Re: Uhd to hd. Is there a dynamic range improvement
 

Thank you everyone for contributing to this enquiry.

Re: Uhd to hd. Is there a dynamic range improvement
 

For a dumb cluck like me, could someone perhaps lay out the correct method in stages or blocks for the best downscale from UHD to HD and by what softwares if DaVinci Resolve free or Adobe Premiere CS6 do not provide the appropriate encoders.

I would like to try to avoid using commands in MS-DOS. I can if needs must but I inevitably will make mistakes. You get that way when the years pile up and you become a bit witless.

Camera origination is by Blackmagic URSA 4K ( big URSA ) which creates Cinema DNG and UHD ProRes files, also Panasonic AG-UX180, which creates it seems unique UHD files in MP4 wrappers. Whichever and whatever, the images look nice from both cameras.

Re: Uhd to hd. Is there a dynamic range improvement
 

In Premiere I allow it to create a sequence that matches the videos native resolution then I export it to whatever lower resolution I want. I find the standard settings work fine but you can experiment.

I use the latest version of Premiere, in CS6 I believe you need to create proxies for 4k. Might be easier to downscale in another program. I have the UX180 and often film in HD to avoid the extra time of editing and encoding. If I need to recrop uhd is very helpful otherwise film in hd. For me the extra time of downscaling doesn’t justify the added time and hassle of editing and encoding.

Re: Uhd to hd. Is there a dynamic range improvement
 

The Ursa does perfectly fine 1080, there is literally zero reason to film in 4K to downscale to 1080 unless you want the ability to recompose shots, in which case I would say you should film videos properly to begin with instead of relying on that crutch.