(This document is a first-draft version of the User’s Guide.

If anything is unclear or left out, please let us know through our contact page)

1. What is Sharecrow?

2. Controls

3. Getting Started – Playing a DVD

4. Assigning an Audio File

5. Using a .CRO file

6. Saving / Exporting a Crow

WHAT IS SHARECROW?

Sharecrow is a unique program that allows users to map audio files onto Chapters of a DVD. The user can pause, rewind, and fast-forward the DVD and the audio file will continue to play in sync. These audio files can also be exported and shared with other Sharecrow users.

WHAT CAN’T SHARECROW DO?

Sharecrow does not have audio recording ability (yet). To record a crow, we suggest downloading a separate audio recording program, such as Audacity.

Sharecrow is not an authoring program and does affect or change the DVD in any way.

CONTROLS

There are 3 components to Sharecrow. They are the SCREEN, the CONTROL BAR, and the FILE WINDOW.

The first component is the SCREEN. The screen can be resized by dragging on any corner. Right-clicking reveals a shortcut panel, with shortcuts to many of Sharecrow’s features.

THE CONTROL BAR allows you to control the playback of a DVD. The button functions are:

One of the unique features of Sharecrow, are the use of two audio sliders. The top slider adjusts the DVD’s volume, while the bottom slider adjusts the Crow’s volume.

Use the FILE WINDOW to assign audio files to chapters of the DVD.

The DVD Title / Chapter list shows the entire structure of the DVD. The audio control box at the bottom (not visible when the software is first loaded) allows users to control the precise assignment of the audio files.

GETTING STARTED – PLAYING A DVD

When you insert a DVD, Sharecrow acts as a regular DVD player. All of the controls (Step Back, Rewind, Play, Pause, Stop, Fast Forward, Step Forward, Eject) act exactly as you would expect. The top audio slider controls the DVD’s volume. The bottom slider has no effect (because no audio files have been assigned yet).

To navigate the DVD, use the buttons on the Control Bar. Or, you can use the File Window. Simply double-click on the desired Chapter in the File Window and the DVD will jump directly to that Chapter.

To watch the DVD in Full Screen Mode, click the button. To switch back, double-click any where on the screen to bring up the CONTROL BAR. Then, click the Full Screen Mode button again.

To adjust other aspects of your playback experience, click on the CONFIGURATION button. This will bring up an interface window where you can change a number of features including shortcuts, hotkeys, skins and more.

ASSIGNING AN AUDIO FILE TO A DVD

To assign an audio file, make sure the File Window is open. If not, open it by clicking on the OPEN PROFILE button. All of the Titles and Chapters will be in thin white text.

The first thing we need to do is INDEX the Chapters that you wish to use. Indexing means that Sharecrow will quickly scan through the Title, getting the information it needs from all of the Chapters. To do this, click on the Chapter or Title you want to index. In the top menu click File --> Create a Crow. Sharecrow will then rapidly scan the entire Title. As it does, you will see each chapter turn BOLD. This means the Chapter is now ready for usage.

(HINT: If you don’t want to index the entire Title, you can index a Chapter directly by double-clicking on it.)

Once the Chapters have been indexed, click on one of the Chapters in Bold. A new box appears at the bottom of the File Window:

To assign an audio file to this Chapter, click on the light-green area. This brings up a Dialogue Box, where you can choose the audio file you want to assign. Once you select an audio file, the name of the file will appear in the File Window:

Congratulations – you just created your first crow! From here on, your audio file will automatically play in sync with your DVD.

You’ll notice that Chapters can appear one of four colors. They are:

WHITE (THIN) – Chapter has not been indexed.

WHITE (BOLD) – Chapter has been indexed and is ready to be used.

GREEN – An audio file has been directly assigned to that Chapter.

ORANGE – An audio file has been assigned to a Previous Chapter, but

will play through this chapter.

RED – An audio file is assigned to this Chapter, but cannot be located.

Now you can start this process over, assigning more audio files to the DVD. There is no limit to the number of audio files you can assign, but each chapter can have only 1 audio file assigned to it at a time.

GETTING PERFECT SYNC

Now that you’ve assigned an audio file, you may need to do some adjustments in order to achieve the sync you desire. To do so, click the MORE button in the lower right of the File Window. That expands the Audio Control Box to look like this:

Here, you can adjust several aspects of the audio file. They include:

1. File Playback Range – use this to trim the beginning & end of your audio file.

2. DVD Synchronization – use this to adjust the In and Out points on the DVD

3, Timeramp – Use this feature to change the overall length of your audio file.

(HINT: The Timeramp function can be helpful in offsetting differences in the way the audio was originally recorded and the way Sharecrow plays it back).

To hide these extra options, click on the LESS button.

CLEAR (UN-ASSIGN) AN AUDIO FILE

To clear an assigned audio file, click the light green box at the bottom of the File Window, or use the right-click menu and select “Unassign Audio File”.

RIGHT-CLICK MENU

Sharecrow makes adjusting your audio files even easier with a convenient right-click menu.

This menu mirrors several of the functions available in the File Window Menu, and contains several exclusive commands including:

“Stop Audio at End of Chapter” – This feature will cut off the audio file’s playback at the end of the selected chapter, regardless of how long the audio file is.

(HINT: This feature is useful if your audio file is a bit too long and bleeds over into the next chapter. It eliminates the need to open the Audio Control Box and do adjustments by hand).

“Fully Play Audio File” – the opposite command of the above. This will allow an audio file to play through the selected chapter and not end when the chapter ends.

USING A .CRO FILE

If you’ve downloaded a commentary from Rifftrax, you have the option of downloading the additional .cro file. This file is a way to share playback settings, so you don’t have to figure out exactly how the audio should be assigned to the DVD.

To use a .cro file, simply insert the DVD. The disc’s Title / Chapter structure should appear in the File Window.

The, go to Files -> Load. Select the .cro file. At that point, you will see the name of the audio file appear in the File Window, next to the appropriate Chapter (which should be the first Chapter of the movie). The Chapter will turn Green. The following Chapters will turn Yellow. This means the commentary has been properly assigned.

From this point on, the commentary and DVD will play together. Further sync adjustments can be made in the dialogue box at the bottom of the file window.

SAVING / EXPORTING A CROW

(note: this feature is not working yet)

There are 2 ways to save your work in Sharecrow. You can either “SAVE AS”, or “EXPORT GROUPED”.

When you save select File - Save As, Sharecrow creates a small .cro file that contains all the vital information about your crow, including links to the audio files. It does not contain the actual audio files themselves. This means the .cro file will only work correctly on the computer it was created on. The icon for a .cro file is:

If you want to send your crow to friends and family, you will need to export the audio files as well. To do this, click File – Save Grouped. Sharecrow then creates the .cro file and creates copies of all the audio files used. Sharecrow puts these together in a new folder, with the icon:

This folder is now a self-contained crow! It includes everything a person would need to play the crow correctly (except for the actual DVD of course).

To load a crow, click File - Load and choose any of the Template files (.cro).