Suggestion - Chroma key output

I'm not sure if this would work as I think it would, but figured i'd ask anyway. I'm wondering if it would be possible to import a video into Virb Edit and add the overlays as normal, but then export just the overlays and not the video (or export them as two separate videos). The overlay video would use a solid colour (I think it's referred to as a Chroma Key?) such as green for where the video would normally reside. The benefit of this is that the overlay video and actual video could then be imported into a more advanced editing tool and edited separately (with the chroma key used to set the transparency of the overlay video). Here's a few examples of why I think this would be useful:

1) If the video isn't level it could be rotated without rotating the overlays
2) If the video is shaky it could be adjusted without the overlays moving
3) If some parts of the video require processing (such as exposure) that could be done without the colour of the overlays changing

I'm interested to hear what other people think of this.

Thanks,
Brett
  • We'd still like to continue to improve this, but you can get 90% of what you're after today:

    Go to Menu -> Settings, then check the box that says "Export transparent PNG sequence for overlays"

    This will create a sequence of images (TONS!) that professional video applications can interpret as a video layer. The down-side is it will greatly increase export time and temporarily takes up a fair amount of disk space.

    We like the chroma-key idea and hope to get it into a future release to make things a little more streamlined.
  • Thanks cvarley! I wasn't aware of that. I'll give it a shot and see how I go.

    Brett
  • I've finally gotten around to trying this out.

    The PNG files do work, however I'm yet to find a video editing program that can handle enough png files to make a usable video (eg most of my videos have at least 30000 frames).

    I've tried tonight to create a custom gauge of fixed size (1920x1080) and colour (green) and put this as the base gauge with the normal gauges on top. This exports with a green background instead of the video. This is much easier to use in a video editing program however it appears that the transparent gauges don't handle the chromo key very well. I'll keep trying but I think it'll only work with opaque gauges.

    Regards,
    Brett