details" portion of the screen. The movie playback window will originally be aligned with the lower right corner of your screen. Pressing this button is equivalent to selecting "Play Movie" from the Tools menu. While the movie is playing, a single-click on the movie frame will stop the movie and a double-click on the movie frame will resume playback.

Hide detail/Show detail button
This button toggles its name from "Show detail" to "Hide detail" and it also toggles visibility of the "Detail" portion of Spike's main window. If the "Details" portion of the window is open, selecting a movie name in this field either with a mouse-click or by way of the up-arrow or down-arrow will display the details about the selected movie. To learn about the "Detail" portion of Spike's main window, press the Right Arrow below or select "Spike Right" from the popup menu at the upper left.

Main Window - Details (right side)

If you pressed the "Details" button at the bottom of the left side of the main window, the window will expand to reveal the information displayed here.

Movie Filename
This field displays the filename of the movie currently being displayed. If you hold the mouse over this field while holding the option key down, the complete path will be displayed in a help balloon. It is not necessary to press the mouse button for this information to be displayed.

Mini-video Display
This box displays a scaled version of the currently selected video. Using the mouse or left/right arrow keys in conjunction with the data rate field will update this miniature display to the current frame. Double-click this miniature version of your movie to preview the movie directly in the mini-video display. Single-click to stop this playback. Note that the scrolling "Data-rates" list will not keep in synchronization with the Mini-video display during preview playback.

Data rates list
This field displays the data-rates at every frame of the current movie. You can select frames in this field by clicking on them or use the right-arrow or left-arrow keys to navigate up and down this list. When a frame is selected, the frame number is displayed in the field below labeled "Fr:" and the corresponding visual data is displayed in the mini-video display at the top of this portion of the screen. Tip: Double-clicking in this field will open the Graph window for the current movie. Double-clicking while holding down the option key will open the Graph window scrolled to the currently displayed frame. Clicking on this field with the command key pressed will add a "Spike Alert" record to the log (if logging is enabled), to the "Spike List" (if a Spike List has been created for this movie or batch -- see the Tools Menu), or create an "Alert List" if neither of the previous two options are viable.

Frame Number
This field displays the current frame number selected in the data rates list and visible in the mini-video display. Moving the mouse into this field while holding the option key down will display the corresponding time for this frame (using the standard HH:MM:SS:FF format). Double-clicking in the frame number box will open the graph window with the display scrolled to the current frame. Pressing the mouse button on this field and then moving the cursor toward the top of the screen or toward the bottom of the screen will increment or decrement the current frame number and, upon letting the mouse button up, will update the data rate list and mini video preview window to the corresponding frame.

Sound in %

The figure displayed in this field tells you what percentage of the average data rate is use by the audio data if any. Note that this figure is determined by comparing the datarate of the audio data with the average datarate of the movie.

Graph button
The Graph button opens the graph window for the current movie. Clicking the graph button with the option key will open the graph window scrolled to the currently selected frame. Pressing this button is equivalent to selecting "Graph" from the Tools menu.

Video Details Box

Average data rate
This field displays the average data rate of the current movie. The average data-rate doesn't give you any information about data-spikes and it can lead to a false sense of security in which you may be misled into thinking that a movie full of unacceptable data-spikes has an acceptable datarate (which is why we wrote Spike in the first place).

Width
The width, in pixels, of the current movie. For optimal results, this should be even divisible by 4.

Height
The height, in pixels, of the current movie. For optimal results, this should be even divisible by 4.

Bitdepth
The color bit-depth of the current movie. Possible values are 8 (256 colors), 16 (thousands of colors), or 24 (millions of colors).

Key frame rate
The rate of key frames placement in the movie (note: this can be variable indicated by "var.").

Video Format
A four character descriptor of the video codec. Some of the possible values are:

rel  -- Animation
cvid -- Cinepak
raw -- None
rpze -- video

Vendor
A four character descriptor of the video codec vendor's name. "appl" = Apple.

Compressor name
The long name of the compressor used for the current movie, for example, Cinepak, Animation, etc.

Audio Details Box

Channels
The number of channels of audio in the current movie if any.

Sample rate
The sampling rate of the audio (in Hz or samples per second).

Sample size
The sample resolution (or quantization size) of each sample (possible values are 8 for 8-bit, or 16 for 16-bit).

Audio Format
The format of the audio track (for example: AIF or ima4).