So I'm not sure if this technically falls into this category on the forums, my apologies if it doesn't, but since we will be using 3 HVX200 cameras this seemed the most logical...

For an upcoming shooting we are going to be shooting some subjects in studio on a green screen set up. Ideally we would like to have a studio situation set up where one of the HVX200s is directly linked to one of our Mac stations (MacPro, MacBook Pro, or one of the iMacs) where we can monitor the chroma key and lightning, such as in a professional studio. If possible we'd like to record directly to the computer's hard drives and avoid P2 all together. Is this possible? Or does this require something such as a BlackMagic Intensity Pro card on one of the towers?

We are NOT looking to switch from camera to camera like a live newscast, simply get an accurate reading of the chroma key quality, and record directly to a hard drive. Only one camera will be stationary so that's why we are concerned with variance in the chroma key from the different angles.

Any help or input is greatly appreciated thanks!

You can record directly to a Mac using the firewire cable; FCP 4.5 and later all support DVCPRO-HD directly; use Log & Capture to see the live feed.

If using Premiere Pro CS4, you have Adobe OnLocation, which is a great monitoring tool that will read the incoming firewire stream and give you a waveform, vectorscope, monitor, and all sorts of production tools.

So basically we can just connect directly via FireWire using Log and Capture and set it to "Non-Controllable Device" to monitor the shot and record. That helps with part of the problem, is there a way to adjust and monitor the chroma key while viewing the live image?

Basically applying a chroma key filter onto the live feed? Does that make sense?

FCP will not be able to capture and apply a key in real time. You could capture some footage, then apply a key to it and play it back. But FCP's keyer is not the best and is probably not what you would end up using to obtain a high end professional result anyway.

Dan