4K video editing

Gary3000 wrote:

Actually, in todays world of NLE editing apps, there IS "Magic". that magically fills in the missing pixels while retaining sharpness.

Not all NLE's do it, or do it the same.

^^^ this

Davinci Resolve (which is one of the most popular NLE's on this forum) has super scale, Adobe Premiere (via After Effects) has Detail Preserving Upscale. (not to mention AE natively offers different options on scaling - BiLinear or BiCubic, the later is better for non-graphic elements)

Perfect example of not all doing it the same.  I was referring to basic scaling, not multi-algorithm or AI processes, the results of which range from spectacular to unusuable.

Also keep in mind that 1080i footage needs to be de-interlaced prior to up-scaling, in which case there is the "Preserve Edges" option in After Effects (maybe Premiere?). that also makes footage look better than just scaling it up using nearest-pixel.

Irreelevant to the OP's question, I believe.  1080i should no longer be part of anyone's discussion these days, unless they're dealing with archival footage.

and yes. all this technology does indeed improve the appearance of upscaled 1080 video, even that which has been upscaled to "true" 4k. (which honestly, is irrelevant to the OP's question, as very few work in true-4k).

Um...no, not all, and not with all footage.  The problem is that algorithms must make certain assumptions, and the assumptions are not always correct.  Some content defys analysis. That's when manual tweaks and human judgement come it.

But just like with photographs that have been scaled up 200% in Photoshop, video scaled up 200% will look better.

Yikes, well, that's not true!   Photoshop scaled images have more pixels, not more detail.  The faked detail in 3rd party still or video algorithms comes from some rather intensive content prediction that fakes the detail.  But, look at that detail carefully, and closely.  It's not real, nor does it hold up or work well on close inspection.  Great at a distance only, and very sensitive to specific content and some extremely touchy manual parameter input.