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convince me: The need of 4k video / and high fps rates

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Thorfinn

Thorfinn

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What is the point of shooting 4k video?

Arri, Panavision, they are not "all-in" 4k. Arri makes a 4:3 b/w only camera - in 2015. Without proof I dare to say, that most cinema movies today are shot in 2k or less. Even today shooting on 16mm film is not uncommon. A few years ago 16mm was the #1 choice for everything below the top-dollar productions.

ok RED is really pushing 4k and 6k (The Martian), but it is a long time gone I watched and enjoyed a movie shot on RED cameras.

So why should I go 4k for private use?

Cons:
  • None of the people watching my videos have 4k screens. (including me). None of them go for 4k, they just buy whats available. So now the have these 3D HD screens
  • the high-rez screens they have are small (tablet, laptop) and not made for relax & watch
  • The 4k @fps 60 I watched were really stressful to watch. No cine-look motion blur, everything razorsharp and so many informations for the eyes
  • The distance to a larger screen will make 4k pointless for human eyes.
  • 4k needs a hell of storage/CPU/GPU and bandwith.
Pro:
  • resolution, resolution, resolution
  • pick stills off your video
  • resolution is good for surveillance
I still not se the point in 4k and high framerates beyond scientific and technical documentary and surveillance. Is 4k jut "the new black" like 3D was a decade ago?

Convince me!

otherwise i use my spare time training rigs and the use of these cine lenses instead of using photo lenses for video (These angenieux lenses are really fun, but boy what a rig).
 
1080p would be good enough for me, but only if current consumer cameras could make beutiful and sharp 1080p. Today they are still not doing that and that's why many people shoot 4k and edit beautiful 1080p final program. But when the processing power in cameras increase, we will see also good 1080p directly from camera.
 
let pass time ... within few years 4K will be STANDARD :-) ... even 1000 4K tv channels till 2025

compare FullHD and 4K! If you see no difference, you also can make movies with 640x480 :-)

I have 28" 4K monitor and 40" 4K tv, each €399/$430, free player MPC-HC, plays all ...

I only make 4K movies with GH4/NX500/smartphone Note3, 30fps (total some terabytes) - for me it is not interesting what OTHER people do/have.
 
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Good fullhd in 4k TV is really good. I remember when I got my 55 inch 4k TV and watched some good quality fullhd content in TVs internal youtube player, I really thought that it was showing 4k already. It was that good. Later I found out that it was only fullhd. I have connected lapop to HDMI giving real 4k. That is even better, but in order to see difference I need to be very close to TV (1m or so). Of course, in youtube only stable or slow moving footage looks sharp, any more moving video is full of artefacts, no matter if that is fullHD or 4k.
 
Stemu said:
1080p would be good enough for me, but only if current consumer cameras could make beutiful and sharp 1080p. Today they are still not doing that and that's why many people shoot 4k and edit beautiful 1080p final program. But when the processing power in cameras increase, we will see also good 1080p directly from camera.
Click to expand...
afaik, the limitation isn't caused by processing power per se, it's due to nyquist limitations with the sensors.

if you want full 1080p resolution, it will almost always have to come from downrezzed 4k... the rare exceptions being the pricey c100/c300/ect, because they are dedicated 1080p cameras with tweaked 4k sensor setups.

real 1080p is a very good reason to acquire in 4k.

--
dan
 
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most sensors are at least 4k and 1080p video is downscaled. The problem is that due to lack of processing power the "downscaling" is done quick and dirty and not optimal way. Expensive big movie cameras have this power and they produce beatiful 1080 video. But we know that processors get better and soon also cheaper cameras can do nice 1080p :)
 
osv said:
Stemu said:
1080p would be good enough for me, but only if current consumer cameras could make beutiful and sharp 1080p. Today they are still not doing that and that's why many people shoot 4k and edit beautiful 1080p final program. But when the processing power in cameras increase, we will see also good 1080p directly from camera.
Click to expand...
afaik, the limitation isn't caused by processing power per se, it's due to nyquist limitations with the sensors.

if you want full 1080p resolution, it will almost always have to come from downrezzed 4k... the rare exceptions being the pricey c100/c300/ect, because they are dedicated 1080p cameras with tweaked 4k sensor setups.

real 1080p is a very good reason to acquire in 4k.
Click to expand...
 
Stemu said:
most sensors are at least 4k and 1080p video is downscaled.
Click to expand...
no, dedicated 1080p cameras do not have 4k sensors, because it's way too expensive.

perhaps what you are thinking of is pixel binning, which is the process of combining adjacent pixels into one pixel.

the gh4 has a 4k sensor, and it can't capture the full 1080p resolution, it's done by ~800 lines... you have to acquire in 4k and downrezz to get the full 1080p rez out of the gh4.
Stemu said:
The problem is that due to lack of processing power the "downscaling" is done quick and dirty and not optimal way. Expensive big movie cameras have this power and they produce beatiful 1080 video.
Click to expand...
expensive big movie cameras have expensive big sensors, that's why they produce nice video.
 
If you use lower resolution on 4K tvs, pixels are interpolated, most multiplied - that isn't really good :-(

You can download 4k youtubes - streaming them isn't soooooo good. It's better to download and view per PC or 4k player. There are a lot of fine 4k players for under $100

It's best to make own 4K videos ... with 100Mbps H264 or 70Mbps H265 :-)
 
Martin Maier said:
yeeeees, he died April 4th, 1976 .... ;-)
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They're not always what they're cracked up to be.

The constant focus on them is like Amish riding in buggies.

:-)

FF cameras have lots more megapixels than 10.

Cellphones have 100mp sensors that are smaller than a gnat's eye.

And people like Philip Bloom are shooting lots of projects on Canon glass that is not parfocal.

It's time to get over it.

BC
 
.

You sound like a knowledgeable fellow who can think and reason things out for himself. You seem to have thought this all out very well for your own personal needs.

Regarding your points, 3D has indeed been a big flop. But that is not at all true of 4k. They are in no way at all comparable.

You ask for advice about using 4k for private use, yet refer to and talk about very expensive professional cameras. I don't know of any consumer cameras yet shooting 4k/60p They all shoot 24p and 30p. You must be looking at footage from a pro camera if it is in 4k/60p

As far as whether you would benefit from trying a 4k camera, who knows? We don't know anything at all about what sort of equipment and video file formats you currently work with. I'm not sure how anyone could convince you to use something else, when we don't even have a clue as to what you are currently working with.

Like some of the others here, I shoot in 4k. More specifically, using Sony's 100 Mbps XAVC-S UHD/30p But I render to real high quality 1080/30p Sure, the files out of the camera are double the size of my HD camera, and they do tend to take twice as long to render from as well. But I can easily live with that. Especially now that computer mass storage is so very cheap, and high capacity memory cards are also now so affordable.

.
 
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I have GH4 and a good 65 inch 4k TV. The difference between GH4 fullhd video and GH4 4k video is very visible. GH4 fullhd video looks quite soft at 1.5 meters (or 5-6 feet) but 4k video looks sharp and pleasing, photo-like.

When I play 4k video with computer player it down scales 4k 4:2:0 to perfect 1080 4:4:4 video (I dont have 4k graphic card yet). It is much better than GH4 1080 4:2:0 fullhd from camera. My TV has surprisingly good processing (upscaling) and the upscaled fullhd looks better and sharper than the same video in my fullhd plasma TV. So 4k source for fullhd and 4k display are both improving the quality.

Down scaling improves image quality almost always. Even photos from RAW suffers sensor de-bayering. Color resolution is far from perfect when using sensor 1:1 pixels.

4k video is so sharp that I must sit very close (about 1 meter) to 65 inch TV if I want to see all the details. There are some inconveniences with so big and sharp image. Objective faults like corner softness are easily visible and focusing errors, jittering and sharpness pumping are also disturbing. High contrast TV VA-panel suffers from narrow viewing angles so edges of image fades a little if I sit close to screen. Even when I watch high quality photos in 4k I see faults unvisible in fullhd.

I must use slow pannings and quite high shutter speeds if I want sharp video. Modern top class TVs has so good motion interpolation that movements and pans at 4k 30P looks sharp and natural. 4k 60P is obviously the goal but not many cameras can do it.
 
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osv said:
Stemu said:
most sensors are at least 4k and 1080p video is downscaled.
Click to expand...
no, dedicated 1080p cameras do not have 4k sensors, because it's way too expensive.

perhaps what you are thinking of is pixel binning, which is the process of combining adjacent pixels into one pixel.

the gh4 has a 4k sensor, and it can't capture the full 1080p resolution, it's done by ~800 lines... you have to acquire in 4k and downrezz to get the full 1080p rez out of the gh4.
osv said:
The problem is that due to lack of processing power the "downscaling" is done quick and dirty and not optimal way. Expensive big movie cameras have this power and they produce beatiful 1080 video.
Click to expand...
expensive big movie cameras have expensive big sensors, that's why they produce nice video.

--
dan
Click to expand...
And big sensors require big processing power. Especially if they are to shoot raw, or prores flavours, MP4 or is it H265? At 60fps or is it 120fps? And if they squeeze in the big sensor with the big processing they generate big heat. And thats what is truly lacking today, is cooling in DSLR form factor. The design does lend itself to raw video, for lengthy shots. - JMHO

--
"Shoot Long and Prosper"
 
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ShootMeAlready said:
osv said:
Stemu said:
most sensors are at least 4k and 1080p video is downscaled.
Click to expand...
no, dedicated 1080p cameras do not have 4k sensors, because it's way too expensive.

perhaps what you are thinking of is pixel binning, which is the process of combining adjacent pixels into one pixel.

the gh4 has a 4k sensor, and it can't capture the full 1080p resolution, it's done by ~800 lines... you have to acquire in 4k and downrezz to get the full 1080p rez out of the gh4.
ShootMeAlready said:
The problem is that due to lack of processing power the "downscaling" is done quick and dirty and not optimal way. Expensive big movie cameras have this power and they produce beatiful 1080 video.
Click to expand...
expensive big movie cameras have expensive big sensors, that's why they produce nice video.

--
dan
Click to expand...
And big sensors require big processing power. Especially if they are to shoot raw, or prores flavours, MP4 or is it H265? At 60fps or is it 120fps? And if they squeeze in the big sensor with the big processing they generate big heat. And thats what is truly lacking today, is cooling in DSLR form factor. The design does lend itself to raw video, for lengthy shots. - JMHO

--
"Shoot Long and Prosper"
Click to expand...
"And big megapixels require big processing power".

It has nothing to do with sensor size.

Big processing does generate heat.

When I shoot RAW with my BMPC the SSD is almost too hot to touch after an hour. Some people put duct tape on the drives to make a flap so they can pull them out. Even the cage can get almost too hot to touch. And it has a peltier cooling and a fan.

But the thing is that people who want RAW video really don't care about the DSLR form factor anyway.

If it were such a big deal to do high end video in a DSLR form factor the 1DC would sell like hotcakes.

It doesn't.

People in that budget are buying C100-C500 cameras.

How much heat do cameras that output RAW video to an external device generate?

How much heat does a BMPCC generate when it's shooting RAW?

What SLR mfg is going to put a peltier cooler and a fan in a DSLR?

BC
 
Thorfinn said:
Convince me!
Click to expand...
Why should I, or anyone else, 'convice' you? Based upon what you wrote, you are already convinced that you do not need 4K.

Fine, done and dusted.

When the time arrives, you will convince yourself that you need it. Until then, enjoy what you currently have.
 
Some SONYs limit 4K video to 5 minutes :-(

My GH4/NX500 never overheated when taking 4K movies - NX500 has 28Mpixel sensor and is very small.

In EU ("senseless rule") NX500 stops after 29:59 - GH4 also stops, but starts next file.
 
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