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Output Panel

Configures what a clip exports as — destination, filename, format, and whether it should just be written back next to its own source instead — and renders it. Rendering itself lives here too now (see Render, progress, and cancel below); there's no separate queue panel. Reached directly via File → Export… (Ctrl+E), or by clicking the panel itself if it's already visible.

Note

This panel is a single, read-only-at-a-glance summary of what's about to render: a READY TO RENDER list (every checked clip's resolved output filename), a live Destination field, and read-only Naming/Format summaries — each with a Change… button that opens the actual editable controls in a small pop-up dialog. Editing in those dialogs writes straight through to the project, same as everywhere else — no separate Save/OK step.

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Output Panel showing the Save-to destination, bold filename preview, and the Format row.

Save to

  • Browse… picks a destination folder for everything you export from this project. Until you explicitly choose one, Transduce shows (and uses) a sensible platform default — ~/Movies/Transduce on macOS — in dim italic text, so it's clear nothing has been deliberately set yet.
  • Below the destination, a bold, live-updating filename preview shows exactly what the next file will be named, resolved against the currently selected (or first loaded) clip. See Naming below for how that name is built.
  • Re-rendering to a name that already exists at the destination never overwrites it — a Finder-style -2, -3… suffix is appended automatically.

Naming

A structured builder — no filename template or token syntax to type:

  • Custom Text — optional free text, with a Position control (Start / After clip name / End) for where it lands in the name.
  • Include Clip Name — the source clip's own name.
  • Include Batch Number — the clip's 1-indexed position in the current render batch, rendered as clip{N}of{M} (e.g. clip3of12). Not a frame number, and nothing else to configure.
  • Version / Descriptor — a second, prefilled text field (defaults to V01, can be changed to Clean, Video, etc.) — always the last segment in the name.

For formats that write an image sequence, a Frame numbering section also appears — Start and Digits fields for the real per-frame filenames each frame gets on disk (e.g. _1001, _1002…), independent of everything above; hidden for single-file video formats.

Every field here writes straight to the project as you edit it — no separate Save/OK step. File organisation on disk (Flat / By clip / By format, as opposed to the filename itself) is configured separately, in Project Settings → Organisation.

Format

  • A Format dropdown selects the delivery format (CineForm, H.264, OpenEXR, and so on) directly in this panel. It stays in sync with Project Settings → Delivery — changing it in either place updates the other.
  • A frame rate dropdown sits next to it, likewise synced with Project Settings → Delivery.
  • ▸ Options expands the selected format's own settings (bit depth, compression, quality, alpha, and so on — whatever that format exposes). Collapsed by default.
  • A read-only summary line below shows the current format plus its key options and frame rate, so you can confirm what's about to export at a glance without opening Options.

See Export Formats for what each format and its individual options actually do.

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The Format row, expanded Options, and read-only summary line.

Alpha

Two independent delivery questions, plus Cut Out. This section and each format's Include Alpha Channel checkbox stay gated until at least one layer in the project is contributing to alpha (A+ or A− on the Layer Stack).

The matte itself is built from those layers and shaped on the Colour Panel's ALPHA tab. This section only decides how it leaves the app.

Embed in the main file

Per-format. On for encoders that can carry alpha (OpenEXR, PNG, ProRes, CineForm, Uncompressed, DPX RGBA, WebM) when that format's own Include Alpha Channel option is on. Alpha Type (Premultiplied / Straight) is documented in Alpha Channels.

Write a standalone matte sequence

One global toggle, independent of the main format — its own dedicated EXR / DPX / PNG matte encoder, so a travelling matte can exist even when the main deliverable cannot carry alpha at all. Written alongside the main files as <name>_matte/.

Cut Out

Cut out over background color composites the graded frame over a solid fill using the same alpha, in linear ACEScg, before the display transform and encode. Pick the fill with the colour swatch. Turning Cut Out on does not build a new matte — it reuses the clip's existing alpha.

Combination What you get
Cut Out alone A composited RGB plate over the chosen colour.
Cut Out + embedded alpha The composited plate, plus Straight alpha in the same file (Premultiplied would darken a fill that's already in the pixels).
Cut Out + standalone matte A keyed plate and an independent travelling matte sequence.

The Viewer's Final Output tab previews Cut Out live when it is enabled.

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Output Panel Alpha section: Write separate alpha sequence, Cut Out checkbox, and background colour swatch.

Original mode

Use original resolution — a checkbox for the simplest possible export: write the clip back out unresized, at the resolution it came in at, into its own source folder (not the Save-to destination above) with _td appended to the filename. This is per-clip, not per-session — each checked clip returns to its own original location, not a shared destination.

Format is unaffected by this checkbox — the clip still renders in whichever format is currently selected above, the same as any other export. There's no source-format passthrough (no way to hand back the clip's original codec/container unchanged); Original mode only ever controls resolution.

Render, progress, and cancel

A Render button sits in a fixed bar at the bottom of the panel. It targets whichever clips are currently checked in the Input Panel — the same ready-checkbox that drives the toolbar's own Render button and the Input Panel's own checkbox-driven Render button — so there's one definition of "what gets rendered" throughout the app, and one place it actually runs, not a separate queue-then-run step.

  • With no clips checked, the button reads Render and is disabled.
  • With one clip checked, it reads Render 1 clip.
  • With more than one, it reads Render N clips.

Clicking it renders the checked clips using this panel's current settings (destination, format, Original toggle) immediately — no separate queueing step first. Each render is a snapshot of this panel's settings at the moment you click — changing settings here afterward doesn't retroactively change a render already in progress.

While a render is running, the Render button is replaced in place by a live progress bar and a Cancel button, right in this same bottom bar — there's no separate panel to switch to in order to watch progress or stop a render.

Trying to render an exact duplicate (same clip, same resolved filename, same settings) as one already queued or running is refused with a brief inline message — change something (destination, name, format, or resolution) to render it again.