Re: compositing and HDV...is it any easier to pull mattes that regular dv??

i have worked with hdv footage and it's way better than dv. the cameras make better pictures and the image is much clearer even though the data rate is the same as dv. as far as keying here's what I did. Brought in the sony hdv footage at full 1080i, sized it down to 720p and rendered an animation codec master. Pulled my key, which was much better than dv ever could be, then output a 720p h264 codec quicktime for playback on a macbook pro for a trade show directly to a 40" plasma through the dvi connector plugged into the macbook and rendered a standard widescreen dvd at 720 X 480 for delivery to the client. The dvd looked much better than similar footage shot on dv a year ago.

the footage was captured with fcp using the apple intermediate codec. The difference between this project and a similar one that i did last year was amazing. i just wish i could afford an hdv camera of my own.

one note.... watch out for storage space for the 720p animation codec renders. they are huge.