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HDV Bluescreen in FCP – Yay or Nay?
Hi there,
I have a client who is planning a DVD that will mix SD & HD footage… The bulk of sections on the DVD will be HDV, no problem there, but some sections require interviews shot blue (or green) screen with background footage keyed in. This is where the problem lies…
The BG footage is from a mix of Beta SP and DigiBeta hence all SD. Client’s suite is DV/HDV only (no analogue or SDI) so our options are to either
a. Shoot IVs HDV, ingest background footage DV and key and uprez in FCP
b. Shoot IVs DVCam, and keep it all the sameAny of the board care to offer their real world experience of what will produce the best results? I’ve had variable results keying DVCam in FCP using standard tools – is there a better keying plug-in out there?
Cheers,
Jason
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5 Replies
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green screens seem to work better than blue in DV.
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> a. Shoot IVs HDV, ingest background footage DV and key and uprez in FCP < YOu will get a far better key in HD than in DV. Encourage the producer to do something interesting and stylisitic to the background video to help hide the fact it is being scaled or processed. > Any of the board care to offer their real world experience of what will produce the best results? I’ve had variable results keying DVCam in FCP using standard tools – is there a better keying plug-in out there?
< Chromakeying depends on the shoot, the video format and the keying software. I have no experience with HD at all but Boris keyers for DV end to be much better than anything else I've seen. bogiesan This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.” -
in my experience FCP lacks key quality. try using something like shake or after effects. results will show
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I work for a visual effects company in Los Angeles. The general rule of thumb when it comes to keys is never mix DV and keys in the same sentence. As far as visual effects is concerned HDV and DV are essentially the same format, they share the same tape stock and similar problematic characteristics. With that said you do what you got to do. We’ve run tests with HDV compared to true HD and DV. HDV isn’t too bad as long as there isn’t a lot of motion. It’s certainly much better than what you get with DV. Just make sure that you shoot far enough from the screens to minimize spill. And I agree with previous posts that you should try and pull your keys in after effects or shake (keylight is good). But just a word of warning, depending on how you shoot you may not be able to get rid of the spill entirely without drastically cutting into the mattes. You may want to spend the extra dough and shoot on DVCProHD. Good luck.
some good reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDV -
Thanks all, kinda what I was thinking… I wondered about HDV being better due to the different colourspace, so I think we’ll have to go with that shot greenscreen for the IV’s. I’ll make sure everyone has stiffly laquered hair and ban mohair sweaters 😉
I’ll let you know how I get on!
Jason
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