FCP alpha Codec

[Russell Lasson]

Not that I know of. When you stack one clip with an alpha channel on top of the other you will need to render it (though sometimes it might play it back at a lower quality in realtime.)

-Russ

[Russell Lasson]

[Dave LaRonde] “when I want footage with an alpha channel… no rendering, either.”

Do you put it into a 10-bit uncompressed timeline or a animation timeline. Even though it might playback, don’t you need to render it before or on output?

-Russ

[Gary Alan]

sheer codec has alpha
https://www.bitjazz.com/en/products/sheervideo/

Gary

[Russell Lasson]

It’s my understanding that it doesn’t support FCP realtime features though. But if you put it into a 10-bit uncompressed timeline it might behave the same as the animation codec.

-Russ

[Misha Aranyshev]

[Dave LaRonde] “And my card isn’t nearly as cool as a Kona 3.”

Targa Cin

[John Heagy]

Apple’s “none” codec supports uncompressed RGBA and would probably playback easier assuming your drives are fast enough.

John

[Jeff Ledellaytner]

Thanks everyone for writing back. We’ve tried Sheer and Animation+ codecs. Both playback on a DV timeline just find in UNLIMITED RT mode. Playing back those codecs in a 10bit uncompressed timeline, it gets kinda choppy.

We’re running the media off a MEDEA SCSI raid, so the drives are super fast. The MACPRO also has 8G of RAM in it and it’s the DUAL QUAD core. So the thing is a beast, but when you put the timeline in SAFE MODE, you still have to render it. Bummer.

Jeff

[Misha Aranyshev]

It has hardware RGB<>YUV conversion and alpha support. None of the “modern” FCP-compatible cards have anything like this so until Apple moves FCP processing engine from CPU to GPU keep that contraption around.

[Russell Lasson]

That’s been my experience. You’ll still need to render.

-Russ

[Rafael Amador]

Without hesitate: Sheer.
You got RGB(A) 8/10b and YCbCr(A) 8/10b 444 or 422. And the size of the files are a fraction of the Apple Unc. Works great.
Cheers,
rafael