Feature request

djevo1

I would like to know if you could make mix emergency recognize the alpha channels in videos. I have a ton of remix vids, but can only use them in final cut for mixtapes because they are all made for overlaying at certain point over another video.

Nick

What format are the videos in?

djevo1

mp4

djevo1

Is there a specific file format that works

Nick

Ah, I meant, which codec does your video use? I don't think that there are any that will work right now, but I'm curious to know what format your videos are in, as I'm not aware of any formats that support alpha channels which are "nice" to use (e.g. most codecs I've seen with alpha channels produce very large files).

djevo1

I have been using h.264 to export out of motion, then into final cut and for me it works fine

djevo1

I have seen some of the live sets done with mix emergency, and wanted to know if it supported alpha channels because otherwise I have no clue as to how some of the higher end live video sets are created.

Nick

As far as I'm aware, the H.264 codec does not support alpha channels. I can't really comment on what you might have seen without seeing (or knowing more about) the particular live sets myself.

djevo1

Do you believe there will be alpha channel support in the near future?

Nick

It's a possibility - though most of the current transitions wouldn't be able to take advantage of them.

djevo1

Is there a transition in mix emergency where you can have two images up at the same time, but not dissolving between each other, and do you think you could develop a chrominance key transition like the luma key.

Nick

Yep (if I understand you correctly) - there is a transition plug-in called "Two Up H": http://www.inklen.com/mixemergency/plugins I'll think about the chroma key plug-in. I have something similar that I looked into a long time ago.

djevo1

here is one of the video remixes I am talking about

http://vimeo.com/20906681

look at about 1:10 and you will see that as he scratches the video in the video in the background still keeps running, aswell as the commercial overlay he does

Nick

Funny that you mention that video - Jay E was just telling me about what he did there a few days ago. As far as I understand, and you can see it a little on the video, he was using one of the luma key transitions to remove the black parts of the video (at least for the part at 1:10).

djevo1

I was actually looking into the transitions today and I found something interesting. If you take a video and add the boarder that the video playing before it has you can use the maximum transition to add your first video into the black spot where a video should be.

djevo1

I saw something online where with a quartz overlay you can add logos or lower thirds, I tried doing it with an image and when I put it up to max the master goes black. Do you know how to get it transparent.

djevo1

I can see how he does it with the luma key.

Nick

If you're going to use Quartz Composer for an overlay, just make sure that if there is a "Clear" patch, that it actually clears the background to be transparent. And with images, make sure that they have a clear alpha channel.

djevo1

Awesome software, I'm glad I switched from Video-sl