After a three year hiatus to FCP I'm back on Avid. The transition back isn't nearly as bad as going from Mac back to Windows. Anyway there are a few things I used to do in FCP that I can't figure out how to do in Avid and both have to do with Quicktime Animation Codec movies with embedded Alpha channels.

So, I have this Lw3rd provided by the client. It animates on but not off. So I want to take the first 10 frames reverse it and put it at the end to make an animate off. The problem is that when I double click with the Lift tool and apply "Reverse Motion" to both the fill and the matte layers the matte layer gives me the "Wrong Format" error and the key gets all messed up. Does anyone know how to do this in the Avid (MC 2.8.1)?

Also, in FCP I used to use the Travel Matte: Alpha transfer mode to "steal" the alpha channel from the Lw3rd and use it wipe the text when the Lw3rd animates on and off. It would be something like this: v1 video clip, v2 lw3rd QT+Alpha, v3 lw3rd QT+Alpha, v4 Text layer with Travel Matte: Alpha selected. How would I go about doing something like this in Avid (MC 2.8.1)?

Thanks in advance for all your help.  The people over at the CreativeCow forum haven't wanted to touch this question.

This is something that FCP does much better than the Avid does. Couple that with this "Wrong Format" bug that's cropped up in the later versions and it is no help to anyone.

The you USED to do this is to step in and copy the Alpha to the source monitor and cut it back in. Now, you get wrong format when you do this.

Until Avid gets this sorted, I've had to take my QTs to AE and render out just the Alpha as a separate movie.

I just tested this with a Photoshop still...

Select your Matte key in the effect editor and hit the delete key. this leaves the alpha without giving me the "Wrong Format" error in 1:1 resolution.

Huh, when I try to do that with a QT I am left with just the Fill layer.

I was afraid of that. I'm not sure when that changed but, in the meridian days, this was a great way to get access to the Alpha.

Let me see what I can find out about the "Wrong Format" thing.

 To steal the alpha to wipe the text on, can't you just step into the matte key effect and replace the fill with your text?

Regarding reversing the alpha--I answered you on CreativeCow a few days ago, but don't bother reading it.  I was unaware that the Wrong Format is a bug when you try to copy/cut the alpha in a sequence, so my post won't work.

Is there any way to step into your lower third, select just the Matte, and create a video mixdown?  Then do the same with your fill?  If this works (doesn't give you wrong format), then you can cut the fill to V2, Matte to V3, apply reverse timewarp to both, collapse them together and apply a Matte key effect to rejoin them (don't Alt+Drag the Matte key, just drop it on the submaster effect after you collapse--it will replace it and make a proper matte key).

If video mixdowns don't work then this is a serious bug.  Wish I could help more.

Michael.