Mini DV Greenscreen

[Enrique Borja]

sure! the better the quality, the easiest the keying..

[Darby Edelen]

[MikeyforVFX] “Would there big a significant difference (i.e easier keying) from using a mini dv consumer camera vs a mini dv prosumer camera?”

For keying you want to have the best resolution possible, specifically the best chroma (‘color’) resolution possible. NTSC DV records in 4:1:1 chroma compression, meaning that you have 1/4 as much chroma information as luma (‘brightness’) information. This works pretty well for most uses because the human eye is less sensitive to color than brightness, but it can cause some problems (blocky edges) when keying.

You can blur the chroma in After Effects by applying Channels > Channel Combiner and setting it to RGB to YUV, then apply Blur > Channel Blur and set the Green and Blue blur values to something like 0.5 (more or less as needed), then apply another instance of Channels > Channel Combiner and set it to YUV to RGB. This will blur the chroma (UV) of the footage and should make for less blocky edges when keying.

Otherwise, if you have a big budget, buy a camera that uses 4:2:2 chroma compression (the DVCPRO50 and D-9 formats use 4:2:2).

That’s some technical info about keying, but there are also things you can do when shooting to improve your key. Use as much of the frame as possible when shooting your subject (you can always scale it down in AE) even if this means turning your camera on its side (you can always rotate the key 90