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Export QT from Avid with Alpha Channel
Has anyone managed to export clips from Avid Media Composer with an Alpha channel?
My AMC is apparently limited to 24 tracks of video and I’ve got some complex PIP effects I’d like to simplify by exporting in chunks and reimporting with the Alpha channel so I can effectively pre compose them.
Any ideas?
Thanks
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3 Replies
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Avid can’t export with an alpha channel (unfortunately).
Your best bet would be to select your video tracks with your PIP effects, mark your In and Out, then Collapse them. This will drop them into one layer with a submaster effect and free up additional video tracks.
To make additional changes/tweaks to your collapsed tracks just step into the effect or go into segment mode (Red arrow) and double click the submaster effect. This will expand them in the timeline so you can make adjustments and still see your background (if you step in you won’t see tracks below the submaster).
Michael.
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cool, thanks – really handy that collapse tool.
Is there an Expand tool as well?
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No, there’s no expand tool. To undo a collapse just step into it, mark all the clips and select all the tracks, then hit Alt+C or Option+C to copy everything to your source monitor. Step out of the collapsed tracks and recut your source monitor back in where the submaster effect is.
A lot of people have posted requests on the Avid Feature Request forum for an Expand or Uncollapse effect, but if there was one you would run into issues where an uncollapse would overwrite titles/video you’d placed over a collapsed stack, or you’d hit the track limit (24–techinically unlimited, though, because of the collapse feature, but 24 uncollapsed is the limit) and some of your stuff would be lost. It would be too complicated, in my opinion, to figure out how you wanted it to function. Much easier to just step in, copy to source or clipboard monitor, step out and cut.
Glad that helped, too. I’m a big fan of collapse–the last Avid I worked on was an Xpress Meridien where I was limited to 8 tracks at a time! Needless to say, I collapsed a lot.
One last thing–if you have a stack of clips and you want to dissolve from all of them to another shot, collapse them first then dissolve. It will give you a clean dissolve (and it’s easier) than adding a dissolve to every track. Add a dissolve to every track and the layers start showing through themselves and you get nasty ghosting.
Michael
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