Is there a way to make solid white in alternating video tracks transparent?

Charles_I

Newbie Location: Toronto Canada Joined: Jul 05, 2012 15:23 Messages: 25 Offline

Solved by

Mar 13, 2013 14:04

I recently had an old black white 16mm film transferred to digital (from film school days). The negative was cut to make a print many years ago and it was done using the standard method of creating 2 negative rolls - A & B. This is done so that the overlapping points can be printed as dissolves. So for example, shot 1 is on roll A and shot 2 is on roll B etc. all the way through the film.

So now I have 2 video tracks with alternating shots, but between each image is a strip of solid white (where the image appears on the alternating roll). My question is, is there a way to select the solid white portions and make them transparent? Otherwise I will have to cut each one out and then realign the video track for every shot.

Thanks
Charles

PlaySound

Senior Contributor Joined: Dec 02, 2010 10:26 Messages: 2031 Offline

Mar 13, 2013 17:13

Quote: I recently had an old black white 16mm film transferred to digital (from film school days). The negative was cut to make a print many years ago and it was done using the standard method of creating 2 negative rolls - A & B. This is done so that the overlapping points can be printed as dissolves. So for example, shot 1 is on roll A and shot 2 is on roll B etc. all the way through the film.

So now I have 2 video tracks with alternating shots, but between each image is a strip of solid white (where the image appears on the alternating roll). My question is, is there a way to select the solid white portions and make them transparent? Otherwise I will have to cut each one out and then realign the video track for every shot.

Thanks
Charles

From what I understand, removing the white, it would be better to cut and add a crofade.
Just make white tranparente will not return the original video, you can only try CromaKey over white, but not usually give good finish.
The video will go black tranparente or use a background image.
Note: If using CromaKey should split the white part of the video so that the effect does not contaminate the entire video. AMD-FX 8350 / 8GB DDR3
SSD SUV400S37240G / 2-HD WD 1TB
AMD Radeon R9 270 / AOC M2470SWD
Windows 7-64 / PD16 Ultimate

vn800rider

Senior Contributor Location: Darwen, UK Joined: May 15, 2008 04:32 Messages: 1949 Offline

Mar 13, 2013 17:20

If I understand you correctly, then perhaps the easiest?? way is to alter the opacity of the unwanted white bits. This can be done using clip attribute keyframes or using the opacity rubber band - in effect making them transparent.

Cheers
Adrian


Filename	Opacity.PNG	Download
Description
Filesize	37 Kbytes
Downloaded:	113 time(s)

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

Charles_I

Newbie Location: Toronto Canada Joined: Jul 05, 2012 15:23 Messages: 25 Offline

Mar 14, 2013 16:53

Thanks! I think Adrian is closer to white I need to do - there's no crossfade needed - except where the tracks overlap in only a few cases. To illustrate further it's like this:

Roll A: __xx __xx _____xx________
Roll B: xx__xxx__xxxxx_____xxxx
(I was trying to leave the white bits empty but this editor won't leave the spaces - so I've made the x part where it's white)

The xx bits are white on each roll (was black on the negative) and the only overlapping cross-fade in my example is the last one.

I think selecting each white bit and altering the opacity should do it. I was worried about having to cut each one out and then align each and every shot with the next one.

Charles

This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at Mar 14. 2013 16:56

Carl312

Senior Contributor Location: Texas, USA Joined: Mar 16, 2010 20:11 Messages: 9090 Offline

Mar 14, 2013 23:38

You can leave gaps in the tracks in Powerdirector 11.

When you remove a part of the video, select to remove and leave gap in the menu that pops up.
Color boards are not a necessary evil.
Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Charles_I

Newbie Location: Toronto Canada Joined: Jul 05, 2012 15:23 Messages: 25 Offline

Mar 15, 2013 09:55

That's even better! Thanks Car312!

Charles

vn800rider

Senior Contributor Location: Darwen, UK Joined: May 15, 2008 04:32 Messages: 1949 Offline

Mar 15, 2013 10:18

If I may just voice a small word of warning, selected removal of segments is of course a extremely useful and the latest incarnation in PD11 is generally pretty well implemented.

My word of warning is, that leaving such gaps means you must be careful to either lock the track or not to nudge (accidentally) a clip, as then the "synch" may be compromised.

I tend to do the opacity trick, which of course keeps the tracks in synch, and then as a last stage cut out segments if necessary/wanted to reduce the possibility of de-synching. There's nothing worse than producing for 40 mins to find one clip is out by a few frames somewhere, because it was accidentally dragged a little at some stage.

Cheers
Adrian Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

Charles_I

Newbie Location: Toronto Canada Joined: Jul 05, 2012 15:23 Messages: 25 Offline

Mar 15, 2013 15:47

Good point. Thanks Adrian. Don't want to have to search for the out-of-sync point in a 17 minute film. I'll try your method first because, as you say, that will hold the tracks where they are.

Now if I could only get the television industry to understand what "sync" means - I'm going crazy watching TV half the time, having been a film student and seeing all this out-of-sync content, sometimes but just a frame or two... but that's off topic, sorry ;

Thanks everyone.
Charles

Carl312

Senior Contributor Location: Texas, USA Joined: Mar 16, 2010 20:11 Messages: 9090 Offline

Mar 15, 2013 18:01

Quote: Good point. Thanks Adrian. Don't want to have to search for the out-of-sync point in a 17 minute film. I'll try your method first because, as you say, that will hold the tracks where they are.

Now if I could only get the television industry to understand what "sync" means - I'm going crazy watching TV half the time, having been a film student and seeing all this out-of-sync content, sometimes but just a frame or two... but that's off topic, sorry ;

Thanks everyone.
Charles

The sound sync is usually not too bad, but the Closed Captions can be a very long way off.

If you have some hearing loss and you want to use the Closed Captions for sound clues, then it is very disturbing for the Captions to be so far out of sync with the sound.

That may not be a problem for a person that is completely deaf. I think it would still be a big problem because the lip sync does not fit the Captions.

Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Xerox

Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Aug 09, 2009 01:36 Messages: 446 Offline

Mar 16, 2013 00:47

Just a note to say that you can import a transparent PNG image and keep use that for spacing. You could also create a new title and then erase the default text before doing a Save As. That would be transparent. Gateway DX4380, AMD A8-5500 Quad Core 3.2GHz with ATI Radeon HD 7560D; 16GB RAM; 1 TB SATA 7200 RPM; Windows 8 Pro 64-bit; PDR11, PDVD12.