widescreen matte intermittent in uncompressed 8-bit export

I am having difficulty getting a 1.85:1 widescreen matte to stay consistent when I export my nested sequence to an uncompressed Quicktime file. The widescreen is present on most of the Quicktime output, but there are scenes where it disappears. I have used several different ws matte generators, but none of them have applied a matte to the entire Quicktime when exported to an uncompressed file. A DV NTSC export seems to work, but I'm trying to get the best resolution possible for the movie. Any answers, thoughts, or solutions? Pretty sure I'm executing the matte process correctly.

Kevin

You're talking about two separate issues. The widescreen mask is one, export quality is another.

For export quality, the highest quality you can get is to use Export - QuickTime Movie (not Export - Using QuickTime Conversion) and choosing the "Current Settings" for your timeline.

For widescreen masking, look at this in the FAQ -- it's been asked to death:

[www.lafcpug.org]


www.derekmok.com

Kevin

did you try my widescreen matte generator?
i've had good success with it, even up to the notoriously dodgy 10bit resoultions

if you want to give it a try its at [hompeage.mac.com]

(and if you have tried it, and its now lying there in the "didn't work" pile, please let me know more about your setup and settings, as it worked the last time I looked)

hope it helps
Andy

Andy --

Tried your matte generator and still no success. This is very perplexing because I've successfully applied mattes to the sequence in the past. It's a very, very busy video timeline with at one point over 40 video tracks and tons of text, subtitles, graphics, motion, etc. Even exporting to a DV-NTSC Quicktime Movie is leaving gaps in the matte coverage. Hmmm...still searching for answers...

Kevin

When you say there are gaps, what do you mean? The clip won't cover the timeline? If that's the case, put the matte inside the Browser, double-click to open it into the Viewer, and change its duration (top left corner) to your desired length.

I don't recommend one big matte to cover a section more than two to three minutes long. I'd just paste it multiple times. It's a lot easier to deal with (for example, if you accidentally move it, you don't lose 40 minutes of render files, just two to three).

Did you try the methods recommended in the FAQ that I pointed to above?

> Even exporting to a DV-NTSC Quicktime Movie is leaving gaps in the matte coverage.
> Hmmm...still searching for answers...

You're still getting mixed up. Exporting a movie file will never solve a problem with the image that you see in the timeline -- unless you're watching effects in the Canvas, which will show effects in a degraded display quality which will not be the case in the movie file. Otherwise, the movie file will simply reflect what you saw.


www.derekmok.com

What part of the timeline are you adding the matte to? Are you nesting it before adding the matte, or just adding it to the topmost layer on your 40 layer comp?

If you nest the timeline, and add cropped colour mattes or slugs, there's almost nothing that can go wrong with that. That's one layer with black bars sitting on top of them.