I am aware of these tools from fxhome, but never actually
used composite lab before...earlier in my quest to find
the ultimate workflow in doing chroma keying, i bit down and invested
in Keylight for after effects....that is what i would call steroids.

The cheapest way to get good key extraction is to shoot the friggin thing right. If you nail that Vegas's CK'er is pretty good, certainly good enough if you're only delivering web content and certainly good enough to start learning the fundamentals of doing good CK work.

To put it another way. If you haven't got a proper screen and at least 4 good daylight light source then that's where you should spend you money.

Bob.

"The cheapest way to get good key extraction is to shoot the friggin thing right. If you nail that Vegas's CK'er is pretty good, certainly good enough if you're only delivering web content and certainly good enough to start learning the fundamentals of doing good CK work.

Thanks to all for responses, and yah, Bob, that's where my money is going to go first. The TubeTape site seems like an affordable place for muslin for that. For example, 10'x12' green muslin for USD $50.

The software offered there was simply rather intriguing due to extra CK features, i.e. taking lighter "halo" artifacts out that I've sometimes noticed in the limited CK I've done so far.

I'm definitely going to first deal with the analog/shooting part of all of this, then do the best in Vegas I can, then consider if it would be worth considering such extra CK steroids, so to speak.

Thats where I got my green screen I like it alot and do my chromo keying on Vegas. Bob is right if the lighting is right vegas will do the job very well.

Opps sporry that should be chroma

Tried the CompositeLab demo. It won't recognize m2t clips so I uninstalled it.

Based on my experiments at keying in HD I'd not recommend woven backgrounds unless you can get the subject a long way on front of the screen. What can happen is the weave ends up in focus and the CK'er will key in and out on the fabric. If you've got enough distance and can get the lighting so it illuminates down into the weave you might be OK. If you've got a camera with the degree of detail control of the EXs careful adjustment of all the detail parameters could help a lot too.

Bob.

"Based on my experiments at keying in HD I'd not recommend woven backgrounds..."

I'm assuming this is a general background, not just green screen observation.
My guess is that's why muslin or felt is used for green screenin' :)

I still think Tim Duncan's solution in his Class On Demand DVD "Update Training for Vegas 7" ( I don't know if it's still available) shows the best way to pull a Chroma Key in Vegas. His method is to use the "Secondary Color Corrector" & the "Chroma Blur" VideoFXs to cut and fill the "key" and "choke" the matte. As far as I'm concerned it's an awesome way to get a very acceptable key in Vegas even with bad DV green/blue screen footage( of course the better the lighting-evenly lit green screen- the better the key). Yes you use up two tracks one to cut the key-hole and another to fill the key-hole and with another track to show your background but it's worth it. I many times get what I need without going to KeyLight in CS4...which is pretty deep.
mp

>Yes you use up two tracks one to cut the key-hole and another to fill the key-hole
I have successfully used the Chroma Blur and the Secondary Color Corrector, in this order, for green screening. I do this with just one track. Maybe I have missed something?

As someone else mentioned here, correct light setting is all there is to it. When I learned to use a back light, and perhaps give it a slight pink color tone, Vegas so far has the tools I need built in for Chroma keying. I said "so far" - I suspect I will run into situations where I may need external tools for it.

BTW, in the You Tube video above, I think I see a thin green line around the man. Maybe this is You Tube reducing the video quality. If not, I myself would have tried to tune it away.

ingvarai