Transparent MP4

[GWIIIVoice]

I cannot for the life of me generate a transparent MP4. I am taking an MP4 generated in Adobe Express, pulling it into Premiere Pro, and exporting it with either:

Quicktime
Animation

8 bit + alpha

or:

Quicktime

Apple ProRes 444

8 bit + alpha

and get the exact same MP4 back. I have tried this on two different machines (Mac Mini m4 and MacBook Air M4) with the same result. I have tried it with

• MP4s with an animated background
• MP4s that come from a transparent PNG and renders as an MP4 with a black background
• MP4s with black backgrounds
• MP4s with white backgrounds

I am at a loss. Anyone with any insight on this? Thank you!

[Ann Bens]

In short, mp4 does not carry transparency.

This is really an Adobe Express issue, as it cannot generate files with transparency.

[Ann Bens]

Might want to head over to the Adobe Express forum to ask how to get a file with transparency.

[GWIIIVoice]

I understand that MP4s do not have an alpha channel. That is why I am bringing them into Premiere to create them with an alpha. And my mistake, they are being output as .MOV Quicktime files from Premiere, and still not transparent. Is the problem that the original file as an MP4 cannot be given an alpha channel during a conversion process?

[Sumeet Kumar Choubey · Accepted solution]

Hi GWIIIVoice,

Welcome to the community! As Ann Bens suggested, the mp4 format doesn't support alpha. You may try Luma Key effect to key out the black areas and create a transparent video in Premiere Pro. Here is a video that shows how to use Luma Key. Once you have the transparent video in the timeline, you can export it in QuickTime > Apple ProrRes 4444. We Hope it helps. Let us know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

Sumeet

[GWIIIVoice]

That was it. Thank you!

[Ann Bens]

Don't think the Luma effect will give you a satisfactory result.

Tends to lose all the crispiness.

Hence, the reason I did not mention it.

I suggest you make your animated logo's in Ae which can give you transparancy.