• Adobe After Effects

  Best For keying Footage?

  Posted by Christopher Loehrer on March 18, 2008 at 8:05 pm

  I see that in Video Pilot’s Tutorial about Keylight that he uses a .mov file. Is there any advantage to using that file over using a .AVI file? I am using “keylight plugin” works pretty good.

  I am getting pretty good Keys but am looking to get a bit better and would like to explore the formating options that may give me better results.

  any experience is welcome… Does and Do Nots thanks.

  Chris

  Chris

  Darby Edelen replied 18 years, 4 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Darby Edelen

  March 18, 2008 at 8:39 pm

  [Christopher Loehrer] “I see that in Video Pilot’s Tutorial about Keylight that he uses a .mov file. Is there any advantage to using that file over using a .AVI file?”

  Depends entirely on what codec is contained in the MOV or AVI. Some codecs have chroma subsampling that limits the resolution of the chroma channels (the color in the footage, which is what you’re using to key with) to 1/2 or even 1/4 that of the luma channels.

  You can read more about this here:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroma_subsampling

  Other than that and the standard compression artifacts there shouldn’t be too many codec related issues with keying. You’ll likely run into far more trouble if the footage was not lit and shot correctly.

  Darby Edelen
  Designer
  Left Coast Digital
  Santa Cruz, CA
• 

  Christopher Loehrer

  March 18, 2008 at 8:53 pm

  in the case of AVI which settings would you suggest to acheive best results. Codecs? MIcrosoft uncompressed AVI 10-bit YUV (4:2:2), DV AVI, or just AVI?

  thanks
  Chris

  Chris
• 

  Darby Edelen

  March 18, 2008 at 9:38 pm

  [Christopher Loehrer] “in the case of AVI which settings would you suggest to acheive best results. Codecs? MIcrosoft uncompressed AVI 10-bit YUV (4:2:2), DV AVI, or just AVI? “

  This will often be determined by the media you use to shoot the green/blue screen footage… miniDV, for example, is 4:1:1 and there’s nothing you can do about it. You can use various techniques to smooth the chroma channels so that they will not be as blocky, but you can’t run 4:1:1 footage into a 4:2:2 codec and expect amazingly improved results. So I guess the question boils down to: how are you getting your green/blue screen footage?

  Darby Edelen
  Designer
  Left Coast Digital
  Santa Cruz, CA

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