Newbie question: HDV, Firewire and chromakey

[Dave Clough]

Hi everyone. I'm a newbie to anything more than editing SD in Premier 6 so please excuse my ignorance here :-)

I'm looking to record some chromakey footage and have purchased some chromakey equipment (cloth, tripods etc) from the US.
When I tried to capture using my £600/$900 panasonic camcorder the results were awful, so I appreciate it's time to spend some more money...

The footage requires the subject to walk right across the screen, but I noticed (amid the 720x576 resolution) that there is a serious graphical 'step' effect occuring between the subject and the background. Also, the interpolation seems to exaggerate this problem even further. Therefore if any experts could answer my questions below I'd be very grateful!

1. Would a HDV camera offer any resultion to problems I'm having?
2. If so, what difference am I getting with these 2 models that I've looked at (there's a fair difference in price)?
i) http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...511178-4663148
ii) http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...511178-4663148
3. Is it true that the Firewire interface exagerates the aliasing of the subject's edges?

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

2. If so, what difference am I getting with these 2 models that I've looked at (there's a fair difference in price)?
i) http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...511178-4663148
ii) http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...511178-4663148
3. Is it true that the Firewire interface exagerates the aliasing of the subject's edges?

Only one of those two models are HDV, so you're comparing apples and oranges.
No, firewire doesn't exaggerate the aliasing. In fact, Firewire has no relationship to your picture at all. Anyone who says so, is seriously mistaken. It's like saying a yellow glass pitcher causes water to taste differently from water coming out of a red glass pitcher. They're just carriers, as is Firewire.

Greenscreening properly is far more than just the camera. Any camera, at any price point, can shoot reasonable chromakey, but HD will do a much better job of it overall.
http://vasst.com/resource.aspx?id=4f...e-9bb656287c31 will help you grasp it better, I think.

[Dave Clough]

Douglas, thanks for that information; that clarifies things a little more.

1. With the 2 camera links I posted, the non-HDV model is 40% more expensive than the HDV model. Even though I now know not to consider it as an option, how come it's more expensive?

2. Do you know what the Premier Pro 2 alternative to Sony Vegas' Chroma Blur effect is? I'm still deciding which video package to change to and Premier was my natural path, although now it seems like it might be unnecessary...

[David Saraceno]

Originally Posted by Dave Clough

Douglas, thanks for that information; that clarifies things a little more.

1. With the 2 camera links I posted, the non-HDV model is 40% more expensive than the HDV model. Even though I now know not to consider it as an option, how come it's more expensive?

The Sony VX2100 is a 3 chip camera. The other is a single chip CMOS cam.

[Ken Hodson]

To clarify on what David said, the VX2100 is a larger cam with full manual controlls and better low light capability.