4K or Not?

[Craig Taylor]

Must replace AX-2000 used for wildlife videos that are burned to DVD's. New cameras come with the 4K key option at $500. Am I right in thinking that 4K would eat up too much space and, for $500, any improvement in visual quality would be overpriced?

[pandy]

Must replace AX-2000 used for wildlife videos that are burned to DVD's. New cameras come with the 4K key option at $500. Am I right in thinking that 4K would eat up too much space and, for $500, any improvement in visual quality would be overpriced?

4k signal flow is beneficial (quality) to HD so if you can afford for 4k then i would recommend 4k

[johnmeyer]

If you were asking whether to spend extra money to get a 4K LCD set, I'd say don't bother, because until you get to wall-sized displays, you won't be able to see the difference.

However, acquisition is a different matter.

Shooting in 4K gives you all sorts of options in post (e.g., zooming, while still maintaining HD quality for delivery). Yes, 4K edits more slowly on the timeline, but most NLEs let you create proxies for editing, so except for the time and temporary disk space needed for the proxies, there is no downside to editing the higher-res material.

So, yes, you should spend the money, if you have it, to get 4K.

[usually_quiet]

Must replace AX-2000 used for wildlife videos that are burned to DVD's. New cameras come with the 4K key option at $500. Am I right in thinking that 4K would eat up too much space and, for $500, any improvement in visual quality would be overpriced?

4K would provide noticeably higher quality if you are willing to transition to Blu-ray video or UHD video at some point. It is a waste for DVD video.

If your VideoHelp computer details are up-to-date, the computer you have is not good enough for 4K video. Working with 4K video will require lots of RAM (32GB minimum) and a newer, faster computer.

[Craig Taylor]

Thanks everyone, but I am still somewhat uncertain about all of this. Our video is edited on a new iMac using Final Cut Pro X. The final movies, limited to 30 minutes, are burned to Blu-Ray disks which are viewed on wide-screen TV's. Assuming we can get 30 minutes on the discs, our first priority is always the highest quality video possible. Only about half of the video would be 4K, the rest would be split between 1080 high-definition and JPEG still images. Could we get that on the Blu-Ray discs? Am I correct in understanding we could, if necessary to speed things up, edit in a different format, without adversely affecting the ultimate Blu-Ray quality? Finally, does anyone know if the Sony PXW-X70 Professional XDCAM is supported by FCPX?

Thanks again.

[jagabo]

Another thing to keep in mind is that manufacturers overstate the true resolution of their devices. Image sensors use a Beyer pattern which only delivers about half the claimed resolution. So downscaling from 4K to 2K will look much better than shooting with a 2K camera (assuming other qualities are similar, sufficient bitrate, etc.).

[johnmeyer]

Another thing to keep in mind is that manufacturers overstate the true resolution of their devices. Image sensors use a Beyer pattern which only delivers about half the claimed resolution. So downscaling from 4K to 2K will look much better than shooting with a 2K camera (assuming other qualities are similar, sufficient bitrate, etc.).

+1

[usually_quiet]

Assuming we can get 30 minutes on the discs, our first priority is always the highest quality video possible. Only about half of the video would be 4K, the rest would be split between 1080 high-definition and JPEG still images. Could we get that on the Blu-Ray discs?

The spec for authored Blu-ray supports 1080i29.97, 1080p23.976 and 1080p24 in N. America, plus 1080i25 elsewhere in the world. 4K video and JPEG images could be stashed in unrelated folders stored on the disc, but there will be problems playing the 4K video using a set-top player.

Only UHD Blu-ray players can play 4K video, but even then I think there are some UHD Blu-ray players which won't play video data files stored on optical media. UHD Blu-ray supports progressive UHD video and progressive HD video (at higher framerates than Blu-ray does), but there is no licensed software for authoring UHD Blu-ray on burned media yet because the spec for UHD Blu-ray only covers pressed discs. The Blu-ray disc association is working on an addition to the spec for burned media, but I don't know when it will be completed.