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Serious Magic's Ultra Set & Chromakey gets very good marks overall, especially for a remarkably good virtual set ability for a very low price; low hardware requirements; and virtual panning and zooming that can make a shot compelling. Ultra can deliver not only top quality, vast chromakeying, but also virtual sets. A significant advantage of Ultra is its many included pre-built virtual sets, many of which have built-in motions and secondary video screens that can be filled with any available user- chosen video. Data size is considerable, so Ultra ships on a DVD- ROM; a DVD drive is needed, and, to store all provided content, 2.5GB of hard drive space is needed for storage. Ultra will run on just about any Pentium III+ with 256MB RAM that runs Windows XP or Windows 2000. The user works with a three-area workspace: a small Preview screen for maneuvering sources and key adjustment, a larger Output Preview screen that displays a representation of the finished product, and a window with various tabs that covers the whole width of the bottom of the screen. The user can often view a live preview of a composite, but output from Ultra is not in real time. All work is rendered to a file and imported to a separate editing program for inclusion in a sequence. Ultra can use any codec that can be used with DirectShow. With Vector Keying, Ultra works with extensive variability in key lighting. Autokeying is provided, but the user also can use 14 sliders for optimization.
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