Chroma key/green screen question

[Robert Lee]

Hi everyone

Has there been a posting here, on how you can do green screen?

I only saw one video on YouTube, but the audio is horrible and could not hear the instructions. I haven't used the older version of Vegas Pro, so I don't know if it's totally different or the same when using green screen.

[Mike Kujbida]

Nothing has changed with respect to chroma keying in Vegas no matter which version you have.
I will say that lately I've become a fan of using blue instead of green as I find I get a much better key with it.
Keith Kolbo has two great tutorials, one on keying and one on lighting, on his site at AMediaProf.com / VideoEducator. net - Tutorials

[Robert Lee]

Thanks Mike. I do see some places sell Blue screen, but I always thought green is the way to go, Is blue better than green?

[Mike Kujbida]

Robert, I've done two blue screen shots recently and found that blue keyed much better than green.
For an example (I apologize for the not so good quality of the video but it was SD video and I had nothing to do with the upload), go to St. Clair College - Alumni Association - Alumni of Distinction - Past Honourees and watch the interview with Dan Badour (6th one from the top). He was shot against a white cyc lit that was lit with one Lowel Tota fixture light with a blue gel on it. The blue was replaced with some basic Generated Media in Vegas. All things considered, I thought it turned out pretty well.

[Gerald Webb]

I remember only seeing blue in all the doco's when I was a kid.
Why did they change to green?

[Seth Bloombaum]

As I've heard it, blue was traditional in film work, with green as a backup for subjects that were blue-colored.

Someone (?) determined that in the DV25 standard, green was going to work better with the reduced color resolution of 4:1:1. I don't know if that determination was theoretical or also based on rigorous testing, but it has become an article of faith that green is better for all digital video.

These days, many of us have access to 4:2:2 recording. Many of us have had enough experience to realize that, for quality and ease of keying, the single most important variable to control is green spill in the original shoot. We have much more sophisticated keying software, (although Vegas is a little behind the curve on this, there are third-party plugins).

I'm thinking that greenscreen for DV25 was discussed by Adam Wilt back in the day? Will have to look...

I have a blue canvas in storage, I should pull it out and try it!

***edit***
Adam Wilt didn't post any of this on his excellent technical guides to DV. There are a few references out there to green vs. blue regarding chroma subsampling, but rather than following that I'm going to find my blue screen and check it out against green!