AVID Chroma Question

[Fred Williams]

Avid is not a good choice for chroma keying. Use Boris, After Effects, Combustion, etc…

[Oakmozart]

I’ll second that as far as the basic Avid Keyers go. However, if you’re on an Adrenaline HD 2.0, or will be using the new Symphony Nitris, you’ll have access to Avid’s new SpectraMatte HD 16-bit keyer. That thing is sick. In fact, I’d take SpectraMatte over Ultimatte any day! It’s a remarkable new feature from Avid and one that they did a good job on.

With that said, if you’re using an older Avid system or XPro, I’d suggest either Ultimatte AdvantEdge AVX if you can afford it (around $1600 or so), or look at some of the other keyers available as AVX plugins inside of Avid.

Boris Continuum Complete has a few good ones. $795. https://www.borisfx.com
Primatte Keyer AVX is good. $495 https://www.redgiantsoftware.com
Zmatte is great…around $400, I think. https://www.digitalfilmtools.com

Those are a few AVX-type plug ins to get you started. Boris Red and FX have keyers built-in and can be installed as plugins in XPro as well. Have a look at them too. Also consider either Adobe After Effects 6.5 Professional (which includes Keylight, one of the great keyers in the industry), or discreet combustion 4, which includes its new Diamond Keyer, which is not only a sick (good) tool, but was passed down from the higher-end Flame and Inferno suites. Using AE or C4 (both $995), you’ll have to export and reimport clips from Avid to the other app and back, but those are solid ways to work too.

[Rick]

Thanks. I have a watered down version of Boris that I can try. I have heard that there is a version of Adobe effects that can be integrated with AVID. Is that true or can you only export the finished video then import into AVID. Thanks for all your help

[Oakmozart]

I’m not following when you talk about “Adobe effects.” Are you referring to Adobe After Effects? If so, then no, you cannot integrate it into Avid as you could, say, Boris FX/Red. If using After Effects, you must import your footage from Avid into AE, do your magic in AE and then export it to Avid.

NLE Integration is one of the best features of Boris Graffiti/FX/Red.

Good luck.