Exported Video with Alpha Channel Very Large File Size

Adobe Premiere Pro

Exported Video with Alpha Channel Very Large File Size

Posted by Elwin Lee on February 21, 2012 at 2:46 am

Hi!

I’m trying to export videos with an alpha channel in Premiere, which works fine.
But somehow those files are always too large… 2GB for a 20 second video… :S

Does anyone know how to reduce the file size to a more workable size?

The videos will be used in Unity3D, which only supports MOV and AVI with alpha channels.
The settings that I used were:
– Microsoft AVI or Quicktime
– None or animation codec
– 32 bits

Thanks! 😀

Jeff Pulera replied 14 years, 3 months ago 5 Members · 5 Replies
5 Replies

Shane Ross
February 21, 2012 at 3:22 am

Sorry…that’s just part of the deal. If you want to have an embedded Alpha, you get large file sizes. Animation and NONE are the codecs you have available to you with Premiere. Avid and Apple have compressed formats that allow for alphas. Apple has ProRes 4444, avid now has DNxHD 4444. They are large, but not as large as Animation.

But yes..you will get large file sizes when doing this.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def
Elwin Lee
February 21, 2012 at 3:44 am

damn 🙁 Guess we’ll have to think of another option then…

Thanks!
Jon Barrie
February 21, 2012 at 5:56 am

Try, as a test, I haven’t got the full math behind me here, but try to export with Quicktime and the PNG codec with Alpha.

Sadly Alpha eats HDD. Avid’s DNxHD Codec is free – well it was before the 444 version. I think that might be free too, but don’t quote me on that!

Look into it.

FullHD exports with Alpha will seriously eat HDD space. Perhaps shifting from 1080p to 720p can help out?

JB

Jon Barrie
Adobe Video Solutions Consultant ANZ
Jon’s YouTube Tutorial Page
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Todd Kopriva
February 21, 2012 at 7:08 am

I agree with Jon about using the PNG codec instead of Animation for lossless encoding with an alpha channel. For live-action, photoreal images, th file sizes are about half what they are with Animation. Animation is the better choice for motion graphics or cartoons—movies with large expanses of the same color.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
Technical Support for professional video software
After Effects Help & Support
Premiere Pro Help & Support
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Jeff Pulera
February 21, 2012 at 2:44 pm

Hi Elwin,

Maybe try the Matrox MPEG-2 I-Frame HD + Alpha codec, available here: https://www.matrox.com/video/en/support/downloads/

In “Product” column, scroll all the way to the bottom and choose “VfW codecs”. Must be installed on any machine that you want to play the clips on. Data rate between 100-300Mbps, user selectable.

PC only I believe

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

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