I'm doing a project requiring Chroma-keying and I have an animator working on it. However, if I edit the footage with adobe premiere or some such thing, what video format is best to bring in the animation? I reckon I'll have to take it to Adobe After Effects... still have to look into that. But what file format should the animation for the background be when they send the file?
Also, if I want to export video from the computer to my DV's cassette, what function would i use in Adobe Premiere? That is possible, correct?
I mostly use avi or wmv
H.A.
When chroma keying, it's all about the sample rate of the camera. If using DV, then chroma keying will be rough and awful looking. You really need either a 4:2:2 digital camera( such as Digi Beta or D9) or HD for good cut outs.
In my experience keying works much better in AE as it's resolution independant and you don't have codecs as such governing the timeline. Also the chroma keyer in AE allows you to keep selecting colours so that if you have greenscreen problems, you can keep adding to the base colour to totally remove it all.
Regards format, well again that's dependant on the original format, also this is further governed by your capture method. For animation on greenscreen I would say either SDI or uncompressed. Working uncompressed means you retain the full 4:2:2 quality throughout and your edges will look smooth and clean. If you are capturing via firewire, then you are prety much stuck in a DV codec. There's no point upsampling as it won't help you, in fact it will cause more problems because of the fuzzy edges it makes. A great new way and the way I use now is a panasonic HD camera using the P2 cards. This means no loss throughout post and it can then be rendered out to whatever format once effected, from HD down to mobile phones.
Remeber that WMV and AVI are just containers, they are not formats as such. An AVI film can be compressed with many different codecs, from web ready Sorenson to totally uncompressed, so just saying 'make an AVI' doesn't really mean anything. You need to ask what is your destination format, are you going to want a pristine copy for archiving? Will it just end up on You Tube etc etc? Once you have the answers to these and more about where your work is going, then you can plan a workflow around it and then encode your material relatively. I would never use WMV for anything except final deployment such as web or for desktop playback.
I believe in Premiere you just use the print to tape function, or something similar in the export menu. Haven't used Prem since cersion 3!!
