Chromakey Problem-Please help!

Crewey wrote on 6/16/2012, 3:58 PM

Hi, I am trying to do some Chromakey. I put my background video (news studio) on Track 1 and my Greenscreen video on Track 2. However, as soon as I put the greenscreen video on track 2, the background video on track 1 shrinks to one cell. I can do the Chromakey, but I can't stretch my background video to the same length as my greenscreen footage. Therefore, after about 15 seconds I just get a black background! How do I loop the background footage so that it keeps on running until the greenscreen footage has finished? Any help and advice would be appreciated

Thanks

Dave

Comments

cpc000cpc wrote on 6/16/2012, 5:41 PM

Crewey,

You can stretch a video to nearly any length you want either by carefully dragging out its right edge on the timeline (the cursor become a pair of vertical lines, not the usual arrow etc) or changing the selection mode to 'Stretch' from the dropdown menu.

Though you apparently don't have a news room sound track, note that if there is audio grouped the stretching is limited to about half speed. If you ungroup the audio track you can go very very slow motion, but if too slow there may be noticeable jumps from original frame to frame.

For simple looping just make copies, standard Windows [Ctrl +C] and then [Ctrl + V], of your background and line them up one after the other. In some versions of MEP there is a one key short cut for 'Duplication' as well.

Regards,

Carl

Crewey wrote on 6/16/2012, 5:55 PM

Thanks Carl, I have tried grabbing the edge. The cursor turns into two lines but it wont stretch! I've also tried copying the clips next to each other but the playback is jerky at each join! It stretches fine until I add the second video and that it shrinks again!

Dave

johnebaker wrote on 6/17/2012, 2:43 AM

Are the background video and the green screen video the same resolution and format?

Does the background video have any movement in it?

If it is a static movie scene then you could create a new project imort the background video and then export a single frame as a jpeg image and then use this as the background which you can stretch as far as you like.

John