Samurai vs. AVCHD Green Screen Comparision Screen Grabs

The Samurai is still going to give you 4:2:2 which WILL make the keying easier (4:2:0 gets a lot more chroma contamination between adjacent colors). If I was doing a lot of greenscreen, I'd probably use the Samurai just to make my life easier.
 
The Samurai is giving you 4.2.2

The AVCHD is giving you 4.2.0.

No matter how or what you do to transcode it...it wont be 4.2.2.

Anyway I will take away the problem and will buy the Samurai from you for $250.
 
Section from Sony Vegas Pro 9 frame grab from direct import of MTS file, blown-up 200 percent. ( Trying to match Rick's sample )

VegasProGrab.jpg
 
I have tried ClipWrap and am very impressed with how it looks compared to native .mts files in AE. I have compared to the Samurai footage. As expected the Samurai clip still looks cleaner, but not at all the same difference as what I saw from my original comparison of AVCHD (native in AE) to Samurai ProRes.

Guess, I should get on here more often. Thanks for the tips.
 
No problem at all!!!! Yeah, Adobe really need to fix that.

Just think how many people are doing what you did, and do not realize they are losing quality just from their editing software. Hmmmm, maybe someone should make a sticky about this here and the FS100 section because it's a real shame when the footage gets ruined like this.
 
Rick Burnett said:
No problem at all!!!! Yeah, Adobe really need to fix that.

Just think how many people are doing what you did, and do not realize they are losing quality just from their editing software. Hmmmm, maybe someone should make a sticky about this here and the FS100 section because it's a real shame when the footage gets ruined like this.
Click to expand...
+1 for sticky.
 
Rick Burnett said:
This is DEFINITELY After Effects decoding the footage WRONG. In fact, here is a discussion with Adobe mentioned decoding problems with certain AVCHD footage in CS4:

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/499293

Note his decoding issues, well, this is what you are dealing with! :) Here is the SAME file in AE, one imported normally, one run through ClipWrap first and converted to ProRes422. Sadly, the moral of the story is DON'T let adobe decode your MTS files for you.
Click to expand...

Wow, I wish I would have known about this issue. I shot an entire music video, in front of a green screen for a local hip hop group. I used a $60 green screen setup. I edited with the native MTS files. Overall, I was happy with the results, but there were a few shots where I wished I had a little something extra to get a better key. I plan on getting the Samurai early next year. But, I'm going to try this ClipWrap and see how that works.

On another note, the artists absolutely loved the video.

(Naughty words in the video)
 
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Well before you drop cash on the Samurai, I'd definitely transcode to something else and test. The difference is pretty extreme with how bad Adobe is messing up the footage.
 
I took a look at the MTS, and yeah, I see the very same weirdness in CS5. I've never keyed before, but no matter what I tried it all looked like crap. Since the native footage looks normal/good, this is clearly a problem with CS5.
 
We might want to pass this on to Panasonic as well, maybe if Barry is watching he can pass it along too in case they get questions about footage and people aren't trying it in other apps first. Given the number of people who actually edit native in Adobe, I can't imagine how many people are getting sub-par footage and don't even know it, or worse, are blaming the camera.
 
Rick Burnett said:
We might want to pass this on to Panasonic as well, maybe if Barry is watching he can pass it along too in case they get questions about footage and people aren't trying it in other apps first. Given the number of people who actually edit native in Adobe, I can't imagine how many people are getting sub-par footage and don't even know it, or worse, are blaming the camera.
Click to expand...
Just to be clear, is this a keying issue in after effects? Or is this a general issue with native MTS files in Adobe? I finished shooting a music video, last night. Should I transcode the native files? I normally edit natively.
 
cap10kirk said:
Just to be clear, is this a keying issue in after effects? Or is this a general issue with native MTS files in Adobe? I finished shooting a music video, last night. Should I transcode the native files? I normally edit natively.
Click to expand...

No, this isn't a keying issue, it's the decoding of MTS files in at least CS5 Premiere and AE. It affects keying, mind you, but the problem is for ALL footage. If you see the example I posted of just the wire, you can see that with the MTS decode in AE, it's making it more aliased and that is NOT in the original footage.

You are best at this point to transcode into someone else. ProRes has been tested, but there are certainly other options as well I am sure.
 
This may relate to some of the problems I've had in Premiere... sometimes, AVCHD footage looked fine on the timeline, but when sent to Encore produced very bad (blocky) MPEGs... all of this seems like interlacing issues?
 
Shooter uses Adobe Premiere. Perhaps he can chime in regarding transcoding experience. For CS5.5, we've
not seen anything quite so dramatic ( in-terms of anti-aliasing artifacts ).
 
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