1.504 streams live to any QuickTime or QuickLook enabled application: Open and view the live Q@mera streaming video feed.

Labels: quicklook, quicktime

New snapshot thumbnail windows, reveal in Finder, import to iPhoto and more nifty stuff!

Version 1.200 of Q@mera is now available for downloading. Improved stability when using the virtual camera driver under Snow Leopard. Recommended for all Snow Leopard users.

UPDATE: If you look inside the disk image, you will see a little app called Quickier.app that records a perfect alpha movie every time.

The job of software compatibility testing is never done. There's always another thing to test. But this morning, we checked another one off our list: using Q@mera-effected movies recorded with QuickTime Pro in Final Cut. Yes! It is true, any Q@mera effected movie that includes an alpha-channel (transparent region) can be dropped right into a Final Cut project (and we'd assume also AE for those pros out there) and composited with other footage. It works great.

Be sure to set the QuickTime Pro recording preferences to 'device native' or you will not get the transparency channel.

Labels: final cut

Since Q@mera outputs video with an Alpha channel (transparency), we thought it might be possible to create sophisticated overlay video effects (called compositing) using Q@mera and iMovie 09. It is possible. But there are some hurdles.

1. Since iMovie 09 does not recognize the Q@mera virtual camera as an input, you must use either iMovie HD (free download) or QuickTime Player Pro to record the Q@mera output to a movie.

2. iMovie 09 does not appear to recognize the alpha channel in a movie, so we need to fudge it.

3. First, make sure the advanced iMovie 09 preferences are set (allows greenscreen feature).

4. Take any template in Q@mera that creates a transparent effect (like the Polaroid effect) and turn the background color on, and set it to a medium green color.

5. Record your movie with iMovie HD or QuickTime Pro.

6. Export your movie to Apple TV or Apple Intermediate codec and import your movie into iMovie 09. This step is important because iMovie 09 will not greenscreen a movie with an ARGB codec. It also may be helpful to export at the same resolution as your iMovie 09 project (ie. 1080 HD).

7. Select your new movie and drag it on top of an existing clip already positioned in the iMovie 09 timeline.

8. A popup menu will appear: Choose 'Greenscreen' and iMovie 09 will make the green background transparent.

Labels: imovie 09

So -- I filmed myself a little Doritos commercial for the Superbowl ad contest. For one, I wanted to exercise our little "Mac Apps" and for another, I wanted to try and get up to speed on some of the new features in iMovie '08. I mean, the new version is so radically different from the previous iMovie HD, it's really something of a "back to the drawing board campaign". Anyway, my Superbowl ad was rejected on the grounds that I had failed to eliminate the Apple and Dell logos from my 30s shoot. Alas. I attempted to rotoscope those bad-boys out using Final Cut, but ran out of time before the revised deadline passed.

Nevertheless, I did learn something excellent and important about iMovie '08 that you might not have known: it's not in the help -- and that is:

If you take a PNG snapshot with Q@mera (or DotMatrix) and the resulting image contains transparency (indicated by the fact that the checkerboard background shows through) THEN you can overlay the still image ON TOP of an existing clip in the iMovie 08 timeline. It's a basic form of compositing.

So if you want to punctuate the results of your video shoot by overlaying and informative or clever snapshot, you can do so with Q@mera. Many of the built-in Q@mera effects can be turned into semi-transparent effects simply by turning off the background image and color (requires opening the Inspector).

Well, I thought it was revolutionary.

Labels: iMovie 08, iMovie HD

Lurking within the bowels of our web site is Ms. Black's QC Kitchen, a resource for all of you Quartz Composer fans. In Ms. Black's QC Kitchen, you'll find a plethora of examples of using the CoreImage Kernel language (aka fragment shader code) to make stunning, real-time, Hollywood video effects.

Direct link:
http://b-l-a-c-k-o-p.com/Qamera/Quartz-Composer/

Labels: quartz composer