Alex4D Switch Channel

A free Final Cut Pro for Mac transition that simulates an analogue TV switching channels between shots.

Use this transition to imply a change in content. Changing the channel means the outgoing subject is over, it is time to move on to the incoming subject.

Uploaded Friday 13 September 2013

This free plugin is for Final Cut Pro for Mac version 10.0.6 and newer.

Thanks to Y-Love and Matt Davis for the use of their interview footage.

You can control whether the clips roll up or down during the switch, how much the clips wobble up and down and what proportion of the transition is of used to show the clip moving up or down. If you want to apply a similar distortion to the clips before or after the transition, use my free Bad TV a4d effect.

To show an aside or interruption, use the opposite direction roll when returning to the main subject. For example, if you use Alex4D Switch Channel to roll down to an aside, use it again with the same settings apart from rolling back up to the main subject.

Controls

switch-channel-controls

Roll choose whether the clips roll up or down during the switch.

Maximum Jitter the outgoing and incoming clips wobble up and down before and after the roll part of the transition – set a high value for maximum jitter to make the wobble more extreme. A value of 0 will prevent the wobble.

Roll Proportion sets what proportion of the transition the clips roll up or down. 100 – the roll happens throughout the transition, 0 – the roll happens instantly in the centre of the transition.

Download the free Alex4D Switch Channel transition for Final Cut Pro for Mac

Click to download the installer:

This plugin is free to download and use, but if you’d like to show your appreciation for my work, please donate here:

Once installed, you’ll find it the Alex4D section of the Transitions browser:

switch-channel-in-browser

If when you try to run the installer you get a message stating it can’t be opened “because it was not downloaded from the Mac App Store” – your macOS security preferences are protecting you. To change them, or work around this, visit this post at blog.alex4d.com.