track matte key, crash on export

hi folks.?thanks in advance for any help on this one.?I am using Premiere Pro v7.0 on Windows XP.?i have a simple file with three video tracks.?track 1 is my background, track 2 is my foreground, and track 3 is my alpha channel (track output turned off).?the only video effect is on track 2: track matte key with matte set to track 3 and compositing using matte Luma.?every time i try to export the movie as an .avi, Premiere crashes.?what gives??it works fine and looks good in the monitor preview window, and i can export .tiffs of single frames, which look great. also, i should mention that i'm able to export as .avi just fine if the track matte key effect is off.?what am i doing wrong??thanks!

track matte key, crash on export

Welcome to the forum.

While Track Matte Keying might be the issue, let's do a few other things, in case the Effect is just stressing the system. If these come back ''clean,'' then we can tackle Track Matte Keying directly.

This ARTICLE will help you gather clues as to what is happening, when PrPro crashes.

This ARTICLE will give you some tips for doing NLE work.

Good luck,

Hunt

track matte key, crash on export

Thanks for the helpful advice, Hunt.?I tried something on a lark and it worked--just dragged the video with the track matte key forward a couple frames.?that way the rendering process could get started.?it was crashing on initiating the rendering with the track matte enabled for some reason.?simple and dumb, but it worked!

Wow, that is interesting. I do not see the PrPro ''logic'' behind that, but whatever works is GOOD! I'll keep that in the back of my mind for the next instance.

Glad you got it sorted, and thanks for telling us what you did. It's likely to help someone else down the road.

Hunt

One little caveat: when you go to Export, be careful of any gaps in the Video Tracks, that are not ''covered'' by other Clips on other Tracks. In some instances, these can halt Export, and often with a ''Failure to Return Frame'' error message. This is not always the case, but can happen all too often. I was thinking of this, as I re-read your comment about ''moving'' the Clips a few frames.

Good luck,

Hunt