Should I use progressive on EX1 for greenscreen, even when shooting 4:2:2?

[Brent Dunn]

Yes.

You are always going to have better results with progressive. The only advantage of interlace is with fast action footage, such as sports.

You shouldn’t feel afraid of progressive. You won’t notice any difference when editing. When you have separate frames it allows for cleaner shots.

Brent Dunn
Owner / Director / Editor
DunnRight Films
DunnRight Video.com
Video Marketing Toolbox.net

Sony EX-1,
Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 7D
Mac Pro Tower, Quad Core,
with Final Cut Studio

HP i7 Quad laptop
Adobe CS-5 Production Suite

[David Wheeler]

I do non-broadcast corporate work and never shoot interlaced footage. If my clients send me interlaced footage to use, I always have to de-interlace it before editing, so starting with progressive footage saves the extra step in editing. Shooting for broadcast (or fast motion) may require interlaced footage, but if your final product will be uploaded to a web server or viewed on computer monitors, you are always better working in progressive.

David Wheeler
EX1R; EX3; FCP 7; 17″ MBP, MacPro Quad, Matrox MSO2,CS5
dave@marcombiz.com

[Bob Mark]

I just did a 1080 30p green screen shoot with an EX1. Results were excellent!

Bob

[Terry O’brien]

I just finished the shoot with the EX-1 and I’ve got to say I am underwhelmed!

I have never worked with a CMOS camera before, so I may just be behind the curve, but I say that the images from the two EX-1s that I was using was much noiser than images from even my Canon XH-A1 CCD camera with 1/3″ sensors. This may just be the current state of what everyone will accept from CMOS, but I would rate the images as looking noisy like 35mm Kodak 5296, the old 400 asa film stock before T-grain.

My settings for the EX-1 were: all enhancements off. Detail off, Matrix off, -3db, and still there was a ton of noise in the green and the shadows. Oh yeah, the green was around 50 IRE, so nothing was getting underexposed.

My output was via SDI to a NanoFlash running 4:2:2 at 80Mb/sec. Since both cameras presented the same results (and we had done a complete “Reset All” on one of the cameras before doing our settings), I’ve got to assume that noisy images are just the norm.

What is your experience with video noise on the EX-1 image?

I will just have to see how things key.

[Terry O’brien]

Also, I did shoot 1920 Progressive at 30 because test footage at 35 Mb/s indicated significant tearing of the key. I had read that this may be due to the camera using interpolation to create the scan lines when in Interlace. In any event, keying at 35 Mb/s on Interlace was really chewy.

[Greg Ball]

I did two 3 green screen shoots with an EX1. All 1080P progressive. They all look great.

[Bob Mark]

Maybe try some of these picture profiles. https://www.xdcam-user.com/2011/06/ex1-and-ex3-picture-profiles/

[Terry O'Brien] “I just finished the shoot with the EX-1 and I’ve got to say I am underwhelmed!

I have never worked with a CMOS camera before, so I may just be behind the curve, but I say that the images from the two EX-1s that I was using was much noiser than images from even my Canon XH-A1 CCD camera with 1/3″ sensors. This may just be the current state of what everyone will accept from CMOS, but I would rate the images as looking noisy like 35mm Kodak 5296, the old 400 asa film stock before T-grain.

My settings for the EX-1 were: all enhancements off. Detail off, Matrix off, -3db, and still there was a ton of noise in the green and the shadows. Oh yeah, the green was around 50 IRE, so nothing was getting underexposed.”

Bob