Please help a newbie with a video render problem!

Question

Im new to After Effects so please forgive if this is a silly question.
I have a Edge Animation with a background color of #ffa800
I have imported a video into After Affects which has a transparent background.
Research tells me that video is never really transparent so I am creating a solid layer in AE, placing video above it and setting the blend mode to "screen"
I now have a video with a background color of #ffa800.
However, when I export / render the video out and import into my Edge Animate project the background color of the video is off and does not match my Edge Animate background.
I have spent all day experimenting with different export options rendering direct from AE and also via Media encoder. Im now completely stumped.
I have also tried setting the video background to color #ffa800 and then masking my video. This saves me from having to use a blend mode of "screen" but I get the exact same results.
Could anybody please give me some tips on where I am going wrong please. The back ground is so close but either slightly darker or lighter depending on what I have set which spoils the overall animation effect I am attempting to create.
Thanks,
Paul

Answer 1

Without exact system information, render settings and so on nobody can tell you much. That aside, there are some fundamental failures in your plan. First, web colors mean nothing in AE or in most graphics programs for that matter due to the little subject of color management and possible quantization errors. Whatever colors you dial in, do so using the normal RGB sliders. Second, blending modes do not create transparency, even if for mathematical reasons the blending formula used may appear to eradicate certain colors. Third, you need to consider Gamma values. Video is not blending linear and both your computer screen as well as the video content itself may have a built-in Gamma. As a result, your blending operation could already produce wrong results like a slight haze, the encoding of the video file could introduce Gamma skew and then finally in the last step, whatever tool you use to display may apply dynamic corrections as well or in reverse, none at all. So it basically comes down to checking those things and properly calibrating/ adjusting your monitor and your system color settings and make use of color management in AE, if relevant. In the end, though, you will always see minor color deviations. It's inherent in how compressed formats like H.264 work. You can only try to minimize them as much as you can.
Mylenium