[Michael Arnes]

Thanks for your input Paul. It’s reassuring to hear that I can still get good results with this camera.

Regarding setting Keylight to “Intermediate Result”, do you mean that I should keep it on there even when rendering the file? Or just when adjusting my key and matte settings?

I seem to recall that I tried the “intermediate result” before, and I ended up with a very altered color on my background (instead of transparency). Maybe I’m doing something wrong…

Also, do you tend to do any pre-processing on your footage before applying Keylight? (eg. Denoiser) Is there anything that can help reduce the DV artifacts before keying out?

Thanks again!

[Michael Arnes]

Thanks for your input Dave.

The Vixia HF G30 records at both 23.976 and 29.97. I prefer to shoot at 23.976. Also, I’m not sure if the camera can shoot 720. Just 1080 (but not 100% sure).

I’m actually not savvy enough when it comes to understanding 3:2 pulldown, so I’ll have to learn about that.

When I bought this camcorder, I knew it wasn’t a “professional” camera. But I gotta admit that I’m a little thrown off by this 4:2:0 business. Actually, I just learned that the 5D Mk ii and iii also are 4:2:0.

I see a lot of YouTube videos that were shot in front of a green screen and they look decent enough (to my eyes anyway). My goal for this project doesn’t go much further than YouTube… so I hope I can find a workaround for this flickering edge problem.

Thanks again Dave – and if anyone else would care to give their 2 cents on what my options are, I would appreciate it. Thanks.

[Michael Arnes]

I really appreciate you taking the time to explain all of this John. Things are starting to make more sense now and I guess I have a couple of options to consider.

Thanks again!

[Michael Arnes]

Thanks again John for your input.

Frustrating I guess, the whole 32 bit situation with FCP 7. I’ve read a little bit here and there about people’s gripes with upgrading to FCP X (many don’t like it, etc). I guess I may have to consider upgrading to X at some point.

With regard to Blackmagic speed test, I had tried to download it before and for some strange reason, it wouldn’t load on my computer (some discrepancy with OS 10.6.8, which is what I run). Although I thought that this speed test is supposed to be compatible with Snow Leopard. Strange. Anyway, I used X Bench instead, which I guess is similar. I posted a screen shot of the result (not quite sure how to read it). Here below are the results for my G Drive, 7200 rpm, Firewire 800.

Also, being that I’m a bit of a novice at all of this, I didn’t know there was such a thing as ProRes 444 (is that totally different from 4444?) In previous projects, I had always used ProRes 422. However, I just switched to 4444 because this is the first time I am shooting footage in front of a green screen.

Just to explain my process, for the sake of clarity.

* I’m shooting footage in front of a green screen (my camera shoots AVCHD)

* I convert footage to ProRes 422 (I had already done that before I learned about ProRes 4444).

* I import ProRes 422 footage into After Effects. Key out the green. Do some color treatment. I then render out as ProRes 4444. I render out foreground (subject) footage in a separate file from the background footage. In other words, I don’t commit and do the “compositing” part of this in After Effects, because I want the freedom to make editing decisions in FCP 7 later (being able to blend various foreground clips with various opacity settings, minus any background). Hope that makes sense.

* I import all ProRes 4444 files into FCP 7 and start editing.

That’s when the trouble begins (the error green showing up here and there).

Thanks again for your advice. I’m still learning…

[Michael Arnes]

Interesting John. So is there a solution for that? Given my current setup? Does that mean that my current rig is just too weak to handle ProRes 4444?

Thanks for your input too Christopher. Actually, my project is just a 4 minute music video. My FCP project file size is currently 430 KB. So I’m not sure…

[Michael Arnes]

Understood. Thanks again for your help!

[Michael Arnes]

Thanks for your input John. That’s exactly the kind of advice I was looking for.

Sounds silly, but it never occurred to me to set my iMac at a higher resolution (I just tried to match what FCP recommended). Also because I prefer to see things a little larger. But thanks for that.

I’m using ProRes 4444 because I’m editing footage shot in front of a green screen (chroma key), so I need the alpha channel.

I’ll definitely look into investing in some thunderbolt drives (for my video content).

Question: Do you think that using a 5400 rpm FW 800 external drive as my boot drive is also a potential problem? (I like to keep my internal iMac drive separate, since I use it for audio recording for clients and prefer not to mess with it in any way).

Thanks again!

[Michael Arnes]

Thank you Dave & Christopher. I really appreciate the information. Still learning.

[Michael Arnes]

Thanks for your input Christopher. That’s a good and valid question (why did I choose Animation codec). A while back, I had asked someone about how I should approach this process, while keeping the highest quality possible in After Effects (before I finally edit in FCP 6), and I was told I should use the Animation codec, because it is a lossless codec. So I went with that. But once again, I don’t know much about that topic.

I also read somewhere that if I need the alpha channel (which I probably do, since my footage was shot in front of a green screen), that the equivalent of the Animation codec for Apple would be ProRes 4444 only (which I don’t think Final Cut Pro 6 supports).

I basically would like to know whether this “glitch” in FCP 6 (with regard to the RT button on the timeline) is happening because I’m using the Animation codec, or whether I’m doing something else incorrectly.

I’m also considering investing in a thunderbolt RAID hard drive (G tech), which I understand will give me a much faster data transfer capability. Maybe that will help too?

In any case, thanks again for your input. If anyone else can chime in with their 2 cents, I would appreciate it.