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Chromakey issues
I am working with footage shot on a Panasonic HVX200, brought into FCP as DVCPRO50 NTSC 29.97, 720×480 using AJA I/O box.
When I bring that into AfterEffects either exported out as self-contained or run through Automatic Duck, the footage has a lot of stair-stepping. My comp setting in AE is 720×480, NTSC DV, 29.97.
Am I missing a step? Am I doing too much? Not enough? Is there an DVCPRO50 Preset available either for the comp settings or in the preferences that I don’t have?
Any help is GREATLY appreciated!
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2 Replies
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Could be in your AJA card settings. You really don’t even need the AJA if you’re running Final Cut 5 or up. It can read the HVX DVCPro codec directly allowing you to come in from camera via firewire. If it looks fine in Final Cut it should be fine in AE. You can also change your camera settings where it mounts as a hard drive on your desktop when you plug in via firewire. This will allow you to grab the quicktime movie files and import those directly into AE without capturing in Final Cut. You might also check your comp settings. I’ve thought I had the frame rates the same before and they weren’t. Always double check. If you shot at 23.97 and your comp settings are 29.97, you’ll get some stair steppin’. You might be interpreting your footage incorrectly too. In your project window highlight the quicktime movie of your chroma key and hit apple+f. That will bring up your footage interpretation options. Check and make sure that is set to what you shot it at. Might try changing it just to see if that fixes it. Good luck.
Jon Walker
Creative Services
WPSD News Channel 6
jwalker@wpsdtv.com -
Are you only seeing the stairstepping in After Effects?
Are you seeing it immediately or only after keying?
And finally: is the source footage NTSC sized?
Why on earth would you shoot NTSC on an HVX200 if you are going to try chromakeying? The extra resolution in 1080p helps a lot in getting a good key, and if the final delivery format is NTSC, pulling mattes from HD sources (even if they’re compressed to DVCProHD) will give excellent results…
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