Compositing Opacity Not Fading to Black

Just recently I've noticed that when I use the compositing opacity to fade to black at the end of a segment, it does not go to full black...it's like it's one or two frames short and you can still slightly see the image.
I know I can use a dissolve by I am old school and like to use the slider in the video animation setting.
Any thoughts on how to fix this?

If you're going to end of video (end of shot) make sure you back up one frame to set the final keyframe.

Thanks...but not quite sure what you mean.

Left arrow. Go back one frame. Last opacity keyframe position should be placed there. If it's not going to full black, you probably placed the keyframe at the end.

When I do commercials for large agencies, they almost always expect to have some image on the first and last frame.

in other words, they do not want to have a complete lift from black or a complete dip to black.

Their reasoning is that they're paying for 30 seconds of air time, and they're going to maximize it.

Not every agency expects this, but most I've worked with.

Just something to think about.

S

Wow...Scott...That is a new one for me. I spent over 35 years in the ad agency business and as a senior marketing guy on big brands with big network TV budgets...and I have never heard of that.

I've been at this most of my life, and yeah, I know what Scott is talking about. We do that at our TV station now with ads. Not sure it is really meaningful at the end of the day, but enough ad agencies we work with demand it, we just do it normally.

But, as stated before, if you hit the down arrow to get to the end of a clip, you're actually on the first frame AFTER that clip. Left arrow back once and you're on the clip's last physical frame. Keyframe that for zero opacity.

what you describe has always been the case in any NLE, maybe you did'nt pay attention.

even with dissolves in Media Composer or Fcp7. " fading in" at start of a movie or "out" at the end. the first or last black image coming from the black on the tape before and after , (at the time)