Keying in FCP – what plugins do you recommend?

[Nick Toth]

I’ve gotten very clean keys with the internal keyers in FCP using DV25. Just make sure they’re well lit.

[Ben Holmes]

It may be an off topic response, but if you have a lot of difficult keying to do, I would consider purchasing Combustion. It’s faster and the new version now includes the Diamond Keyer, the best green-screen keyer I have ever seen. It’s also quicker than after effects, and a better workflow IMHO. If you have some time before this work starts, do consider it – you really need a good bit of compositing software, and I was able to pick up Combustion after just one day with a competent operator.

Ben

Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
EVS and FCP specialists
Current Mac systems All Dual 2.7Ghz with Kona 2 and Digital Voodoo cards, 6Gb Ram, Sapphire, SCSI320 Medea and Huge Arrays.

FCP projects include Sky TV coverage of the Ryder Cup and US Open Golf – Live OB specialists. Edit/slomo vehicle.
http://www.editec.co.uk

[Walter Biscardi]

[Erik Lindahl] “After Effects is to slow to work for us I reckon.”

After Effects will probably render a little bit faster than FCP. Not a whole lot, but you’re still going to be in for some rendering time with any chroma key.

[Erik Lindahl] ”
1. Shooting HDCAM, editing with DVCPRO HD”

Of all your choices, this is the one I would go with if HD is your final destination. But keep in mind that DVCPro HD is a compressed format. The absolute best way to ensure a perfect key is to bring in the HDCAM at 8 or 10bit uncompressed. That’s what we do here whenever we can.

If you go with the DVCPro HD option, use the 4:2:2 color smoother filter before you apply the Chroma Key.

[Erik Lindahl] “What I’ve been look at is:
– dv Matte Pro for FCP
– dv Matte Blast for Motion
– dft zMatte”

I use the Boris Continuum Complete package which contains outstanding Chroma Key filtering. I was told at NAB to look at Motion’s built in keyer as it’s very very clean and much better than FCP’s.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Director, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

Now Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Erik Lindahl]

Okey, I just must have hade bad sources or something. Keylight in After Effects has always given me great results. The internal keyer’s in FCP I’m NOT confident with. Motions PrimatteRT is ALOT better than FCP also, and faster, but produces worse results than Keylight in AE.

[Erik Lindahl]

Okey, sound cool, but I don’t think it’s a viable option. We’re going to key over 1000 shots in a few days so the hassel of in/exporting, naming files etc. is something we want to skip if possible.

[Walter Biscardi]

[Erik Lindahl] “We’re going to key over 1000 shots in a few days so the hassel of in/exporting, naming files etc.”

Then I hope you have more than one workstation available. no matter what way you go, render times are going to be horrendous.

You may even want to look for someone with a CineWave based FCP system. That’s still the only card on FCP that can do real-time Chroma Key, as in “Edit to Tape” realtime chroma key. That’s still the one feature I’m missing the most from my old CineWave system.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Director, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

Now Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Erik Lindahl]

If you count in the fact that you have to export and import everything to and from AE I’d reckon FCP should be faster when doing a lot of keying of small scenes (one 2s and one 4s in a 60s show).

If I really want speed – Motion kicks After Effect by tenfold. But the quality will lack then, somewhat, and we’re still in the inport/export “hell”. The thing is we’re doing over 1000 shots to 60s shows. Motion is from my experiance much better than FCP, much faster, but more limited than AE (no lightwarping for instance).

FORMAT AND SHOOTING OPTIONS
Okej, but if we don’t plan to deliver HD? Our main goal is the internet and secondary is to have a back-up copy for TV. HDTV is non-excistant here in Sweden, everything is SD. HDCAM is quite a “bad” format interms of lower color and croma resoluition. But when sampling it down to SD Uncompressed it might be better than IMX captured uncompressed? Or will DVCPROHD be a better option than Uncompressed SD with it’s higher resolution?

[Erik Lindahl]

Haha, I know! 🙂

We’re going be two people doing the work and have tre or four workstations.

– One Quad Core 2.5 G5
– One Dual 2.7 G5
– One Dual 2.5 G5

Possibly also one Dual Core 2.3 G5.

I’m estimating about 6000s of chroma-keying. I’ve been looking into “dv Matte Blast” for Motion due to it’s incredibly fast keying possibilities.

[Walter Biscardi]

[Erik Lindahl] “If you count in the fact that you have to export and import everything to and from AE I’d reckon FCP should be faster when doing a lot of keying of small scenes (one 2s and one 4s in a 60s show).”

Not with Automatic Duck. Simply lay out all your shots on timelines and then export that timeline to AE. All of your shots open up exactly as they were in your FCP timeline. Then just render your shots and bring them back in. Works very well.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Director, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

Now Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Erik Lindahl]

Considering we have to export 1000 files, yes, that takes a lot of time exporting and opening.

Automatic duck is also EXTREMELY sensitive to file naming and such, the import/export sequence does take time. A good keyer for FCP would probably give us a much more simplified workflow.