Thanks for the
star, Steve
Perhaps a more detailed explanation will my suggestion clearer for you.
The alternatives I suggested do not
replicate Photo Booth's one-step "Glow" effect recording. Rather, they give you the power to
create or simulate them in multiple operations. If they
replicated Photo Booth's "Glow" they would likely give the same jerkiness that you are trying to avoid.
Considerable processor power is required to apply and render the effects that make up Photo Booth's "Glow" in real time while video is being captured and recorded. I believe that is why more complex effects like "Glow" cause jerky recording on your MacBook Pro. I do not have an 8-core Mac Pro to test, but my guess is that one of the new, fast
8-core Mac Pros could record Photo Booth's "Glow" smoother than your MacBook Pro does. However, if you only have access to your MBP, the only way I can think of to get a less jerky video that "glows" is to
separate recording from rendering the effects.
Macs uses QuickTime file formats everywhere, so there is no mystery in the Photo Booth / iChat commonality. In fact, as explained in
Changing the backdrop of a video chat in iChat 4.0
Help on your Mac, iChat can use any image or QuickTime movie, not only those created by Photo Booth (using QuickTime formats), as a custom backdrop.
Photo Booth's "effects" are simply some saved setting "recipes" that use combinations of operations that include some of your Mac's
Core Video settings. As explained in the "creating your own "glow" filter" link I provided in your other thread, you
can create effects for yourself. However, using this method adds processor workload, so I doubt that creating your own effects would smooth the jerky recordings that you have encountered.
Instead, I suggest that you use iMovie to (1) first record the movie clip, and (2) then add effects one at a time to approximate the look you want while keeping the smoothness of an iMovie recording.
Because these effects use combinations of your Mac's inbuilt Core Video effects, you should be able to approximate the Photo Booth "Glow" that you like by applying combinations of some of iMovie's "Video FX". To simulate the Photo Booth "Glow" effect on an iMovie video clup, some experimentation will be needed to decide which effects to use and where to set the various sliders for those effects.
I started by recording a short video clip in iMovie. Next, I applied maximum "Bloom" effect to the test clip. After "Bloom" rendering was completed, I experimented with the "Brightness & Contrast" settings for the rendered clip. By increasing the Contrast and decreasing the Brightness sliders, I got a smooth video image that I think looks similar to my jerky Photo Booth recording with the "Glow" effect. I finished the simulation by setting the appropriate slider position for the "Peephole" effect. I know that this
simulation is not merely a smooth version of the jerky Photo Booth "Glow" video clip. However, it
is a smooth recording, and it seems to me to approximates the look of my jerky Photo Booth "Glow" clip. If the same "recipe" does not produce a video that looks like you want, even if you cannot create an
exact match, you should be able to come closer with additional experimentation.
I have learned much about iMovie's capability from Karsten, who I consider to be one of the iMovie HD gurus. He has done some amazing things with iMovie HD. If he gives you different advice here, try his first.
Cheers,
EZ
Jim
PowerBook 1.67 GHz w/Mac OS X (10.4.11) G5 DP 1.8 w/Mac OS X (10.5.2) External iSight
