Peephole effect problem

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Peephole effect problem

I was able to apply a peephole effect to a clip, but the result was not what I expected. In the resulting clip, the frame (video I shot) is reduced by 50% in length and width, so it occupies the lower left quarter of the viewing window. The rest of the viewing window is black. The peephole effect fades in and out at the right time, but the peephole circle is located in the viewing window where it should be if the frame were not reduced. At the same time that the peephole image is faded in, the entire frame (in the lower left corner) fades to black. Then the opposite: peephole circle fades out and image fades back in.

What I expected was the same thing, but with the frame not reduced in size, so the effect would be just the non-peephole area fades to black, then fades back in, and the peephole area remains bright the whole time.

Does this sound like I'm doing something wrong. The clip was produced by a Sony HC3, in HDV mode.

iMac G4, Mac OS X (10.4.7), Sony HDR-HC3

Posted on Aug 7, 2006 2:59 PM

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Answer 1

Tall Paul Author

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Aug 7, 2006 4:59 PM in response to Tall Paul

Oops. This got posted twice. Sorry.

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Answer 2

Aug 7, 2006 5:16 PM in response to Tall Paul

Tall Paul,

This peep hole effect, is it an in-camera effect?

Matt

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Answer 3

Tall Paul Author

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Aug 7, 2006 6:24 PM in response to Matthew Morgan

The peephole effect is one of the video effects available in iMovie 6 HD. Look in the VIDEO FX portion of the Editing mode. Open the "Quartz Composer" effect and scroll down... Peephole is there. I think what it's supposed to do is blacken all of the clip except a fuzzy-edged circle. You can set the location and radius of the circle. So it could be used to highlight something that's small and hard to see in the full frame. You can also set the time in the clip that the effect should fade in and fade out.

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Answer 4

Aug 7, 2006 6:33 PM in response to Tall Paul

Tall Paul ,

Got it.

I just tried it out and it worked as promised. Though I'm at a loss to explain what the little yellow adjustment thing does!

Matt

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Answer 5

Aug 7, 2006 6:35 PM in response to Matthew Morgan

I'll amend that and say the little yellow dot seems to be how you center the peephole.

Matt

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Answer 6

Tall Paul Author

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Aug 7, 2006 9:09 PM in response to Matthew Morgan

Matt, I'm glad to hear that you were successful with Peephole. Hearing that, I did some experiments. The peephole effect works without problem when I apply it to clips with resolution 480p and 1080p (downloaded movie trailers from Apple). So HD is not the problem, per se. But the Sony HC3 camera produces, in HDV mode, 1080i frames, and when the peephole effect is applied to these, the undesirable result I first described occurs.

So my tentative conclusion is that the peephole effect may not be compatible with interlaced frames.

Would be great if someone else in this discussion could reproduce these experiments. If true, then that's disappointing, since the HC3 has only two choices: 1080i and DV (not HD).

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Answer 7

Aug 8, 2006 6:50 AM in response to Tall Paul

Tall Paul,

I can confirm that the Peephole effect works properly with DV from my Sony miniDV camera.

Do the other Quartz Composer effects work properly for you?

Matt

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Answer 8

Tall Paul Author

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Aug 8, 2006 4:58 PM in response to Matthew Morgan

I tried all the Quartz Composer effects on my 1080i clips. All of them work except two: "peephole" and "star shine". And both of these malfunction the same way: the background part of the final image is reduced to a quarter of the window, and the effect part (peephole or star image) is full size. Have you or anyone else tried these two particular effects?

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Answer 9

Aug 8, 2006 6:22 PM in response to Tall Paul

Tall Paul,

Both Peephole and Star Shone work properly with standard definition footage from my miniDV camera.

Matt

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Answer 10

Tall Paul Author

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Aug 9, 2006 8:01 PM in response to Matthew Morgan

One more piece of the puzzle... I imported a clip from my HC3, this time converting it to DV on the fly during playback (the HC3 allows me to do that). With this DV-format clip (in a DV-format project), the Peephole effect worked fine. So... same camera, same computer, same iMovie, only difference is DV vs. HDV clip and project.

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Answer 11

Aug 10, 2006 9:47 AM in response to Tall Paul

It may be you've stumbled across an actual bug.

Matt

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Answer 12

Feb 5, 2007 10:42 PM in response to Tall Paul

Did you use DV format? I had the same problem using DV format, but when i redid the movie in MP4 i had no problem with the Peephole Effect.

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Answer 13

Feb 6, 2007 12:51 AM in response to Tall Paul

first time, I'm saying this on this board:
a bug!

... I used a HiDef Trailer from Apple's QT site (SilverSurfer.. hmm, memories of my youth...), applied the peephole effect - boom, that:

that bug only occurs, when you set an Effect-In time, setting the In-time to 00:00 avoids any "shrinking"... I'm not familiar with Quartz-programming (you can create your own Quartz effects...), so I'm not able to have a qualified look inside the programming of this effect ...

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