graphic frame over a movie

Freeway
1

I want to put a frame over a movie so it looks like the movie is (for example) in the picture frame. If the picture frame is first, then the movie just doesn’t fit right (eg., an oval picture frame). Is there any way to make the gif picture frame the top layer? When I make it the top layer, the video layer pops to the top anyway.

Thanks, David

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2

Sometime around 22/11/09 (at 02:24 -0500) David said:

I want to put a frame over a movie so it looks like the movie is
(for example) in the picture frame.

Simple answer: you can’t do that. Sorry! In browsers, plugin content
is given its own area on the page and the content gets drawn over
anything else.

Okay, there are ways to persuade Flash to allow things to show
through transparent areas, but I don’t think that’s universal across
browsers - and it doesn’t relate to QuickTime anyway.

If you want to show a movie ‘through’ a non-rectangular graphic frame
then you need to include that frame as another track in the movie
itself. This is something you need to do away from the web page
design environment.

k

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3

Here is a link to Apple’s instructions on making a Quicktime skin. With some clever graphics you could approximate what you want to do. http://www.apple.com/quicktime/tutorials/mediaskins.html

I’ve never done this so not sure how crazy you can get with the skin, but it’s pretty straight forward. You will need Photoshop or something like it that works with layers. This technique only applies to Quicktime movies of course.

This is not exactly what you were trying to do and as Keith said is not possible within Freeway. But if the movie itself has the frame built in…

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4

Sometime around 22/11/09 (at 15:54 -0500) chuckamuck said:

Here is a link to Apple’s instructions on making a Quicktime skin.
With some clever graphics you could approximate what you want to do.
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/tutorials/mediaskins.html

This was once a seriously exciting thing to play with, and it was
possible to get seriously crazy with things. Be aware, however, that
the movie controls mentioned here was a casualty of Apple’s QuickTime
feature culling. The page refers to LiveStage Pro (dead and buried)
and Adobe GoLive (likewise). Given that QuickTime VR itself has been
quietly dropped in Snow Leopard’s QuickTime X (currently at least), I
recommend stopping at adding the graphic.

Here’s my own set of steps. Make sure you have QuickTime Pro (so the
QuickTime Player has edit abilities) and try this:

Open your frame graphic in Photoshop.

  • Scale it to the pixel size of your movie
  • Add a channel in the Channels panel
  • In this new alpha channel, paint the area you want VISIBLE
  • Save this as a PICT, with alpha channels

Open the new PICT file in QuickTime Player

  • Copy the PICT image, close it

Open your movie in QuickTime Player

  • In your movie, choose Edit > Select All
  • Choose Edit > Add to Selection & Scale
  • Choose Window > Show Movie Properties
  • In this window, scroll to the last ‘Video Track’ and select it
  • Click the Visual Settings button
  • Set the Transparency to Straight Alpha

Make sure you save as a self-contained movie or export with the
appropriate settings.

k

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