Using a mask with QuickTime

Open the Movie Properties window and click the Visual Settings tab to see the dimensions of your source video.

Here is a "Drag Mask" screenshot of one of my old movies:

You''ll notice my video actually has two mask tracks so the video plays without a normal "box" so the display area "behind" the masks shows through. I also have a text box and two "sprite" tracks to close the window and hold a playback controller. They are known as Skin Track QuickTime files.

The .png file dimensions must match that found in your video file and you can find those from the Movie Inspector window.

QuickTime Player 7 Pro movies can have up to 99 tracks. Each track can have it's own position, layer, transparency and mask.

A mask is just a black and white image sized to cover the dimensions of your video. It is usually a shape that blocks some of the video.

The Pro version of QuickTime is no longer sold by Apple.

Your mask track must match the dimensions of the video track it covers. Take a look at the screenshot I posted above:

You can scale your video track but not the mask it covers. The offset values show how many pixels from the upper left corner your other video tracks might be. The layer values move multiple tracks to the foreground and lower number values are further to the "top". The transparency options are also for multiple video track movies.

If your video only has a single video track your mask must be the same dimension.

I see 3 colors in your mask track. The word Hello appears to be gray. Is this correct?

You have a very small area that shows as white and that would be where your underlaying video track would play.

Click the Invert button and it will swap the black and white areas. Does that work for you?

A mask track can only be black and white.

When you inverted the .png file it resized because its dimension doesn't match the dimension of the video track it covers.

Resize your mask .png file and make it black and white only.

YouTube may not be able to play your file until it is "converted" by QuickTime X.

If QuickTime Player 7 (the authoring app) can't display your file as you want then your .png file is the wrong dimension. The word Hello will not display because it not a part of a mask track that QuickTime understands. They can only be black and white (hide or show the underlying video track).

All of my masks still work as expected when opened in QuickTime Player 7.

QuickTime X has changed many of the supported codecs and none of my old files that have Flash video tracks will play today.

What image editing app are you using to make your black and white (1 bit) image file?

Do another test with a larger "white" area mask and open that with QuickTime Player 7. Does it work as expected?

Do you see my example videos that show a mask?

Open your video (the .mov file) with QuickTime Player 7 and then open the Movie Inspector window.

This will show the dimensions and if there are multiple tracks. You may have been putting the mask on the wrong one.

I'm not joining Dropbox to download your files but through a Google loophole was able to view your your talents as a market speculator.

The video I watched had multiple dimension changes and I think that's why your mask track didn't match.

I also saw it was a screen recording made on a Windows machine (something QuickTime Player 7 Pro can't do) so you must have used other software to create it. What software created the recording and can you open that final edit in QuickTime Player 7 Pro?