You know… I’ve legitimately delayed this review due primarily to my attempts at finding
a way to write it without sounding like a complete shill or sellout.
While yes - the Elgato Green Screen was sent free for review on the channel - I work with
Elgato on a wide number of reviews and don’t always have nice things to say.
In fact, I had actually ordered the Green Screen myself on Amazon and was thankfully
able to cancel the order upon learning that Elgato was sending one over for free.
I thought it was worth the price as soon as they announced it.
So spoiler alert: Yeah, I have a lot of good things to say about it.
But there’s a couple things I’d love to be worked on or made available in the future,
and I am personally not the biggest fan of the current trend of green screen over-usage
in the first place.
Let’s jump in, right after this.
Who.. what..
Orisa, where?
HUH?!
I just see a Rein...
Oh.
Cool.
DUDE will you just get a ModMic already?
It attaches to any headphone so you can use that good pair you like, but I'll actually
be able to understand your call-outs.
It also has a mute switch so I don't have to hear all those conversations with your
grandma.
We gotta get serious to get out of Plat.
Yes, just order one tonight.
Learn more via the link in the video description.
I’m EposVox, here to make tech easier and more fun, and today I’m reviewing a Green
Screen.
But it’s not just a piece of green fabric with a brand name, this is a premium piece
of kit designed to make your life easier while still being a simple concept.
I’ve used 3 different forms of green screen, but they’ve never really made their way
onto my channel.
Why?
Because the setup was FAR too cumbersome to ever keep up with within my small working
spaces.
In my bedroom back during my college years I hung a wood dowel from the ceiling and ran
a green screen on that.
It technically worked, but was VERY hard to light in such a small space and divided the
room way too much to leave up.
I’ve tried using a traditional backdrop stand, but again - having the space to leave
it up sucked, and setup time is a nightmare.
Plus with both of these, rolling up or folding up the backdrop cloth introduces all kinds
of wrinkles that make the keying process even more difficult.
Then while interning for a local sports broadcast, one of the main hosts just had one of his
basement walls covered in green paper with some clamp lights.
An effective budget setup, but hard to light evenly and not something most people can commit
to.
And frankly, if you’re not going to pull off a nice-looking chroma key, just don’t
bother.
It’s obvious, looks awful, and far inferior to just setting up a proper, decent-looking
backdrop in the first place.
I had all but just given up on using a green screen… pretty much ever.
I still have a couple old cloth screens, but they need cleaned and ironed before ever being
useful.
But then Elgato showed up and dropped the Cam Link and Green Screen on us.
This actually answers most of my issues with traditional setups.
So the idea behind Elgato’s Green Screen seems fairly obvious - it’s one I actually
looked for when I was trying my ceiling-hung method circa 2012 - but it’s very effective
here.
Remember the pull-down projector screens from grade school?
They hung on brackets off the wall and pulled out of a little box, but always stayed in
place and perfectly flat.
This is the same concept, but flipped upside down.
You have a nice, metal case to enclose and protect the green screen, and it rolls out
from there - remaining wrinkle-free and in perfect condition.
You spread the balancing legs, open the case, and lift up on the handle to your desired
height.
The crossbar keeps it secure in place at any height up to 70.87 inches high.
No extra switches, levers, anything required to lock it into place.
It just sits there.
Then when you’re done, lightly push down and it rolls back up and you can store it
under couches, under beds, anywhere, really.
This is a great system.
The screen and case are 58.27 inches wide - big enough to cover the width of you sitting
in a chair, but not too wide for most setups.
Though for some super small setups it can be too wide - but you’d risk not having
enough coverage for proper keying otherwise.
Height-wise…
it goes up to just over 70 inches tall.
This.. frustrates me a bit.
Just like 2 more inches and it’d be perfect for me to use standing up, but as-is, I’d
have to slouch quite awkwardly to make it work.
I realize the purpose of this is fully for sitting down setups for streaming, but this
would be the PERFECT screen for my post-production work, too, with a little more height.
To work around this, I would LOVE to see a taller variant.
I realize there’s probably a limitation on height due to the crossbar’s engineering,
but literally just like 3 more inches for me personally would be great.
I could, in theory, just set it up on some books or cinderblocks or something - but I
don’t have anything to do so in a secure manner and evenly, and this technically detracts
from the easy setup gimmick for it.
Alternatively, I would also love to see a modification or variant in which the case
can also be hung from wall hooks like the projector screen I mentioned before and extended
upside down so I could use the height to still use while standing since I don’t need a
green screen that goes to my feet.
I was thinking I could do this with this screen and maybe make a separate project video - but
unless I’d want to awkwardly hang it not at the top of my wall, it wouldn’t reach
down far enough to be fully effective that way, either.
The mechanisms to use the screen are great and feel high quality, and the green screen
material itself feels super premium.
And the fact that it stays wrinkle-free is just… great.
Here’s a message I sent directly to the Elgato team and I stand by this.
It’s a premium product for a slightly premium price - but far cheaper than any remotely
similar professional products I have found.
My main concern would be if you left it up and a cat or dog decided to chew on or scratch
at it.
It’s premium material, but if it ripped enough, the spring could theoretically pull
the bottom half back into the case and it’s ruined forever.
But that’s why it collapses into a protective case, right?
Lastly, I did want to cover setting this up in software.
This is still a green screen - you still need solid lighting for both you and the backdrop.
Shadows will give you problems, lack of light on you as the subject will cause problems.
This will also show up best with a proper camera, such as a camcorder or DSLR - fed
into a capture card or the Elgato Cam Link, conveniently launched at the same time.
A webcam won’t resolve the color or background separation as well, and if you have auto settings
on, your face is about to get hella red.
We’ll go from most complicated to easiest solutions - OBS, XSplit, and Elgato’s Game
Capture software.
In all options just crop off the excess framing around the green screen.
Let’s start with OBS Studio: Add your facecam to your scene as you normally
would.
Once it’s set up, right-click its Source Listing, and click “Filters.”
Here, you can add lots of effects and edits to your audio and video from this source.
Under “Effect Filters” click the Plus sign.
You can use either “Color Key” or “Chroma Key” - one may work better, depending on
your setup, but the intended purpose is basically the same.
Pick one and choose your “Key Color Type” - in this case, green.
This should automatically start to cut out some of the green.
You can now use the controls for “Similarity”, “Smoothness” and “Key Color Spill Reduction”
to clean up your image.
“Similarity” controls how much color similar to Chroma Green it cuts out.
If there’s lighting differences along your screen, you will want to adjust this - being
careful not to go too far and cut out other colors.
“Smoothness” smooths out edges and the overall keying of the color.
Too much can start to dissolve the rest of your image, though.
“Key Color Spill Reduction” aims to help you reduce keying of other colors - but again,
messing with this too much can affect your image on the whole.
This filter also gives you controls for Contrast, Brightness, and Gamma - but these should be
left alone in most cases.
This is something you need to adjust in your webcam or camera’s settings instead of here.
Especially if the webcam has been left on default automatic modes, you may notice your
skin has now started to turn red on-camera due to it trying to compensate for the green
backdrop.
In XSplit: Add your webcam as normal to your scene.
Right click on the webcam either in your sources list or on the canvas and click the “Color”
tab.
Towards the bottom, you can choose “Color Key” or “Chroma Key.”
For “Chroma Key,” you choose the color green and adjust the “Threshold” and “Exposure”
to adjust your image.
You also have an “Anti-Aliasing” setting, which can help smooth some of the jagged edges
produced by the background removal, but with a performance impact.
For “Color Key” you can click the eyedropper tool to choose your background color, and
then adjust Threshold and Exposure, as well as individual Red, Green, and Blue levels
to fix color issues.
You also still have the Anti-Aliasing option here.
In Elgato’s Game Capture software, enable Stream Command - I have a full video detailing
this feature linked in the video description.
Add your webcam to the scene or choose a scene with the webcam added and click “Edit Scene”
if it’s not already in edit mode.
Click your webcam and click the icon of a silhouette in a square for “Remove Background.”
Click “Enable Chroma Key”, pick your color, and adjust tolerance.
Less control, but much simpler.
The Elgato Green Screen takes a setup that has been reserved for the lowest-end budget
configurations or unaffordably high-end setups and given us a very premium middle-tier that
will serve most streamers very well.
I’m happy to have something to implement within my studio space for chroma keying for
the first time… ever, and I’m excited to see what future revisions look like.
Product links, as always, will be in the description below.
Check out the Elgato Green Screen for yourself if you’re interested.
Otherwise, hit that like button, subscribe for more awesome tech and educational content,
and I’ll see you in the next one!
4K60 PRO WHEN?!
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