Best Chroma Key Software on the mac?

[Richardthe4th]

not only the tool

Hi,

Interesting tread this turns out to be. It ends up with a tool comparison.
if you want a cheap, but outstanding keying product, buy shake (not supported anymore by apple), but there is a learning curve involved. Most of shake's functionality is now incorporated in motion anyway, so perhaps start there. Or adobe AE.

But, perhaps the best thing to try would be to use a combination of keys. That's what the pro's do. So (without having seen your footage), you have to combine a chroma and a luma key. Also helps with color undersampling (chroma for the core of the key and the luma for sharp edges), but then there has to be a sufficient luma difference between object and background. And a matte choker perhaps. Don't settle for one tool will fix them all solution. (Or do if the result is good )

See also the 'encyclopedia of visual effects' or the shake user manual. Lots of tips there even if you will not use shake.

Good luck

 

[macdabby]

best keying

FCPs built in keying is pretty lame, but it will do the job if you have your scene lit perfectly or if you don't need that great of a key (you don't mind a green border or really soft edges)

ultimatte is really really good but really really expensive and really really slow. at least 10 to 20 times realtime for hd footage (maybe not that much, it's been a while, but its REALLY REALLY SLOW) it is good for stills, but still very expensive

Boris BCC has some good tools for video and it's not TOO expensive.

there are also dvGarage’s dpMatte/dvMatte (photos/video?) are good but i dont much experience there

also DFT zmatte is a nice plugin that works in all apps. not sure about the quality.

personally i stick to ultimatte for stills and BCC for video - but it's a PAIN to keep them both up to date with upgrade costs, etc

 

[WeathermanTV]

Live Key Software

Hi, the fact that I don't know how to start a new thread on here speaks to my lack of tech knowledge. So, I'm trying to run a live feed from my Canon HV40 into my laptop, run it into a chromakey program and put in a movie that has pause points (exported from Keynote), then output the final product live to monitors (just like in a news studio).

Problem I'm having is that a.)There is a one second delay with the video image, using my firewire connection...I need it real time, and b.) After exporting the .mov from Keynote, the pause points from the presentation work in Quicktime, but not when I use the .mov in a chromakey software (I've tried "Chromakey Live" and BoinxTV).

Hope that makes sense....thank you for any help!
Jonathan