vegas 4.0 chroma key problem ?

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<marks542004@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1104454066.466553.78430@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Another stupid question.
>
> I have downloaded the trial version of Vegas Studio 4 and am quite
> impressed with its features.
>
> My specific problem is a halo appearance around an actor that was
> overlayed on a background using the chroma-key effect.
>
> It would be ok for a home movie but I need to do it a bit better.
>
DV is very difficult for chroma keying because of the heavy compression.
If you with a less than perfect image, it will never look good. This is one
area where Betacam is clearly superior to DV.

There is a program/plug-in that is suposed to do pretty well with good DV.
I think it was Ultra from http://seriousmagic.com/ukoverview.cfm $545.00
Then there's Ultimatte, http://Ultimatte.com/ but it is a little more
expensive.

> If this was a paint application I would create a mask - shrink it a
> little and apply to get a nice crisp edge.
>
> Any suggestions ?
>
> Also the specs for the app indicate it only does 16 bit color. I am
> used to dealing with 24 or 32 bit color. The test files I have produced
> look fine on the computer monitor. Can anyone clarify this ?
>

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<marks542004@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1104457409.087263.6400@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Thanks for the comment.
>
> To clarify I am working with an mpeg file 320 x 240 in size.
> This is being done for a website and client wanted it sized up for a
> DVD sales promotion.
>
> I have requested the camera tapes so it can be recaptured at full
> resolution.
>
> I had hoped there might be an edge filter or something to clean it up a
> little.
>
> It is also a dark green dress on a green screen background that looks
> like it was wadded up in a cupboard for a few years.
>
> I never had to deal with chroma key work before. I could do it by
> extracting every frame, creating masks and reassembling them but life
> is way to short.
>
Whoa, that's even worse than trying to pull a matte from DV.
Aftereffects has a choke that allows shrinking or stretching
a matte, it also has animated vector masks that can be used
to do the frame by frame thing. I know what you mean though,
I had to remove the color from 2 boys walking down the street.
You would think you could set some key frames and then just
let Aftereffects tween the rest, but no, I wound up tweaking the
mask for nearly every frame.

Does it have to get blown up to full frame? Perhaps it could be
in a mortise with accompanying text.

Pulling a clean matte with a badly wrinkled background would
be pretty much impossible. How about a plan B.

David

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marks542004@yahoo.com wrote:
> I converted the source mpeg to an uncompressed avi.
>
> Then bringing it in to Vegas 4 and using chroma key has given me a
> better result.
>
> I think I can now get a satisfactory result for the web image (using a
> brighter background than planned) and will simply not do a DVD unless
> I can get the actual camera tape recaptured.
>
> I am really impressed with Vegas 4 after having used Movie Maker . I
> would love extra video tracks but just not in the budget for now.


Try Vegas Movie Studio instead.
Only $100 at
http://mediasoftware.sonypictures. [...] sp?PID=932 (and
can be upgraded to Vegas when you have the money). Probably less in retail
stores.

Mike

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HighPeaksVideo wrote:
> >I am really impressed with Vegas 4 after having used Movie Maker . I
> >would love extra video tracks but just not in the budget for now.
>
> Huh ? Vegas 4 has unlimited tracks. Newer version 5 just adds 3D
track
> compositing.
> For your keying needs, know that you can use more than one instance
of the
> chroma key filter/fx.
>
> Craig H.

Sorry, my mistake

when I refer to Vegas 4.0 that I downloaded a trial version of I meant
Vegas Movie Studio 4.0 (retail about $99)

Since I was considering Pinnacle Studio 9 av/dv package I have decided
to buy the Vegas Movie Studio 4 and plan on upgrading to Vegas 5 a
little later.

Using an AVI file for the chroma key made a big difference to the
output. I was a little concerned at converting formats but the final
clip looks good.