keyed footage used as an overlay

[jeremybrandt]

We've shot footage of someone on a green screen. They walk on camera hold up a DVD, give the thumbs up and then walk off camera. I'd like to use this in the lower right corner during our daily broadcasts (miniature) like in the style of a logo bug (advertising a reminder of our product as well as poking fun at those annoying things that have become so invasive).

Editing on Final Cut on a Mac and exporting a file for our Tricaster Studio to load into one of the DVR's so we can bring it in as an overlay. I've keyed out the green in Final Cut and tried exporting using QuickTime Conversion with Animation codec (to preserve an alpha channel for superimposing it on our live output). It doesn't seem to work... It's not keeping an alpha channel and keeps coming in with the black background.

Anyone have any suggestions for getting this to work? I hope I've explained myself clearly!

[SBowie]

I've keyed out the green in Final Cut and tried exporting using QuickTime Conversion with Animation codec (to preserve an alpha channel for superimposing it on our live output). It doesn't seem to work... I think this will only work if you set the color depth to "Millions of Colors +" in the Animation codec options.

[jeremybrandt]

Thanks, Steve. I did have it set for millions + 1. There must be something else I'm missing here...

[SBowie]

Thanks, Steve. I did have it set for millions + 1. There must be something else I'm missing here...Can you put a short sample somewhere for download to allow testing?

[jeremybrandt]

OK...I figured something out. I don't know if this is the best way to do it but I got the results I was looking for. In Final Cut, rather than exporting my sequence with an Animation codec, I exported it as an Image Sequence using Targa files. I then used QuickTime to open that Image Sequence and then exported using the Animation codec (millions +).
I then loaded this file into one of the Tricaster DVR's and used the overlay function (selecting that DVR) gives the keyed graphic I was looking for.

Thanks for the help!

[SBowie]

Interesting. There may be some setting in FCP that allows you to export without the background, dunno.