If supplied with movie media that has a transparency (alpha channel), you can use DFM to convert that media to .7th 444A for RGB+A support, or strip out independently the RGB or alpha channels. The benefit of the latter, for example, is if you have transparent media that is intended to be a luma key only and do not need the full RGB information, but only the alpha channel. This can result in a significant savings of storage and bandwidth requirement for playback.
DFM natively supports 32-bit TGA (RGB+alpha) content for this process (and Delta supports native playback of 32-bit TGA). Other transparent media, however, will need to be converted to 32-bit TGA before ingesting into DFM to convert to .7th 444A. The following steps are an example of how to convert from a PNG image sequence with transparency, to 32-bit TGA using Adobe After Effects CC.
Steps to Export as 32-bit TGA
1.Import your media with transparency into a new After Effects project
2.Right-click the image sequence and select ‘New Comp from Selection’
3.Verify the settings are correct – note that source framerate at this point is irrelevant as we are doing a frame for frame conversion.
4.With the new composition opened in After Effects, select the Composition > Add to Render Queue
5.In the Render Queue output settings, do the following:
a.Set ‘Render Settings’ to Best Settings
b.Click on the current option next to Output Module to open the ‘Output Module Settings’ window.
c.Set Format to Targa Sequence, select RGB + Alpha from the Channels menu, and then verify that 32 bits/pixel is selected under the ‘Format Options…’ button.
d.Click OK in both windows
e.Set your preferred file name
6.Press ‘Render’
Once the render is complete, you will have a 32-bit RGBA TGA image sequence. Delta can play this back natively and, depending on the composition of the show, you may not need to use DFM. However, if you would like to convert to .7th to render only the alpha channel, you can do so by following these steps in DFM.
Convert TGA to 7TH Using DFM
Open DFM and load the media into the queue by selecting the ‘add media’ button in the top menu bar.
Find your newly created TGA sequence and select the first file, then Open.
Once loaded into the queue, you will note that DFM defaults to 444 where you would normally have the option of 444, 422, and 420, and adds a pull-down menu that defaults to RGB & Alpha.
•Using the pulldown menu, select RGB & Alpha, Just Alpha or Just RGB as required
•Ensure the other settings are correct (such as ‘Optimize for SSD’) and then press Convert at the bottom of the screen.
DFM will convert your media as required.
Page edited [d/m/y]: 10/07/2017