Hi, thanks for the response. yes, I did like you - just downloaded the demo and boom - it worked. sorry to be a weenie about it; i don't like to install things on my system that don't work; it's cluttered enough as it is.
But yes, dvMatte works well - better than vKey, but vKey works surprisingly well, indeed. vKey is much easier, too, but dvMatte's quality is worth the extra money to me. dvMatte even does hair reasonably well (not perfect, but this is dv and dvcpro50 after all). vKey and hair: not so good. note that it is essential to properly and evenly light the green screen with these tools.
And the FCP chroma keyer, while working more or less ok, isn't even comparable to these two. IMO. Much more work and requires a stack of at least 3 filters to pull a reasonable matte, and it still keys out stray hair.
thanks again.
hd
HarryD