Howdy! Re: Prores 4444xq w/Alpha

i still need to convert this in order to import with its alpha.

What exactly is imposing that requirement on you? And, really what exactly are you trying to do, what’s your aim and workflow here?

We may be trying to ā€œsolveā€ a problem that’s something you don’t actually need to do at all if you explain the big picture to the rest of us rather than just a subset of one way you’ve been trying to solve it.

Bernd is pretty good with this stuff. If you share the actual whole task you’re trying to do you’ll probably get some pretty good advice and new insights.

Hi Ron, Please trust me a little :slight_smile: I know for sure that the software I am using can only accept a certain spec in order to make use of a single anim file with alpha. It is currently QT Animation or Prores 4444 or 4444xq. It is on Win10pro x64. Big Picture for me is to eventually ask Kdenlive to render out two separate anim files, a black/white like the star and a matching fill image, combining both into one file with roto-scope imagery inside a transparency, replacing the Black… with those file specs. I prefer not using sequential .pngs with alphas, etc. but they would work.

I like your program alot. I am sorry for being so persistent. I certainly don’t want to give anyone a hassle. I’ll downshift expectations and use my previous workaround… and let you get back to helping others using Kdenlive as intended…as a very complete, wonderful editing+ system.

I’ll continue to explore the excellent manual and its many features because it is so inviting.

Thanks for all the effort, berndmj!

Looking at your screenshot, the only thing I can think of is that the mlt_image format=rgba line seen in the Other tab, may not be specifying a 16bit alpha, which perhaps is necessary on my end. Just a guess. Attached is a side by side view of Media Info with your original .mxf on the left and the re-processed, importable .mov version on the right.

It’s not about ā€œnot trusting youā€ - it’s about whether we’re trying to catch a bus to the moon because you’ve asked us about the bus timetables, not told us you want to go to the moon, and not noticed the rocket factory next door and the ā€œopen rocket doorā€ option in one of the menus you haven’t looked at yet.

The moon bus is never going to fly, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get to the moon from here.

The alpha_bits parameter has a default of 16, but I specified it explicitly in the profile just in case. Kdenlive doesn’t show the alpha in the resulting .mxf or .mov files but perhaps you want to check this file (.mxf) or this one (.mov).

Guess what? Your .Mov worked! Thank you, berndmj!!!
Will it be possible to have that Render Profile work on a UHD 3840x2160 file?
How did you figure it out? :grinning_face:

Don’t know but I see no reason why it shouldn’t. Please check it with this profile. Copy the line starting with <profile args= and ending with /> to the customprofiles.xml (don’t know where that is in Windows). Then start Kdenlive and select it from the Video with Alpha category.

BERNDMJ-STAR

I will try it asap, but it might be a little later tonight.

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Too bad, I am not getting the same import results using the down-loaded 4444 preset.
it may be the way I copied the text from your .xml (see screenshot)
or perhaps something else.
It may simply be that I am not rendering out properly. I never learned how to make the Black background become transparent. Even though I am using Advanced Chroma Key and choosing 0,0,0 black with the picker-- which I believe does the
trick. I can see a Green Color on V1 replace the Black from a V2 clip, using Transparency. I think i just need to keep trying things…

When I just put your working .Mov onto v1 of Kdenlive and render using your new 4444 preset, I don’t get the same, good import result.

If I just import your .Mov directly into my program, it works perfectly, preserving the Matte, as it did before.

because I’m a brand new forum user, I think I am on a kind of probation period, and may be blocked after a certain number of replies… in case you don’t hear from me, later. (this occurred earlier today)

I used the Lumakey effect on the .jpg file of the star. Essentially, you have to tell Kdenlive what is transparent/alpha. In my tests I applied the effect directly to the clip in the project bin. My Clip Monitor background is set to pink (checkered background is coming with 25.04, IIRC) so that I can see where the alpha is.

I don’t see all of the parameters for your custom ProRes 4444 profile. make sure you have unpremultiply=inplace=1 in the extra parameter field (is in the Other tab).

These are the important pieces: alpha_bits=16 mlt_image_format=rgba pix_fmt=yuva444p10le unpremultiply=inplace=1 vcodec=prores_ks vendor=apl0 vprofile=4444xq

Success! Tested it in UHD 2997 and 1080p.
It’s a beautiful thing you did…

I used Lumakey in the Project window-- great.
I couldn’t find that clip monitor setting.

THANK YOU, berndmj

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Glad I could help.

Still, when brought back into Kdenlive there is no transparency/alpha …

What is the properties=prores_4444 parameter in your screenshot for?

Hi, I was following what I thought were good copy/paste instructions from your downloaded prores4444 .xml into my Windows customprofiles.xml doc-- without knowing exactly what was necessary or optional. Below is a screen shot of your .xml doc to show what I copied.

So this is what my Windows customprofiles.xml looks like on my revised second try, which worked late yesterday. (3-20-2025)

By the way, is it possible for me to Upload my actual .xml doc, as a downloadable link for you, as you initially provided, above? Do you even need it?

I am going to move on to my part two goal of making a sure-fire template and recipe for adding a transparency/alpha channel to a composite of a white on black bkd file (no alpha) on V2, with ā€œfillā€ imagery on V1. In some cases, the fill will match perfectly (from roto) or may be full-frame texture, color or an animation.

I also had a question about how you created this preset I will be using, if you want to share:
What was the starting point or original preset that you edited from?
I want to understand better the importance of the correct parameters in the customprofiles.xml AND the OTHER parameters that display when I press Edit.
Also, why does it show as 'Intermediary" What does that say about the render’s video quality/spec?

This is weird because this is what the file contents are:

I highlighted the name of the category the profile will be listed under in the render dialog. If you put ā€œIntermediaryā€ here a new category with that name is created.

Any cloud share would do for that but I recommend to upload it to KDE Store for others to use it. You need an account for that, though. And thanks, but I don’t need it :wink:

This is because you have category="Intermediate" in the profile. It is just the name and has no bearing on the video quality.

I actually started with a profile from the Video with Alpha category. I then read up on the MLT Framework documentation for output and googled for ffmpeg prores 4444 and came across this gem. And then I experimented. I also reached out to the uploader of the ProRes profile in the KDE Store and asked whether it worked for them but unfortunately it did not. I got some inspiration from their profile, though.