Unfortunately, the MPEG artifacts are still present when I downconvert to SD. I don't know why though. I figured it would smooth them out, but it doesn't.

Has anyone tried bring the HDV into Vegas and then using Vegas to create an image sequence, which can be used for compositing in various apps. It seems that one could retain the HDV quality with this approach. It is much slower though.

Vincent Burnett

I think that Daniel is saying that the "HDV quality" is the problem when it comes to keying. If that's the case then it doesn't matter how you process it.... garbage in = garbage out.

I haven't tried myself, so I just don't know, but a number of other people have made the same observation that HDV doesn't work so well for this kind of application.

Yes, that is correct.

The reason I started this investigation is that we have a Z1U at school. A friend of mine and I are going to be shooting a lightsaber duel for a school project. The whole thing will take place in photorealistic virtual sets. I have to be able to get perfect keys for this. It has to be seemless.

Now, I have found work arounds for DV, and I can get very clean keys with it. But with HDV, I just can't do anything to get decent keys.

HDV color quality should be atleast as good as DV.

You would think. Now, HDV does look beautiful as native footage. But once you try to key it, it presents all sorts of problems. However, I have been able to get professional keys from DV. Take a look...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...rbrawlComp.jpg

When Adam Wilt reviewed the Z1 in DV magazine he said
http://www.dv.com/reviews

Have you tried working with the video uncompressed when you are adding effects? I think perhaps you may be compressing it twice to get your final output. You can tweak your compression settings or go uncompressed. While the video file will be massive, if it is uncompressed, it will save you the headache of trying to get your compression settings right to avoid artifacts.

No, I use uncompressed footage.