The Hide iMovie Plug-in Page

This is the web page about "Hide", a plug-in for iMovie. I'm presenting it in a highly original and hopefully informative question and answer format.

Q: Why?

Oh, I don't know. I just didn't have any other ideas.

Q: So what is this plug-in thing anyway?

It's a file which you can add to Apple's iMovie program in order to allow you to cover up parts of a movie with rectangles, circles, or ellipses of your choice.

Q: Why'd you call it hide?

Well, because it hides part of the movie.

Q: Is that the best you can do?

No, I really probably could have done better, but it's too late now.

Q: So why would I want this plug-in?

Well, if you're making a movie of some sort, with iMovie but you want to hide something which appears in it. For example, you might want to obscure commercial logos or street signs. Or you might want to cover up embarassing slips. Or perhaps you have people who do not wish their face to appear in the movie. So, essentially, it can be used for censoring or obscuring bits of your movie.

Q: Is this plug-in free?

Basically. It's mostly free. It's gimmeware. If you use it to make a movie, you have to give me a copy. Unless it's child pornography. No way do I want anything to do with child pornography. Please do not give it to me.

Q: If - and I'm just asking a hypothetical here. If I wanted it, how would I get it?

You would download it right here.

Q: How does the plug-in work?

Well, it's an Effects plug-in which presents two interfaces, one is Hide with Rectangle which allows you to draw a colored rectangle to mask something in the clip. The other is Hide with Ellipse. It allows you to draw a circle or ellipse which covers up part of the movie. So, you can block out part of the frame by overlaying a colored shape on it. Future versions may have something more like blurring or pixelating or so forth as an option as well, but for now, it's just a solid color.

Q: Is the plug-in compatible with all versions of iMovie?

No. Only version 2.1.1 and after and only for OS X. As it turns out you can't make a plug-in which works with the classic version of iMovie unless you can run classic, and I lost my classic discs, so I can't run it, plus I'm all out of space on my hard drive. So if you want a classic version, either you need to get me a new computer or convince me to give you the source code so that you can compile it yourself on classic.

Q: Has this plug-in been tested with the latest version of iMovie?

Nope. Getting the latest version of iMovie would cost me money. So if you want me to make sure that it works properly with the latest version of iMovie, you'll have to buy it for me. It also has only been tested with OS X 10.2, so if you want to know if it works with a newer version, you'll have to buy me one of those too.

Q: Who are you anyway?

I'm Keith Irwin. My videoblog is here. My main homepage with a list of other products of mine is here.

Q: How can I contact you?

I don't really like putting my email address on web sites, so instead, download the .dmg file for the plug-in and get my email address from the README file. Thanks.