HDV Acceptable Format for Greenscreen?
by syhprum
on
Oct 27, 2006 at 8:43:41 pm
Group,
We are shooting a project in HDV (JVC GY-HD100U) and want to do some green screen. Word has it that the 4:2:0 sampling rate does not lend itself well to chroma key. Is hits true? Would one recommend shooting in a 4:2:2 format, do your compositing, then import final sequence into the HDV timeline? Appreciate any thoughts.
Re: HDV Acceptable Format for Greenscreen? by theOutsider on Oct 28, 2006 at 8:40:51 am
I would say it is generally accepted that the more information you can provide your keyer, the better your results are likely to be. Saying that, yes, it would be ideal to feed it a 4:2:2 clip rather than a 4:2:0 clip, but the quality gain may be minimal if you set your shot up properly. Ultra seems to handle HDV just fine, so I would at least give it a chance. If you don't like the quality you can look at other methods of ingesting your footage, but why do all that work if you don't have to?
Re: HDV Acceptable Format for Greenscreen? by syhprum on Oct 30, 2006 at 12:04:16 pm
Thanks for the response. Would be great if I had the luxury to do this thing twice, but I don't, I need to nail it the first time out, so if one thinks it could make a difference, I will look for a way to do the 4:2:2. But what I am hearing you say is that you do not think it will make much of a difference. Thaks for the thoughts.
Re: HDV Acceptable Format for Greenscreen? by Tim Kolb on Oct 31, 2006 at 2:24:29 am
Your lighting will make the most difference.
Keep the subject as far away from the background as is possible and try to dress and light them to create as much separation between them and the background as possible.
I've used Ultra to key HDV in the past. It works very well.
Re: HDV Acceptable Format for Greenscreen? by syhprum on Nov 1, 2006 at 9:54:43 am
Thanks Tom for the reply. When you say it works very well, are you stating to the point where the average viewer can in no way tell that it is Chromakeyed? We are shooting a relatively motionless talking head over some outside shots, and it needs to look perfectly real.
Re: HDV Acceptable Format for Greenscreen? by Tim Kolb on Nov 3, 2006 at 7:24:54 pm
It's Tim...
...and how real it will look will have more to do with you than how the keyer works.
Is the footage in the background outdoors? Then light your foreground subject with 5600K light and make sure you're shooting with the proper white balance.
Where is the principal light source? Light your foreground subject accordingly.
Color correction is also important...foreground and background need the same palette to be believeable.
Can Ultra do what you want to do? Absolutely.
Can your crew do what you want to do...different question.
Ultra can't do it alone. No keyer can. Cutting a clean edge is about 10% of a believeable composite.
