First time with Chroma Key

[johnneumann]

Hi Guys,

I've got a ten year old Kron and I'm looking to do my first Chroma Key project to create a backdrop behind a waist-up talking head lecture.. I've never done anything with Chroma Key, so I don't even know yet what quality my old machine is capable of.

I remember the conversation back in the early 2000's was that Chroma Key was still not very crisp ... lots of fuzz around a person's head. Can anyone tell me what goes into getting good professional quality chroma key? Is it a matter of processor speed? Would, say, the latest MS machine be required to get close to perfect? ... or is there a way to coax very good chroma out of my old machine?

I also have a brand new Mac PowerBook, but haven't taken to doing any video editing on it yet. My needs so far have been basic enough that the old Kron is still adequate. Perhaps someone who's also into computer editing can tell me if I want to look at my computer to create this.

Bottom line, this is for making professional sales training lectures that I want to sell online ... so it needs to be of a reasonable quality. It can't say "1990's" ... but I'm sure I don't need to it look TV quality either. These are salespeople that are going to watch this, not videographers. My outcome is to have just me talking into the camera with a fake TV studio behind me and a few powerpoint slides to match the spoken content.

Should I look to my old Kron to do this? Or am I wasting my time in thinking I might be able to get quality chroma key out of such an old machine?

-JOHN

[TimKennelly]

John,

There are better chroma keying software options available for the PC/Mac, than for the Cassie machines.

However, as long as you are talking a fully controlled environment like a studio you can certainly create a professional looking project on your Kron using Blue Box World.

A newer Cassie uses the same software as your Kron so the more powerful machines won't make a project look any better.

It would just allow you to render it much faster.

Smooth, shadowless backgrounds with consistent coloring, lighting and contrast would allow you to take full advantage of BBW to create totally acceptable results.

[johnneumann]

Hi Tim,

Thank you for the reply. I don't want to use the forum to pitch for the other team ... but could you take a moment and educate me on 1) what makes certain Mac/PC programs "better" than my old Kron? ie, Where or how will I see the improved results? and 2) Can you drop a few names of Mac/PC programs so I might figure out for myself where to start doing homework? I googled the obvious phrases and there were no jump-out solutions ... just chroma-key embedded into large, famous programs that cost a bundle ... or mega-buck dedicated units that do nothing but chroma. Any specific names come to mind?

Thanks for the encouragement that the Kron might still yet do the job.

-JOHN

[JBrooks]

John,

If you have BB World then yes, a very clean chroma key can be acheived. It is very important that your green screen be lit very evenly and consistant because that effects the keying process. Use the "smoothing" effect by clicking on the "transition" icon within the blue-box program and it will smooth out the edge bleeding alot. I have attached a link to my intro video from my website as an example of a chroma key using BB World.

http://youtu.be/eZ4IqJgF2x0

Joel Brooks
MIT Video

[TimKennelly]

John,

I am years out of date on chroma key software, but the best in the day five years ago was Serious Magic Ultra Key for my money.

I believe they were bought out by Adobe and I don't know if they continued the software under their label or what.

Regardless, as mentioned, your Kron with BBW can do the job.

The most important thing regardless of the software used is the capture quality and by that I mean keeping a high consistent and uniform contrast between foreground and background through the background and lighting used.

[johnneumann]

Thank you Joel & Tim.

I'm rooting around google to try to find a price for BB World. I don't find a lot of links, but it looks to be about $150-$200. I wonder if this is an easy and fast program to learn or if I'm going to be weeks or months about it.

Wish me luck.

-JOHN

[TimKennelly]

John,

No idea of the price.

I know there was at least one tutorial MSUS had for sale back in the day for BBW.

I have to believe Chet's site extensively supports it with info and such as well.

The basics of BBW have a low learning curve, but again the properly prepared background and lighting environment is what will make or break a professional looking end result.