[Elijah Lynn]

Hi Nate,

You mean the HPX is “Intraframe”, right.

Bummer you don’t have any of the footage. I looked into Veescope and thought it was interesting. It looks too good to be true, realtime key on a computer? Is it really a high performance keyer or is it more meant for live productions on a budget?

I have been using Primatte Keyer Pro and it works well even on bad “right edge smudge” XL2 footage but I really do not want edge smudge any more.

[Elijah Lynn]

I agree fully.

I have had problems keying XL2 footage because there is what I call “right edge smudge” or “pixel shifting”, I don’t know the exact name for it but it is unacceptable to key with. I recently saw one persons story and pictures of the exact same issue with his HVX 200 and really just wanted to see some samples of the HPX 170 for myself.

Originally I wanted to get a HMC 150 with a AJA Io HD for the same price but am unsure if that will work either without seeing some footage for myself. Even if it is poorly lit I can see the edge smudge that I am looking for, it is very very obvious.

So, I am still looking for real samples. Lighting can be perfect but if the camera makes up pixels out of think air then there are going to be problems.

I have read so many good things about the EX1 keying it’s native footage and even 1 report of EX1 uncompressed with a Io HD just being “nothing short of amazing”.

Just trying to make the best choice here and would love to see some samples in full HD.

Thanks

[Elijah Lynn]

Hi Nate,

You wouldn’t happen to have any of the raw footage from any of your shoots would you? Just a few seconds worth would be very helpful in my comparison with the EX1.

Cheers,

[Elijah Lynn]

That’s great! I am sure one of the pro’s should be able to recognize that! Who knows maybe somebody will even make a custom new updated chart!

Cheers,

Elijah

[Elijah Lynn]

For future reference:

I have been using dropbox for sharing files and images and I love it. It is the best thing since the internet, seriously. http://www.getdropbox.com

Put a file in the “public” folder right click on file and “copy public link” and done.

[Elijah Lynn]

Hi Jeremy,

Can you post these stills from the HD-SDI output to ProRes?

I am thinking of getting an HPX 170 for run and gun, interviews and keying and was going to do the keying uncompressed into a Kona. I have had nightmares with an XL2 exhibiting this EXACT same problem. I thought it was just 4:1:1 color space. A 4:1:1 color smoother helps a bit but not much.

It is odd that this camera is doing the exact same thing as a Canon XL2, and on the right hand side.

I am thinking that if it can be eliminated by a uncompressed output then I may be able to live with it and enjoy the built in vectorscope and waveform monitor but if this is the way the footage looks then I may have to think about the EX1.

That would be great if you could upload a side by side shot of ProRes vs DVC Pro HD.

Thanks

[Elijah Lynn]

I am by no means an expert but if you want some “workspace” for cheap. Get a 28″ Hanns G. You can always setup a layout to have your canvas viewer on a better Dell if you want to.

The 28″ Hanns G is $360 with shipping right now at NewEgg. I use one and have a 19″ Dell right next to it.

The workspace is amazing! I want to get another one or 3.

[Elijah Lynn]

I have used Primatte Keyer Pro 4.0 and I must say that while it is pretty decent and could get better depending on my skills and equipment.

It is slow, just really slow and it does not use more than 1 core of your computer and it does not use GPU. It is pretty far behind. I would have chosen DV Matte Pro except I got a better key through the Primatte demo first.

Neither one of them have good support for their software from the companies, meaning that I couldn’t send a sample and having them help me with the settings.

I am still looking for a good and fast keyer. DV Matte Pro is very fast as it uses GPU and is realtime in the timeline.

[Elijah Lynn]

Hi Wayne,

I removed the apple factory ram and put 2 matched x 2 GB sticks slots 1 & 2.

It may be a bit faster but I am not noticing much of an increase. I do know that using compressor with four instances in my quick cluster eats up my ram pretty quick, especially when I have another 8 core as a node that it is administering. So, I need more memory. I am upgrading it with another 8 GB now so I can use compressor to its fullest and run the other 8 core node at its fullest.

It sure is nice chomping a video down with distrubuted segmenteing and 16 cores. Now I just gotta get some Gigabit going on.

Hopefully FCS 3 and Snow Leopard will give me the improvements I am looking for.

One thing that really slows me down is Primatte Keyer Pro as it does not use GPU and only uses 1 core, good but extremly slow. DV Matte Pro is super fast as it uses GPU.

Anyone have a suggesting for a keyer that uses GPU and all the cores and has great quality?

[Elijah Lynn]

Thanks much David for you thoughts and helpful assistance with this project.

As we discussed earlier on the phone, I was completely wrong about the green screen, there was none. From my limited experience in this profession it looked like a green screen cloth hanging right behind them, just keyed out white. I had no clue as to why they would do that (silly in hindsight) and it only made sense to me as I somehow saw green in the blond hair and we have a green screen hanging in the other room. I think maybe it was the viewing angle of this cheaper 28″ monitor I have or my lack of sleep for the past 7-10 days fighting the learning curve of this project.

I haven’t much experience but your hunch about stripping half the fields out with a poor deinterlacing method just seems to make sense to me. I will try to grab a sample of the original footage but it is good to know that the green screen can be eliminated as part of the mystery. Thinking about your response, maybe they just captured it with the wrong settings or encoded it right after.

Actually now that I think more about it, the folder directories and clips all seem to be batch. Could it have been the wrong capture settings?

———————————————————

I did receive a reply from Graeme on the first shorter clip:

In quicktime player I see severe chroma interpolation errors on the first clip you sent. FCP does it right, Quicktime does it wrong on HDV.