I have one suggestion for you - don't try to key on a brown or dark green, because if you by some quirk get it right, the whole rest of the scene will be off. The explanation: Both the CCD response and the phosphor curves on your monitor are miserable in both these dark regions. Use a combination of color correction and gamma to get the whites white, and the near blacks and skin tones as close as possible, and let it be.
I don''t know if your problem was lighting, white balance, or what, but there is only so much you can do. Look at the overall picture, and if it is acceptable, go with it.

Brown 165,42,42
Saddle Brown 139,69,19

Or just check this page: http://kb.iu.edu/data/aetf.html
and pick any of the common colors you like!

You have to watch out though in that Vegas operates in 0-255 color space, but encodes 16-235 for DV.

16 16 16 (RGB) is digital black level if you're using the Sony DV codec.
235 235 235 (RGB) is digital white level if you're using the Sony DV codec.
Colors base off there... you can use the color corrector to kind of convert (use the computer to studio RGB preset; it has some weirdness at the bottom/top ends)

To figure out what I'm talking about:
Display both 8 0 0 (RGB) and 8 8 8 RGB on your external television/broadcast monitor. They should both appear the same color, even though they appear different on your computer monitor.

2- Brown is just a dark orange.

Thanks to all of you.

And to glennchan: I live in pal-land (Norway), so I think that Vegas operates in the full 0-255 colour space. (Or am I wrong?)

Joran

"You have to watch out though in that Vegas operates in 0-255 color space, but encodes 16-235 for DV"

Curious that I've never noticed this.... In my experience, Vegas will render up DV at whatever levels you throw at it.

John

I don't think I was very clear when I said Vegas encodes 16-235 for DV.

Standard levels:
Digital black level should be 16 (Y') for DV.
Digital white level should be 235 (Y') for DV.
The Y' values correspond to 16 and 235 on the histogram. So if you create a solid color of 16 16 16 (RGB), that should correspond to digital black level. If you eyedropper the middle PLUGE bar in the test pattern (it indicates where black level should be), it should be 16 16 16 (RGB).
To access the eye dropper in Vegas, add the gradient map filter. DISABLE IT. Click the eyedropper, click on the image.
*Ignore the waveform monitor as you can set it to be wrong.
*This only applies to the Sony DV codec. Using different codecs may give you different results.

Analog black level should be 0mV for PAL.
Analog white level should be 700mV for PAL.

16 (Y') should correspond to 0mV for PAL DV-->PAL analog.


That's how things *should* work. (In practice, things may not work like they should.)
To check for yourself, just run the test I described earlier. Solid colors of 8 0 0 and 0 0 0 should appear black on an external monitor. These values were sort of arbitrary.

2- A lot of filters and operations in Vegas assume digital black level is at 0 0 0 RGB, and white at 255 255 255 RGB.
Fade to black
Invert
Solid Color, gradient generator
Most of the other generators, except for the test patterns.
etc.

3- If importing images, add the color corrector filter and use the computer to studio RGB preset.


I hope that makes sense, and is correct.