Boris FX "Professional-Grade" Chroma-Keyer?

Sidecar2 wrote on 7/15/2005, 10:14 AM
Boris FX LTD is a standalone -- as opposed to a seamless plugin -- limited-function app bundled with Vegas 6 that has two capabilities: a motion reduction tool (to minimize camera shake, I assume) and a "professional grade chroma-keyer."

Does that make the normal Vegas Chroma-Keyer filter less than professional?

Is the Boris keyer that much better that it's worth exiting Vegas, separately rendering the key, re-importing it and losing the real-time convenience of the Vegas interface?

Even more expensive question: is it worth the $250 to purchase the Boris FX full version (Vegas-user price break from the $500 retail) that is a true plugin? It's as expensive as Vegas itself.

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 7/15/2005, 10:40 AM
No, it doesn't make Vegas any less professional. If anything, Vegas is far easier. They're different tools, for different things. FX is a better compositor for some things, that's what it's designed for.
But no....you gain nothing on the chromakeying side.
If you want serious compositing horsepower that is significantly different than Vegas, and quite a bit better....get Boris Red if you want it to open in VEgas. Get Combustion if you don't care if it opens in Vegas.
p@mast3rs wrote on 7/15/2005, 10:55 AM
"get Boris Red if you want it to open in VEgas. Get Combustion if you don't care if it opens in Vegas."

Which one is better? From reading what you wrote, it would look like Combustion. Correct?
skibumm101 wrote on 7/15/2005, 11:31 AM
Personally i would go with Combustion, But only if you need the power. It doesnt integrate with vegas at all, but has some of the best tools for chroma and comping out there in its price range. IF you dont need the power, stick with Vegas, it will do great things. ALso there is a 30 day trial(i still think) at www.discret.com
Coursedesign wrote on 7/15/2005, 12:02 PM
Make sure you get Combustion V4, this is the one with the Diamond Keyer and some other amazing goodies. One Amazon.com merchant sells V4 for $499.95, although note this isn't Amazon themselves.

The best way to learn the program IMHO is Gary M. Davis' book "Focal Easy Guide to Discreet combustion". The V3 book is $16.47 at Amazon, and the V4 book should be out in 2 weeks. Amazingly, it is printed in color and this helps.
Sidecar2 wrote on 7/15/2005, 12:05 PM
Totally agree with ease of Vegas. It is simply great to show the customer the preview so soon after making any changes.

Boris on Media 100 is a very good keyer, though, and I thought it might be just a notch better, especially since Sony "authorized" it by bundling it. But exiting Vegas is a pain.

After implementing Keith Kolbo's Chroma Blur filter trick (that upconverts the event to 4:4:4 color space and radically improves edges (see http://www.sundancemediagroup.com/articles/chromablur_by_kolbo.htm) my native Vegas keys really improved.

BrianStanding wrote on 7/18/2005, 7:32 AM
What's the difference between the Boris keyer in Boris FX Ltd., and the Boris keyer in Red? I thought they were one and the same, sans the Vegas integration.
Sullivan wrote on 7/18/2005, 7:49 AM
I don't know about Boris, but I bought a copy of Ultra trying to get out of a sticky situation. In the end, I found Vegas to be just as good and a lot more flexible. With Ultra, I can paint a garbage matte to force certain regions to be "transparent". With Vegas, I can do that but I can also create a second matte to force other regions to be opaque.

Vega's plug-in chains and layered tracks basically let me design my own keyer. For example, I can chroma-blur and up-saturate the image that generates the mask without affecting the source image to be keyed.
Jay Gladwell wrote on 7/18/2005, 11:30 AM

Daniel, thanks for sharing that article by Keith Kolbo--good info!

Using Keith's technique, does anyone know how this stacks up to Ultra 2?