Can a video behave like a backgrop?

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sanoski
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Can a video behave like a backgrop?

Post by sanoski » Wed Sep 14, 2011 1:21 am

I have some resources that I own, such as images and video loops. I learned in the manual that a stack can take up the whole screen. This appears to be used for some games and kiosks. That's essentially what I want to do, only with a quicktime video instead of an image backdrop. I tried this myself, only to realize you couldn't put controls over a player. For example, if you try to put a player object on a card and then place something over it, the control falls behind the player. That's not necessarily a problem, though. I'll explain why.

That makes sense normally. Ordinarily users wouldn't want objects floating above a video. But that's sort of what I want. But I want the video to sort of serve as a backdrop. So technically, it doesn't need any buttons, fields, etc, on that particular card. The interface could be maintained through another stack. That would give the impression they are floating over the video backdrop. I'm basically building a kiosk program for a restaurant down the road. They don't want anybody messing with their computer settings. To make tinkering more difficult, I opted to use a backdrop, but the customer wants the backdrop to be a video instead of a plain image.

WaltBrown
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Re: Can a video behave like a backgrop?

Post by WaltBrown » Wed Sep 14, 2011 2:56 am

Sanoski,
Do you have an example? I had no trouble playing a video on one stack full screen and having another stack above it.
Walt
Walt Brown
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WaltBrown
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Re: Can a video behave like a backgrop?

Post by WaltBrown » Wed Sep 14, 2011 2:56 am

Sanoski,
Do you have an example? I had no trouble playing a video on one stack full screen and having another stack above it.
Walt
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SparkOut
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Re: Can a video behave like a backgrop?

Post by SparkOut » Wed Sep 14, 2011 8:17 am

It will affect performance slightly, but you should be able to have the player overlaid with other stack objects if you set the alwaysBuffer property to true.

sanoski
Posts: 25
Joined: Sun Jan 25, 2009 10:09 am

Re: Can a video behave like a backgrop?

Post by sanoski » Wed Sep 14, 2011 8:53 pm

It might work better with a gif animation instead of a video. But I don't have an easy way to convert my .mov to a gif. The original video was 444MB. I got that down to 16MB, but that's still a lot for a 14 second video. Does anybody here have a way to convert an mov to a gif animation? I looked around for a program, but I keep hitting dead ends. I might have to purchase a program just to get one conversion.

PS: I'll get an example posted tomorrow or the next day. I haven't had much time to code anything yet because I'm working this month. I'm on the road, but I'm on my way home. Then I'll have two weeks off. If all goes well, I'll be pulling back into Georgia in another 6 or 7 hours. After that, I'll just need a few hours of sleep. Again, thanks for everyones help.

mwieder
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Re: Can a video behave like a backgrop?

Post by mwieder » Wed Sep 14, 2011 9:11 pm

Sleep is overrated.

BTW - 444MB seems like an awful lot for a 14 second video.

WaltBrown
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Re: Can a video behave like a backgrop?

Post by WaltBrown » Wed Sep 14, 2011 9:51 pm

Drive carefully!
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sanoski
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Re: Can a video behave like a backgrop?

Post by sanoski » Thu Sep 15, 2011 12:55 am

Looks like I'm not getting home tonight. Having some truck problems like always. On a positive note, I'll have off time to get some coding done. Oh and that video was purchased by the restaurant. It was in HD when I received their resources. So I had to take the size way down to even make the program practical. There are a few commercial programs for Mac that can turn this file into a gif. But I'll test out the video and see how well it preforms. 14 seconds would be a long gif, so I'd probably cut it in half if I went that route. Thanks again.

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