GH4 Wedding Video

Chris Harding · March 25th, 2014, 07:42 PM

I did a survey on a bridal forum sometime ago and most brides had no idea what high def was and said that they really couldn't tell the difference even on fairly big screen TV's. We have to remember that brides look at content not resolution!!

Clive's chart is very interesting ...Come on, who in their right mind sits 3' away from a giant screen. In our living room I have a paltry 32" LCD TV and the nearest couch is maybe 3 metres away.

I wonder what the medical profession would say about sitting for ages in front of a 100" screen only 2 or 3' away from it??

However regardless of whether brides will actually notice the difference, the facility to be able to crop a badly composed shot would be a huge asset!!

Just for interest does anyone know the current limit one can crop 1080 footage so the viewer would not see any major difference when rendered down to SD ? Technically HD is "supposed" to be 4 times the resolution of SD so a 25% crop of a frame technically is possible without any perceived loss by the viewer? So with 4K down to SD DVD could one crop right down to just 1/8th of the picture??

Chris

Dave Partington · March 26th, 2014, 04:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

Just for interest does anyone know the current limit one can crop 1080 footage so the viewer would not see any major difference when rendered down to SD ? Technically HD is "supposed" to be 4 times the resolution of SD so a 25% crop of a frame technically is possible without any perceived loss by the viewer? So with 4K down to SD DVD could one crop right down to just 1/8th of the picture??

Chris

Err.... well.... how far away from the TV will you be sat? < grin >

Chris Harding · March 26th, 2014, 06:43 PM

Hi Dave

Nice one ...seriously though, I have never found cropping really practical as you lose resolution so fast .. the simple expression " I need to go in just a tiny bit more and it will be perfect" ends up as a nightmare even doing a very mild crop on 1080 and rendering out to our PAL DVD format. I'm not sure how much better a crop in 4K is going to be as cropped image even twice as sharp as it was can still look crappy.

Compared to pretty standard DSLR's with anything from 12 - 36 million pixels we can safely cut a chunk out of a still image and blow it up without any adverse effects! I think I'll wait until we get to that level on video ...sorta Ultra, Ultra, Ultra, Super High Def ... I guess by then still cameras will be quoted in GigaPixels??

Chris

Dave Partington · March 27th, 2014, 03:06 AM

I believe there is a difference, and it's this:

If you're editing 1080p on a 1080p timeline and then zoom in you DO lose resolution.

When you export this 1080p sequence to DVD it's merely resizing from the final image, i.e. an image with lost resolution, so it carries through to the DVD. The NLE isn't smart enough to un-zoom, figure out the crop you wanted and then export to DVD.

If you're editing 1080p on to an SD timeline and scaling the 1080p down to SD for the edit then you can of course zoom in a little without loss of resolution. There may still be an apparent loss of sharpness due to the export not downsizing quite as much but in reality it will be minimal. This is what I do if I know I'm definitely only going to be shipping DVDs (i.e. a dance recital) because it gives the most flexibility in post.

So what about 4K?

I don't expect many people to be editing 4K footage on a 4K timeline any time soon if they are also mixing it with 1080p footage, so in reality you're going to be downsizing the 4K to fit a 1080p timeline, just like editing 1080p to an SD timeline.

Zooming in on 4K won't lose quality provided (and this is a BIG thing to watch) you're actually zooming on the native footage and not 4K that's already been downsized to 1080p by your NLE prior to zooming, otherwise it's zooming on the 1080p scaled version and not the 4K version. There is a difference!

When ever you want to zoom you'll need to make sure that this clip is not being resized automatically to fit the frame, but is added at 100% (meaning you will automatically be getting a crop) then zoom OUT manually to get the part you want.

Steven Shea · March 29th, 2014, 08:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave Partington

I believe there is a difference, and it's this:

If you're editing 1080p on a 1080p timeline and then zoom in you DO lose resolution.

When you export this 1080p sequence to DVD it's merely resizing from the final image, i.e. an image with lost resolution, so it carries through to the DVD. The NLE isn't smart enough to un-zoom, figure out the crop you wanted and then export to DVD.

Actually, that isn't the case. At least with premiere. Someone mentioned it in another forum and I had to test it to believe it.

I put a 1080 clip on a 720 timeline without downscaling it. Then I put a 1080 clip on a 1080 timeline and zoomed in 150%. So the framing was identical to the 720 timeline example.

Rendered them both to a 720 file, compared results and what do you know... they were the exact same. Even with pixel peeping. I would not have assumed that's how it worked without testing it. Results may vary depending on NLE.

Dave Partington · March 29th, 2014, 10:01 AM

Place a 1080p file on a 720p timeline and downscale (size to fit) and THEN zoom in...... you will find that Premiere Pro first downscales it to 720 and then zooms in on the 720p version, not the 1080p version, at least it did up to CS6 which is the latest version I have. This is why you need to make sure that any over sized clip (i.e. 4K on a 1080p timeline) is sized from it's native resolution and not first downscaled and then resized.

Anthony Lelli · March 29th, 2014, 06:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Noa Put

There will come a moment where it all will be 4K, but only because you have no other choice when you upgrade your camera's, it's just a next step in camera evolution, 1080p only camera's will slowly vanish, just like dv camera's did when the transition to hdv occured.

You even might compare the magnitude of change from sd to hdv with 1080p to 4K, as long as you stayed on dvd a hdvcamera was just a ilittle sharper then dv camera when viewed on a crt screen, often you hardly noticed any difference. But once viewed on the right screen and in the right format the difference was obvious.

On a dvd and a 1080p screen full HD and 4k will be difficult to tell apart, some 4k camera might be a bit sharper as opposed to 1080p camera's, but once you start viewing it on these massive screens it becomes much more obvious, the only question remains is, how long will it take before all people have 55+ inch 4K monitors in their living room?

I agree. We (all) said the same things about the HDV (remember?) , all of us, myself included. By then was the "what do I need HDV for when there are no TVsets for it?"
Boy was I wrong!
4K is here to stay , no doubts about it.
if only we had a better distribution media: DVD are way obsolete, Blu-ray was killed by the greed and all the idiotic restrictions that scare people away. MP4 on flash is our only option, and all considered is way more reliable than any CD/DVD/Blu-ray disc that last a year tops.
So for me custom flash cards (with my logo and everything) are the next thing , and maybe it will last for a decade or so.

Dave Partington · March 30th, 2014, 05:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anthony Lelli

and all considered is way more reliable than any CD/DVD/Blu-ray disc that last a year tops.
So for me custom flash cards (with my logo and everything) are the next thing , and maybe it will last for a decade or so.

Sorry if I misunderstood this, but are you saying that the discs you ship don't last more that a year? Time to buy better discs I think. Unless you're storing them in sunlight, extreme heat or cold and aren't printing to them with corrosive inks then DVD & Blu-ray last a LOT longer than a year and 10 years should be no problem. If yours are only lasting "a year tops" then you are doing something wrong.

Flash OTOH is proving to be fairly unreliable, We had another thread on this not too long back with several people having (name brand) flash drives failing very quickly.

My 256MB (yes MB!) from the 90s still works, but I have several 8GB, 16GB and 32GB sticks bought in the last couple of years that don't. A friend of mine runs a mail order company and is seeing around 25% failure with warranty periods. So just be aware of this and make sure you're in a position to replace them when needed, since flash drives also cost more than optical discs, so it also eats in to your bottom line.

Having said that, notwithstanding the reliably issues, flash is certainly one of the better options going forward, but so are download options for those with fast connections. As more people move to devices (tablets) with no USB ports and no optical drives, they are expecting to be able to download and view without the hassle of physical media.

Nigel Barker · March 30th, 2014, 05:32 AM

What exactly are consumers going to be able to watch on their 4K TV sets? Apart from wedding videos on flash drives from forward thinking videographers or home movies there will be zero 4K material available. Broadcast 4K is a non-starter due to bandwidth demands whether cable, terrestrial or even satellite. There is no 4K disc standard & it will take years to agree one.

Dave Partington · March 30th, 2014, 05:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nigel Barker

What exactly are consumers going to be able to watch on their 4K TV sets?

I seem to remember the same questions of HD. 4K will come, though not likely in free to air channels any time soon.

H265 will reduce bandwidth requirements and other channels of distribution will be developed to fill the need.

Whenever the customer is willing to pay for something, someone will find a way of delivering it (and charging for it).

It's not going to happen over night, and i suspect the UK will be on the trailing edge of this, as usual, but it will happen.

Dave Blackhurst · March 30th, 2014, 06:18 PM

What will people watch? Hmm, one can shoot with... 4K tablets, cell phones, brilliant new consumer (albeit higher end) cameras like the GH4 and the AX100... You Tube is delivering in 4K... there will be PLENTY of "content", just not from the traditional sources, or via traditional "channels"!

4K might well be the "people's format" that changes video the way that word processing, digital cameras, digital audio recording solutions, MP3 players and so on have altered the way we read, see and listen, and who we read, watch and listen to.

The TV's are already in the stores, there's a 39" one for under $500... people are getting used to high-rez screens on everything from cell phones to tablets (monitors seem to be lagging?!), and are expecting sharper crisper content delivery.

And as we're already finding on the threads on the above cameras, the 4K downrezzed still looks sharper than most if not all 1080 cameras when displayed as 1080....this from "consumer" level 4K cameras.

Sure, there will be an adoption curve, I won't upgrade perfectly good HDTV's (unless these earthquakes pick up a bit more!), but my aging computer monitors are certainly up for review. For my use, one AX100 will replace several other cameras, as did the RX10 - less gear, better output, done! OK, so the RX10 only outputs stills to 4K....

No cheap cell phones with 4K this year, but most seem to have 1080p/HD as a feature, maybe by next year....

Spec'ing a new computer, many boards talk about having 4K output...

Yes, bandwidth will be put to the test, but it would be a foolish content producer/provider that was not rapidly working to figure out how to make it work. I agree that there really needs to be a reliable "hard format" delivery method - digital delivery is fine and good, but there's something about a chunk of plastic one can hold in their hand that is oddly reassuring.... I seem to recall that there is already a disc format being worked on... can't come soon enough!

Clive McLaughlin · March 31st, 2014, 04:20 AM

"The TV's are already in the stores, there's a 39" one for under $500..."

this is the point of the graph/chart I posted. 39" 4k tvs are a con. Its like buying a chocolate teapot!

I hate when manufacturers and consumer outlets knowingly take money off people under a false premise.

Its like selling a PC to a pensioner with 16gb ram and a 3tb hard drive so they can surf the net.

Anthony Lelli · March 31st, 2014, 05:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave Partington

Sorry if I misunderstood this, but are you saying that the discs you ship don't last more that a year? Time to buy better discs I think. Unless you're storing them in sunlight, extreme heat or cold and aren't printing to them with corrosive inks then DVD & Blu-ray last a LOT longer than a year and 10 years should be no problem. If yours are only lasting "a year tops" then you are doing something wrong.

Flash OTOH is proving to be fairly unreliable, We had another thread on this not too long back with several people having (name brand) flash drives failing very quickly.

My 256MB (yes MB!) from the 90s still works, but I have several 8GB, 16GB and 32GB sticks bought in the last couple of years that don't. A friend of mine runs a mail order company and is seeing around 25% failure with warranty periods. So just be aware of this and make sure you're in a position to replace them when needed, since flash drives also cost more than optical discs, so it also eats in to your bottom line.

Having said that, notwithstanding the reliably issues, flash is certainly one of the better options going forward, but so are download options for those with fast connections. As more people move to devices (tablets) with no USB ports and no optical drives, they are expecting to be able to download and view without the hassle of physical media.

no the CD-r and DVD-r are not reliable, they just don't last. Even my cat knows that.

Dave Partington · March 31st, 2014, 06:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anthony Lelli

no the CD-r and DVD-r are not reliable, they just don't last. Even my cat knows that.

Then you are doing something wrong. What brand are you buying? How are you writing / verifying them? What are you using to print on them? Is your cat the main user?

I have CDs written in the 90s that still work and DVDs that are now 10 years old that still work. In fact, the only DVDs I've shipped and had back as non working are because of physical damage (scratched) or people's finger marks all over them. Once cleaned they worked perfectly.

We use only TY (Tao Yuden - now made by JVC) water shield discs bought in bulk packs of 50 or 100, and while they costs a little more, they work, they're reliable and I get zero rejects when duplicating on to them with full verification also turned on. You can't buy these at Walmart etc, you need to order them from specialist suppliers. If you're using cheap discs, I've no sympathy, but that could well be the reason.

Bob Drummond · March 31st, 2014, 08:19 AM

The Lord of the Rings trilogy exists as a 2K master. The DCP of Ender's Game was 2048x880. Why exactly does a bride need 4K? For her 55" TV??

That being said, I am an avid devotee of shooting at 1080p, editing on a 720p timeline, and re-framing, zooming, etc. I can certainly see that 4K footage would be a great starting point for editors to have maximum flexibility for a 1080p or 2K final product.

March 25th, 2014, 07:42 PM	#31
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: GH4 Wedding Video I did a survey on a bridal forum sometime ago and most brides had no idea what high def was and said that they really couldn't tell the difference even on fairly big screen TV's. We have to remember that brides look at content not resolution!! Clive's chart is very interesting ...Come on, who in their right mind sits 3' away from a giant screen. In our living room I have a paltry 32" LCD TV and the nearest couch is maybe 3 metres away. I wonder what the medical profession would say about sitting for ages in front of a 100" screen only 2 or 3' away from it?? However regardless of whether brides will actually notice the difference, the facility to be able to crop a badly composed shot would be a huge asset!! Just for interest does anyone know the current limit one can crop 1080 footage so the viewer would not see any major difference when rendered down to SD ? Technically HD is "supposed" to be 4 times the resolution of SD so a 25% crop of a frame technically is possible without any perceived loss by the viewer? So with 4K down to SD DVD could one crop right down to just 1/8th of the picture?? Chris

March 26th, 2014, 06:43 PM	#33
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: GH4 Wedding Video Hi Dave Nice one ...seriously though, I have never found cropping really practical as you lose resolution so fast .. the simple expression " I need to go in just a tiny bit more and it will be perfect" ends up as a nightmare even doing a very mild crop on 1080 and rendering out to our PAL DVD format. I'm not sure how much better a crop in 4K is going to be as cropped image even twice as sharp as it was can still look crappy. Compared to pretty standard DSLR's with anything from 12 - 36 million pixels we can safely cut a chunk out of a still image and blow it up without any adverse effects! I think I'll wait until we get to that level on video ...sorta Ultra, Ultra, Ultra, Super High Def ... I guess by then still cameras will be quoted in GigaPixels?? Chris

March 27th, 2014, 03:06 AM	#34
Dave Partington Trustee Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: York, England Posts: 1,323	Re: GH4 Wedding Video I believe there is a difference, and it's this: If you're editing 1080p on a 1080p timeline and then zoom in you DO lose resolution. When you export this 1080p sequence to DVD it's merely resizing from the final image, i.e. an image with lost resolution, so it carries through to the DVD. The NLE isn't smart enough to un-zoom, figure out the crop you wanted and then export to DVD. If you're editing 1080p on to an SD timeline and scaling the 1080p down to SD for the edit then you can of course zoom in a little without loss of resolution. There may still be an apparent loss of sharpness due to the export not downsizing quite as much but in reality it will be minimal. This is what I do if I know I'm definitely only going to be shipping DVDs (i.e. a dance recital) because it gives the most flexibility in post. So what about 4K? I don't expect many people to be editing 4K footage on a 4K timeline any time soon if they are also mixing it with 1080p footage, so in reality you're going to be downsizing the 4K to fit a 1080p timeline, just like editing 1080p to an SD timeline. Zooming in on 4K won't lose quality provided (and this is a BIG thing to watch) you're actually zooming on the native footage and not 4K that's already been downsized to 1080p by your NLE prior to zooming, otherwise it's zooming on the 1080p scaled version and not the 4K version. There is a difference! When ever you want to zoom you'll need to make sure that this clip is not being resized automatically to fit the frame, but is added at 100% (meaning you will automatically be getting a crop) then zoom OUT manually to get the part you want. __________________ Qualified UAV Pilot with CAA PFAW Aerial Photo / Aerial Video \| Corporate Video Production

March 29th, 2014, 10:01 AM	#36
Dave Partington Trustee Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: York, England Posts: 1,323	Re: GH4 Wedding Video Place a 1080p file on a 720p timeline and downscale (size to fit) and THEN zoom in...... you will find that Premiere Pro first downscales it to 720 and then zooms in on the 720p version, not the 1080p version, at least it did up to CS6 which is the latest version I have. This is why you need to make sure that any over sized clip (i.e. 4K on a 1080p timeline) is sized from it's native resolution and not first downscaled and then resized. __________________ Qualified UAV Pilot with CAA PFAW Aerial Photo / Aerial Video \| Corporate Video Production

March 30th, 2014, 05:32 AM	#39
Nigel Barker Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Norwich, Norfolk, UK Posts: 3,531	Re: GH4 Wedding Video What exactly are consumers going to be able to watch on their 4K TV sets? Apart from wedding videos on flash drives from forward thinking videographers or home movies there will be zero 4K material available. Broadcast 4K is a non-starter due to bandwidth demands whether cable, terrestrial or even satellite. There is no 4K disc standard & it will take years to agree one.

March 30th, 2014, 06:18 PM	#41
Dave Blackhurst Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Apple Valley CA Posts: 4,874	Re: GH4 Wedding Video What will people watch? Hmm, one can shoot with... 4K tablets, cell phones, brilliant new consumer (albeit higher end) cameras like the GH4 and the AX100... You Tube is delivering in 4K... there will be PLENTY of "content", just not from the traditional sources, or via traditional "channels"! 4K might well be the "people's format" that changes video the way that word processing, digital cameras, digital audio recording solutions, MP3 players and so on have altered the way we read, see and listen, and who we read, watch and listen to. The TV's are already in the stores, there's a 39" one for under $500... people are getting used to high-rez screens on everything from cell phones to tablets (monitors seem to be lagging?!), and are expecting sharper crisper content delivery. And as we're already finding on the threads on the above cameras, the 4K downrezzed still looks sharper than most if not all 1080 cameras when displayed as 1080....this from "consumer" level 4K cameras. Sure, there will be an adoption curve, I won't upgrade perfectly good HDTV's (unless these earthquakes pick up a bit more!), but my aging computer monitors are certainly up for review. For my use, one AX100 will replace several other cameras, as did the RX10 - less gear, better output, done! OK, so the RX10 only outputs stills to 4K.... No cheap cell phones with 4K this year, but most seem to have 1080p/HD as a feature, maybe by next year.... Spec'ing a new computer, many boards talk about having 4K output... Yes, bandwidth will be put to the test, but it would be a foolish content producer/provider that was not rapidly working to figure out how to make it work. I agree that there really needs to be a reliable "hard format" delivery method - digital delivery is fine and good, but there's something about a chunk of plastic one can hold in their hand that is oddly reassuring.... I seem to recall that there is already a disc format being worked on... can't come soon enough!

March 31st, 2014, 04:20 AM	#42
Clive McLaughlin Major Player Join Date: Sep 2012 Location: Belfast Posts: 823	Re: GH4 Wedding Video "The TV's are already in the stores, there's a 39" one for under $500..." this is the point of the graph/chart I posted. 39" 4k tvs are a con. Its like buying a chocolate teapot! I hate when manufacturers and consumer outlets knowingly take money off people under a false premise. Its like selling a PC to a pensioner with 16gb ram and a 3tb hard drive so they can surf the net.

March 31st, 2014, 08:19 AM	#45
Bob Drummond Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 161	Re: GH4 Wedding Video The Lord of the Rings trilogy exists as a 2K master. The DCP of Ender's Game was 2048x880. Why exactly does a bride need 4K? For her 55" TV?? That being said, I am an avid devotee of shooting at 1080p, editing on a 720p timeline, and re-framing, zooming, etc. I can certainly see that 4K footage would be a great starting point for editors to have maximum flexibility for a 1080p or 2K final product.