Formats for chroma keying

[Richard Van den boogaard]

Hi Johannes,

The more detail is recorded in the image, the better your key will perform when doing green screen work.

Therefore, if you record in ProRes 4:2:2 or better yet 4:4:4, it will work better than a 4:2:0 encoded file. What will not help you much is transcoding of compressed 4:2:0 footage to 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 ProRes. As far as I know, there are not a lot of cameras that allow for native ProRes recording (ARRI Alexa does), although some cameras offer a 4:2:2 SDI output signal which can be recorded on a separate recorder.

I don’t have experience yet how DSLRs perform with green screen work. Maybe someone here on the forum does…

Richard van den Boogaard
Freelance cameraman • Glidecam Operator • Editor • YouTube expert