Thread: Some Questions on Sony Vegas Pro 8

Hi all gurus, I have some doubt on 2 areas:

(1) But in the meantime, I am having some problem with bluescreen. I actually bought some blue color cloths and sought the help of a tailor friend to sew them for me. The bluescreen is fine when I use it on still pictures. But when I filmed video on it, it is difficult to extract a clear cut video of the actor (which is my boy). The reason I suspect is that I cannot get a 100% straight bluescreen, everytime there are crisses, lines & folding marks of the cloths. So whenever I adjust the low threshold and high treshold in the chroma key effect, either my boy will dissappear together the background "rubbish noise" OR if my boy appear, it will come together with the "rubbish noise background". It seems that the chroma key cannot key-out the bluescreen properly. How do you guys setup the bluescreen flat straight ? I hang them from the top like curtain (I tried using thumb tack but my wall are too strong to be penetrated)

(2) Another thing is I have the King Kong DVD, I wanted to overlay a video of my girl screaming onto the video where KingKong is thumping his chest. But how do I extract that portion of scene from the KingKong DVD ? I am doing this only for own consumption as a hobby, so there should not be any legal implication in using the Kingkong DVD, right ?

Thanks if gurus here can provide some insight into my problem.

Cheers

Interesting and i would like to help you

ryan_khooI am having some problem with bluescreen. I actually bought some blue color cloths and sought the help of a tailor friend to sew them for me. The bluescreen is fine when I use it on still pictures. But when I filmed video on it, it is difficult to extract a clear cut video of the actor (which is my boy). The reason I suspect is that I cannot get a 100% straight bluescreen, everytime there are crisses, lines & folding marks of the cloths. So whenever I adjust the low threshold and high treshold in the chroma key effect, either my boy will dissappear together the background "rubbish noise" OR if my boy appear, it will come together with the "rubbish noise background". It seems that the chroma key cannot key-out the bluescreen properly. How do you guys setup the bluescreen flat straight ? I hang them from the top like curtain (I tried using thumb tack but my wall are too strong to be penetrated)

You guys are talking about ' Green screen ' and ' Bluescreen ' and what about 'Black screen' this sounds crazy right, then check out this one.

http://www.videoforums.co.uk/user-vi...html#post85949

Originally Posted by ryan_khoo

Hi all gurus, I have some doubt on 2 areas:

(1) But in the meantime, I am having some problem with bluescreen.

No personal experience, but what I have read time and time again and also from discussing with a fellow member of my camera club who does do green screen work, there are TWO very important issues - even lighting and leaving plenty of distance between the cloth and the subject. The former is, I think fairly self explanatory - different amounts of light = different colours, the latter is to reduce/prevent colour from the cloth reflecting onto the subject.

Don't forget that the keying is only really important close to the subject. You can mask & crop areas that are further away.

Originally Posted by ryan_khoo

I am doing this only for own consumption as a hobby, so there should not be any legal implication in using the Kingkong DVD, right ?

With my pedant hat on, what you are proposing is, strictly speaking, illegal. Use of any copyright (and all material - even the stuff you film is copyrighted) material for any purpose not expressly allowed is forbidden. An indication of how extreme this is - it is against copyright laws to record copyright music even if it is never going to be played back.

Realistically, no-one is likely to take you to task and I'm sure we all use copyright material in our personal "family & friends" projects. One indication of how personal/non-commercial use is seen by the "industry" is that in the UK members of the IAC (amateur cinematographers) can buy an annual licence for about £7 per year which covers them for use of commercial music in strictly amateur projects (so long as you have purchase a commercial recording of that music in the first place).

Personally I wouldn't stick anything for which I didn't have copyright holders permission on YouTube etc, but clearly plenty do.

Originally Posted by Dream-Media

You guys are talking about ' Green screen ' and ' Bluescreen ' and what about 'Black screen' this sounds crazy right, then check out this one.

http://www.videoforums.co.uk/user-vi...html#post85949

Thanks for the clip, I have already done all the steps but my problem is that my bluescreen was not properly taken thus causing Vegas to have problem properly keying out the blue background.

Originally Posted by TimStannard

No personal experience, but what I have read time and time again and also from discussing with a fellow member of my camera club who does do green screen work, there are TWO very important issues - even lighting and leaving plenty of distance between the cloth and the subject. The former is, I think fairly self explanatory - different amounts of light = different colours, the latter is to reduce/prevent colour from the cloth reflecting onto the subject.

Thanks Tim.

But my subject is about 6 feet away from the bluescreen. I do not have sufficient lightings. Because my lightings is poor, it only lights up part of the screen, so I thought to have an even colour bluescreen, I might as well turn off the lightings. Is this the cause of the problem ? Can I check with you which is a better option:

a) A poor lighting that lights up only part of the bluescreen OR

b) turn off the lightings but at least the bluescreen is even in colour ?

However, in both cases, I have lines & foldings marks and crisses on the cloths. How to eradicate this problem ?

Don't forget that the keying is only really important close to the subject. You can mask & crop areas that are further away.

Thanks Tim.

Yes I did also mask & crop the areas but this only works when I want to do a chroma key effect for still pictures.

But for video, it is not so easy to mask & crop because my subject runs from the extreme left to the extreme right. Perhaps, I can only mask the top portion. Even then, I have to rotoscope every frame which defeats the purpose of doing chroma key.

Yes, I did mask out the portion I wanted which is all the lower half of the frame as my subject moves from the extreme left to the extreme right. The problem is that within this masked portion, some of the bluescreen effect is very difficult to be keyed out. As I adjust the lower & upper treshold, the bluescreen portion may dissappear but my subject also dissappear or at best looks transparent !!


Any way to make the bluescreen flat without crisses ?

With my pedant hat on, what you are proposing is, strictly speaking, illegal. Use of any copyright (and all material - even the stuff you film is copyrighted) material for any purpose not expressly allowed is forbidden. An indication of how extreme this is - it is against copyright laws to record copyright music even if it is never going to be played back.

Realistically, no-one is likely to take you to task and I'm sure we all use copyright material in our personal "family & friends" projects. One indication of how personal/non-commercial use is seen by the "industry" is that in the UK members of the IAC (amateur cinematographers) can buy an annual licence for about £7 per year which covers them for use of commercial music in strictly amateur projects (so long as you have purchase a commercial recording of that music in the first place).

Personally I wouldn't stick anything for which I didn't have copyright holders permission on YouTube etc, but clearly plenty do.

Ok now that I know the position of the law, I might as well abandon my plan & come up with a new plan. I have a DVD of my wedding which I totally have rights to it. I plan to make my boy appear in my wedding DVD. How to I get a section of my wedding DVD onto the timeline ? (I think my wedding DVD is in Mpeg-2 format.)

Thanks

Ok now that I know the position of the law, I might as well abandon my plan & come up with a new plan. I have a DVD of my wedding which I totally have rights to it. I plan to make my boy appear in my wedding DVD. How to I get a section of my wedding DVD onto the timeline ? (I think my wedding DVD is in Mpeg-2 format.)

You need a DVD splitter/cutter to the job for you, when you are done with your splitting process you can easily save it to the file format that you are required and bring it into your 'Video Editing' software ie vegas or premier...


For example AVI Splitter, MPEG Splitter, AVI Joiner, MPEG Joiner, RM Joiner, WMV/ASF Joiner, RM Converter, AVI Converter, AVI to VCD, DVD Ripper, MP4 Converter

Originally Posted by Dream-Media

You need a DVD splitter/cutter to the job for you,

Or simply File | Import | DVD Camcorder disc should do it for you

Sorry I can't help any further with the bluescreen probs though

Originally Posted by TimStannard

Or simply File | Import | DVD Camcorder disc should do it for you

Ok thanks Tim, I shall try it but the immediate task is to find my wedding DVD. Hahaha .. wonder where I put it ...

Sorry I can't help any further with the bluescreen probs though

It is ok Tim. In fact, just to update, I have stumble upon this website:

Green Screen / Chromakey Software, Backdrops and Lighting

This website sells a lot of chroma key product. I think the price is reasonable too. I am considering to purchase the stand from them. It is amazing, the stand is portable and can be dismantle & put all into a bag !!

But can I ask you, if I setup the greenscreen outdoor & do the shooting outdoor, I do not need the lightings anymore, right ? (Assuming of course the sun doesn't cast a shadow on the greenscreen)

Thanks

Originally Posted by ryan_khoo

But can I ask you, if I setup the greenscreen outdoor & do the shooting outdoor, I do not need the lightings anymore, right ? (Assuming of course the sun doesn't cast a shadow on the greenscreen)

Yep. You want an overcast day.