HDV vs. DVCPRO50 and keying

Anyone have experience with HDV and DVCPRO50 cameras and keying?

DV is difficult to key, but not sure how HDV or DVCPRO50 would be to use it.

Anyone know which keys BEST?

thanks

HDV is worse than DV in terms of keying. DVCDPRO 50 is better than the other two formats.

DVCPRO 50 - 4:1:1, but superior compression
DV - 4:1:1
HDV - 4:2:0

DVCpro50 is 4:2:2 and very lightly compressed. Will key nearly as good as digibeta. Also, big, low noise sensor chips on the camera helps, but good lighting is key!

If you're only wanting an SD output, keying HDV and shrinking the result to SD actually works fine, but it will be nasty to key at full rez. DVCproHD is horrible to key - way too noisey and even though 4:2:2, over compressed and yucky in the chroma. Just helped out a friend with his Varicam footage. Two filters I sell really helped with the basic keyer in FCP. They may not help as much with a better keyer. In Film Effects, G Chroma Sharpen cleaned up the chroma channels completely to look just like 4:4:4, and then G Alpha Expander from Set 1 cleaned up the key edges nice.

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

DVCPro 50 is the ticket!



Kevin Monahan
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