A Camcorder For Green Screen?

Q. I am looking to buy a camcorder for under $250.00 that is atleast descent. It needs to have a microphone jack that i can plug in a lavalier mic into. Im going to use it for green screen so there will be lots of light. Thankyou for your help.

A. I wouldn't recommend anything under $400 for chroma key (green screening). You really should be using either a 3CCD camera (a separate chip for each color, Red/Green/Blue), or a good CMOS chip (a different chip, it's single, but can be great).

The Canon HV20 has a single CMOS chip that is excellent with chroma key. But basically, anything under $250 will be a challenge to key out in editing because of the inefficient color capture. You could check out www.camcorderinfo.com for some ideas, but the style of camera you are looking for doesn't match your price range.

Sorry.

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best camcorders for green screen?

Q. I would like to buy a camcorder to do some videos for the intenet in green screen. I would like to create 'professional looking' videos. My camcorder budget is £1000. I could be an upper range consumer camcorder like Sony Handycam HDR-XR520VE or the Panasonic HDC-SD707 OR I could go for an entry level professional camcorder like the Sony HVR-HD1000. What camcorder would you suggest?
All I am aware of is that thecamcorder should have certain manual settings, however I do not know what settings should be avaiable in manual.
Any guidance on camcorders and settings to be aware of will be appreciated.

A. In my experience, any camera would work as long as it films well. What you would need for green screen is really a good editing software like Final Cut or Adobe Premiere along with good lighting and such.

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green screen camcorder?

Q. i need to know what video format will look best after being edited on a green screen

A. Great answer by Chilli Yum Yum! But if I may, I have a few things to add:
Remeber that there are many aspects to "green screening". The type of camera you use is the least of your problems. Other things to consider are:
1) Lighting: In order to get the cleanest key possible, make sure the green screen is evenly lit. Minimize shadows at all costs.
2)Remember that there is no magic effect that will make all the green go away. Even professional chroma keying applications, like that in Adobe After Effects involve several different color keys to remove each shade of the green. Taking the example of After Effects, the best key involves several "color key" efffects, followed by a "simple choker" and then the "keylight".

Now to answer your question :P
Chilli Yum Yum is correct on all points. I don't know how much I can add, but:
Theoretically, the cameras that do the best keying are the ones that do the least Color Subsampling, meaning ones that do not discard much Chromanince or Lumanince. No consumer camera does this, so at best, you have 4:1:1. Panasonic DVCPro models are a step up from that, at 4:2:2. Still DVCPro cameras aren't exactly cheap. The HVX200 and HPX170 may be your best bets, even so they're $5,000. But all of that has already been mentioned.

So, moving on, the BEST camera for chroma keying would be one that has no color subsampling on ANY channel, for instance one with a native RGB output. In most cases, this would only be found on an extremely expensive camera, but luckily we have Red Digital Cinema...yay! Now, Red is developing a professional camera for the prosumer market called Red Scarlet. Although we don't know all the specs yet (we will November 13 actually), Scarlet will have NO color subsampling. Full RGB color! Most likely, Scarlet will also be considerably cheaper than the HVX or HPX (around $3,000 supposedly), and that's not all it can do, and as much as I would like to get into that, I don't want to get too far off topic...http://www.red.com/

Original Question

Can you recommend any green screens or camcorders?

Q. range 200-300 dollars.

A. back in the day of analog, it was impossible to do green screen effects from video tape. the foreground object had to be a live camera and nothing else. the backgound is unimportant, so that could be analog tape. Then came miniDV and that changed everything. miniDV offered chroma resolution that was 6 times sharper than VHS. so for the first time the forground subject could be recorded on tape and a computer video editor used to make the overlay. Now that we have modern file base cameras that use SD cards or DVD discs. These are super compressed, with 200:1 being typical. So now the foreground subect blurs or pixelates into macro blocks any time there is motion, spoiling the green screen overlay even from so-called HD cameras. So Pallidin is absolute correct to suggest that you need miniDV camcorder.

as to the greenscreen, that can be anything. personally i prefer cyan blue as that gives a sharper chroma contrast to skin tone. TV studios usually just paint it on a wall (wow you thought this was high tech?). me, i used king size flat bedsheets, not having a suitable wall to work with. The secret is in the lighting. the screen needs its own light and it must be even top to bottom and side to side. the subject has to be lit from the top angle to prevent shadows on the screen. unless seated, it is hard to do in a normal room that has only 8 foot ceiling clearance. if you have a garage with open ceiling, use that for the studio. Also you need to put a light behind the subject, some times call a hair light. This sharpens the hair line at the top/sides of the head, after all you don't want your leading lady's platinum blonde to turn green due to a poor key.

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Can you recommend any green screens or camcorders?

Q. range 200-300 dollars.

A. back in the day of analog, it was impossible to do green screen effects from video tape. the foreground object had to be a live camera and nothing else. the backgound is unimportant, so that could be analog tape. Then came miniDV and that changed everything. miniDV offered chroma resolution that was 6 times sharper than VHS. so for the first time the forground subject could be recorded on tape and a computer video editor used to make the overlay. Now that we have modern file base cameras that use SD cards or DVD discs. These are super compressed, with 200:1 being typical. So now the foreground subect blurs or pixelates into macro blocks any time there is motion, spoiling the green screen overlay even from so-called HD cameras. So Pallidin is absolute correct to suggest that you need miniDV camcorder.

as to the greenscreen, that can be anything. personally i prefer cyan blue as that gives a sharper chroma contrast to skin tone. TV studios usually just paint it on a wall (wow you thought this was high tech?). me, i used king size flat bedsheets, not having a suitable wall to work with. The secret is in the lighting. the screen needs its own light and it must be even top to bottom and side to side. the subject has to be lit from the top angle to prevent shadows on the screen. unless seated, it is hard to do in a normal room that has only 8 foot ceiling clearance. if you have a garage with open ceiling, use that for the studio. Also you need to put a light behind the subject, some times call a hair light. This sharpens the hair line at the top/sides of the head, after all you don't want your leading lady's platinum blonde to turn green due to a poor key.

Original Question

A Camcorder For Green Screen?

Q. I am looking to buy a camcorder for under $250.00 that is atleast descent. It needs to have a microphone jack that i can plug in a lavalier mic into. Im going to use it for green screen so there will be lots of light. Thankyou for your help.

A. I wouldn't recommend anything under $400 for chroma key (green screening). You really should be using either a 3CCD camera (a separate chip for each color, Red/Green/Blue), or a good CMOS chip (a different chip, it's single, but can be great).

The Canon HV20 has a single CMOS chip that is excellent with chroma key. But basically, anything under $250 will be a challenge to key out in editing because of the inefficient color capture. You could check out www.camcorderinfo.com for some ideas, but the style of camera you are looking for doesn't match your price range.

Sorry.

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does any camera work with Green Screen?

Q. i was going to buy a Sony HD Camcorder ? and a Green Screen and Software for it now i was wondering if you have too have a special camera?

A. yep any camera will work it will look better as well because its HD

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iMovie: How do I synch 'green screen' background with the foreground?

Q. I have had success with the 'green screen' on iMovie, except synching is difficult. Often the background will appear a few frames before the scene change. You can slide the scenes around, but this often changes other things. Precision Editor seems to only complicate things. Is there a feature to iMovie that will synch them?

A. This might be related to the codecs which the Event clips have been compressed with. The popular codecs MPEG-4 and H.264 use so-called 'interframe' compression methods, which means that to decode one frame, the editing software has to include another keyframe in the calculations. This steps up the complexity of the necessary calculations, and it can also bog down the editing software (playback and clip skimming gets choppy/not instantly responsive.) Moreover, precise frame-by-frame editing might get difficult, especially with additional effects.

So, check if the clips are compressed with these editing-unfriendly MPEG-4 or H.264 codecs (open them as files in QuickTime Player and press Cmd-i to display the specs.) If they are, transcode them using a editing-friendly codec. To do this, use MPEG Streamclip. Download it, open the video files with it and choose File->Export to QuickTime. In the options window, choose 'Apple Intermediate Codec' from the drop-down menu, select the Frame Size that says '… (unscaled)' and click on 'Make Movie'. The resulting file will be 4 to 8 times larger than than the MP4/H.264 file, so make sure you have plenty of space left on the hard drive. When done, import the files in iMovie and remove the old clips.

MPEG-Streamclip is freeware: http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html
The Apple Intermediate Codec is already installed on your Mac (QuickTime component) if iLife/iMovie is installed. iMovie uses it when importing HD video directly from camcorders. It's an 'intra-frame' codec where all frames can be processed without using another keyframe.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2704?viewlocale=en_US

UPDATE:
In iMovie '11 you can use 'File >Optimize Video > Full Original Size' to transcode an already imported event clip. So you don't have to go through MPEG Streamclip. The original file will not be erased but moved into a new folder that iMovie creates within the Movies folder, named iMovie Original Movies.

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What is a good 1080p webcam for youtube and green screen capabilities?

Q. I am looking to start a VLOG in my spare time, and I am looking for a solid and affordable 1080p webcam that has good quality video so that green screening won't look choppy. I am aware that I will need good lighting for the green screening, but that is taken care of, I have a good set up as long as the camera works well.

A. HD Camcorders and DSLR Cameras interpolate the video, which means of every 25 frames of video, 4 or 5 frames are taken by the lens assembly; the other frames in between these are filled in by the camcorder inner circuitry, thus giving you not true video. It looks like this -one frame from the lens assembly, 7or 8 from the electronic circuitry, one frame from the lens assembly, 7or 8 from the electronic circuitry, one frame from the lens assembly, 7or 8 from the electronic circuitry, one frame from the lens assembly, 7or 8 from the electronic circuitry, from front to back of the video. Near impossible to edit, even when you have the Multi port processor computer with the big 1GB Graphics card and a Sound card that is required to edit, view, watch and work with the files these camcorders produce.

Consumer Level HD Camcorders and DSLR Cameras have 4 problems. 1) Blurry, fuzzy, out of focus areas closely around people in videos taken by consumer level HD camcorders. 2) Any movement, even a wave or lifting an arm, while in front of a recording Consumer Level HD Camcorder and DSLR Cameras, results in screen ghosts and artifacts being left on the video track, following the movement. Makes for bad video, sports videos are unwatchable. 3) These Consumer Level HD Camcorders and DSLR Cameras all have a habit of the transferred to computer files are something you need to convert, thus losing your HD quality, to work with your editing software. 4) Mandatory maximum record times - 1 hour, 30 minutes, 8 minutes, 3 minutes – four different times advertised as maximum record time for some Consumer Level HD Camcorders and DSLR Cameras. No event I have ever been to is that short. Either take multiple camcorders and DSLR Cameras or pack up with out getting the end of the event on video.

MiniDV is currently the most popular format for consumer digital camcorders. MiniDV camcorders are typically more affordable than their HDD and DVD counterparts. Each MiniDV tape will typically hold an hour of footage at normal recording speed and quality. MiniDV tapes are available for purchase at not only electronic and camera stores, but also at drugs stores and grocery stores, making them easy to find while your on vacation. There are literally hundreds of MiniDV camcorders available; both in standard and high-definition. And add the fact that to get a HD camcorder that could produce better video quality footage, one would have to spend in excess of $3500 for that camcorder that could produce higher quality video

http://simplevideoediting.com/learn/part1_camcorder_choices.htm

http://simplevideoediting.com/learn/part2_connect_camcorder.htm

http://usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/camcorders/consumer_camcorders/vixia_hv40#Overview

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Will my Mini DV camcorder work well for green screen?

Q. I've heard that mini DV video cameras do not work well with green screen and that I need some other sort of camera. Is this true? And what should I be using if not a mini DV camera?

A. the way to get a good green screen is lighting the screen evenly and not having any shadows appear on it when standing in front of it. be at least 5 feet away from the screen. this will allow you to not cast shadows. The screen also needs to be large enough to frame you and the background that you want.

BE SURE TO USE A MONITOR. Don't trust your eyes. Your eyes are way more sensitive than your camera. You need to see what the camera sees for your keying project.

DV is more difficult to key because of its limited color space. 4:1:1. When you start shooting 4:2:2 or even 4:4:4, keying will become really easy. shadows and uneven lighting become much less of an issue.

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