Display text (or anything) in front of a video
mary
I'm running E-Prime 2.0 Standard, and I've run into a problem with
being able to display anything in front of a video. For example, it
would be nice to display a fixation cross in the middle of the screen
for the duration of our experiment which contains videos. It seems
that the default is set to make any videos appear on the top of
anything else that may be on the MovieDisplay. Is there a way to push
the movie to the back so text can be displayed over it?
Thanks,
Mary
David McFarlane
Hmm, I would bet that E-Prime has no way to overlay visual objects
over a running video. But you should really submit this to PST's
trained staff at
http://support.pstnet.com/e%2Dprime/support/login.asp , after all
they are the experts and they strive to respond to all requests in
24-48 hours. Then please post their answer back here for the rest of us!
-- David McFarlane, Professional Faultfinder
David Vinson
The answer by David McFarlane is right* - video stimuli are always
displayed in front of anything else while running.
It seems possible to overlay something else over a video on a Slide or
Feedback object, then move the video to the back. But when the stimuli
are displayed the video always plays in front.
I suspect you've discovered the warning message to this effect when
trying to send a movie to the back on a slide object: "SlideMovie
components selected were sent to back to permit for easier Slide
component editing, but at runtime Movie components are always presented
on top of all SlideText and SlideImage objects".
One solution could be to edit the video files themselves - this seems
like a possibility if the alteration is simple (like a fixation cross at
a fixed location in all your video files).
*except concerning David's disclaimer mentioning the target response
times for E-Prime support requests placed online. Based on a handful of
online support requests by me and other colleagues in the past month or
two, the current queue for first response is about 5 working days.
-david
--
David Vinson, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Researcher
Cognitive, Perceptual and Brain Sciences Research Department
University College London
49 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PD
Tel +44 20 7679 5311 (UCL internal x25311, alternate x28694)
d.vi...@ucl.ac.uk
David McFarlane
As an exercise, I explored this myself further using some typical
non-Slide techniques for superimposing (overlaying) visual stimuli in
E-Prime: (1) setting the movie/slide object Duration to 0, StopAfter
to No, and following this with a regular Text object with a limited
Frame size/position and BackStyle = transparent; (2) using a normal
Duration on the movie/slide object, setting PreRelease the at least
as long as Duration, and following that with inline code to display
the text (e.g., Text.Draw or Canvas.Text).
In both cases, even though my text by design clearly did *not* go to
the screen until *after* the movie started, and the movie did
continue to play, the movie immediately overwrote my text display (I
was careful to make the text and movie frames overlap in such a way
that I could still see a portion of the text beyond the edge of the
movie window). And when you think about it, this all makes
sense. Remember, a movie presents a rapid *sequence* of images, one
frame at a time. So if you try to put a static text or image in the
same space, as soon as the movie moves on to its next frame it *must*
overwrite your "overlay"!
I do not see any way to overcome this except to edit your overlay
directly into the movie file (as David V suggest), or to incorporate
sophisticated on-the-fly video mixing facilities directly into the
software, much as you might find in a modern television
studio. Personally, this goes beyond anything I would ask of
E-Prime, although for all I know something like MatLab can already do
this. Hmm, but if E-Prime would allow playing multiple overlapping
movies on one Slide then that would itself add a fair degree of
on-the-fly video mixing...
-- David McFarlane, Professional Faultfinder
David Vinson
work nicely either.
David McFarlane wrote:
> Hmm, but if E-Prime would allow playing multiple overlapping movies on
> one Slide then that would itself add a fair degree of on-the-fly video
> mixing...
Overlapping movies on one slide = crash in my experience, e.g.
Run-time Error 11036: Unable to update working surface in frame host
manager.
-dv
David McFarlane
Ah, but you made it further than I did -- still using EP2.0.8.22, it
disabled the SlideMovie icon in E-Studio as soon as I added one
SlideMovie, so never even got to try multiple movies on one Slide
(unless I would manually construct that in inline code, but I did not
go that far :) ).
-- David McFarlane, Professional Faultfinder
David Vinson
I too am running 2.0.8.22. This appears to be another of those Pro vs
Normal (Amateur?) differences - a Pro experiment permits multiple videos
on a single slide (as long as they are not overlapping), a normal 2.0
experiment only allows one.
-dv
David McFarlane
Thanks. But, um, I am running EP2 Pro, and I do not see any
capability there to run multiple videos on a Slide, whether or not
they overlap. Indeed, at http://www.pstnet.com/eprime.cfm PST does
claim that EP2 Pro can "Play multiple movies simultaneously on
critical timing trials", but until another user can testify to that
or PST sends me a working demo, I consider that to be just another
one of their many empty promises.
<editorial>
And since you bring up the issue of names for the two
editions... Originally PST used "E-Prime 2.0 Professional" to refer
to the Pro edition, and just plain "E-Prime 2.0" to refer to the
non-Pro edition, which left us no way to refer to EP2 in a
non-specific way and as you might imagine led to considerable
confusion. PST has since relented and now officially calls the
non-Pro version "Standard". This is an improvement, but I still
object that what they call "Standard" is not, well, standard. The
true standard is Pro, and non-Pro is only for those in special
circumstances. I searched for my own alternative term and I too
wanted to call non-Pro something like Baby or Amatuer (which I find
just a bit too perjorative) or Basic (which then gets confused with
the language BASIC). I sort of settled on calling the non-Pro
version "Base", in the sense of a capable base model that
nevertheless lacks enough amenities that no one seriously buys it
(rather like the "base" model offered by automobile
manufacturers). Sadly, now that PST officially calls it "Standard",
if I start referring to "Base" then no one will know what I am
talking about. Hence, as ugly and confusing as it is, I keep
referring to Pro vs. non-Pro.
</editorial>
>--
