Movie Component

The Movie component allows movie files to be played from a variety of formats (e.g. mpeg, avi, mov).

The movie can be positioned, rotated, flipped and stretched to any size on the screen (using the Units for the window and stimuli given).

Categories:

Stimuli

Works in:

PsychoPy, PsychoJS

Parameters

Basic

The required attributes of the stimulus, controlling its basic function and behaviour

Name

Everything in a PsychoPy® experiment needs a unique name. The name should contain only letters, numbers and underscores (no punctuation marks or spaces).

Start

When the Movie Component should start, see Defining the onset/duration of components.

Expected start (s)

If you are using frames to control timing of your stimuli, you can add an expected start time to display the component timeline in the routine.

Start type

How do you want to define your start point?

Options:

  • time (s)

  • frame N

  • condition

Stop

When the Movie Component should stop, see Defining the onset/duration of components.

Expected duration (s)

If you are using frames to control timing of your stimuli, you can add an expected duration to display the component timeline in the routine.

Stop type

How do you want to define your end point?

Options:

  • duration (s)

  • duration (frames)

  • time (s)

  • frame N

  • condition

Movie file

A filename for the movie (including path)

Force end of Routine

Should the end of the movie cause the end of the Routine (e.g. trial)?

Layout

How should the stimulus be laid out on screen? Padding, margins, size, position, etc.

Size [w,h]

Size of this stimulus (either a single value or x,y pair, e.g. 2.5, [1,2]

Position [x,y]

Position of this stimulus (e.g. [1,2] )

Spatial units

Spatial units for this stimulus (e.g. for its position and size), see Units for the window and stimuli for more info.

Options:

  • from exp settings

  • deg

  • cm

  • pix

  • norm

  • height

  • degFlatPos

  • degFlat

Anchor

Which point in this stimulus should be anchored to the point specified by Position [x,y]?

Options:

  • center

  • top-center

  • bottom-center

  • center-left

  • center-right

  • top-left

  • top-right

  • bottom-left

  • bottom-right

Orientation

Orientation of this stimulus (in deg)

Options:

  • -360

  • 360

Appearance

How should the stimulus look? Colors, borders, styles, etc.

Opacity

Vary the transparency, from 0.0 (invisible) to 1.0 (opaque)

Contrast

Contrast of the stimulus (1.0=unchanged contrast, 0.5=decrease contrast, 0.0=uniform/no contrast, -0.5=slightly inverted, -1.0=totally inverted)

Playback

How should stimulus play? Speed, volume, etc.

Loop playback

Whether the movie should loop back to the beginning on completion.

No audio

Prevent the audio stream from being loaded/processed (moviepy and opencv only)

Backend (if running locally)

What underlying Python library to use for loading movies

Options:

  • ffpyplayer

  • moviepy

  • opencv

  • vlc

Volume

How loud should audio be played?

Stop with Routine?

Should playback cease when the Routine ends? Untick to continue playing after the Routine has finished.

Data

What information about this Component should be saved?

Save onset/offset times

Store the onset/offset times in the data file (as well as in the log file).

Sync timing with screen refresh

Synchronize times with screen refresh (good for visual stimuli and responses based on them)

Testing

Tools for testing, debugging and checking the performance of this Component.

Disable Component

Disable this Component

Validate with…

Name of the Validator Routine to use to check the timing of this stimulus. Options are generated live, so will vary according to your setup.

See also

API reference for MovieStim


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