Has anyone delivered a 4K wedding yet?

[Kyle Root]

If so, how did you encode it and what was the delivery mechanism?

what codec did you use?

We're having a discussion amongst our local wedding video guys and one of them has a 4K TV and can't get any of his 4K content shot with a GH4 and Hero 4 to play smoothly without lag. He's playing it back via a USB 3 Hard Drive though his TVs USB port.

I have another friend who just got a killer deal on a Samsung 50" 4K TV for $500, so I think we're going to try on that one too.

[Steve Burkett]

I've been delivering Trailers and Marryoke's to Youtube as 4K. Plus I created a 20 minute video from footage shot in the Yorkshire Dales, all of which I've played on my 4K TV. Obviously different TV models handle USB files better than others. The settings I used I obtained from this blog and are settings for uploading to Vimeo, which I found just as useful for general 4K encoding:

Vimeo sneaks in 4K streaming. Hooray! | Philip Bloom

I used the 60mbps rather than 120mbps. The 60mbps kind of stutters a bit on my PC when I set my monitor to 4K, but plays well when set to 1080p. It plays perfectly on my TV though. I use a USB 3.0 device plugged into my TV. There is a particular port for video playback.

[James Palanza]

I've found that any computer I've tried to watch 4k on via youtube (except for my editing computer) stutters playback.

[Ian Atkins]

I still provide more dvds than blurays! So 4k is years away for me!

[Kyle Root]

I hear you on that.

My friend who just scored that 50" 4K Samsung TV from Best Buy for like $500 was telling me today that watching HD content on it looks horrific. But, when he hooks up his AV Receiver which does 4K upscaling, he says it looks fabulous. So, having either a TV that scales or AV receiver that upscales is apparently pretty important.

As I looked around and realized that I can get a 50" 4K TV for <$1,000 now.... I paid $1,800 for my 55" HD TV almost 7 years ago.... as people's TVs die and such it only makes sense to go 4K for the average Joe consumer. You know the sales guys will be pushing it since 4K is the latest and greatest.

I expect by Christmas we will be seeing crazy low pricing on 4K TVs.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Guys

I though the key word here was "deliver" ...so far it seems most 4K TV's stutter on a USB hard drive and any normal computer which would undoubtably make a bride really happy .."Watch my wedding video guys ... my TV doesn't play it correctly and stutters all the time but isn't the quality awesome"

So my burning question still is : What are you going to deliver a 4K wedding to the bride on ..media wise? I'm assuming that written to a pile of BluRay disks it won't play in a BD player, it work play on some TV's so what exactly can the bride watch her wedding on??? It seems an exercise in futility if you don't have media or TV's to play the wedding on ?? I can imagine the Grandparents dilemma even more

Chris

[Steve Burkett]

Well Chris, I've got my first 4K Wedding in the Autumn, so over the winter months, I've been experimenting with different settings. 4K plays very well on my TV with no stutter whatsoever and that includes a video from a GoPro4 set to 4K that I attached to my car, where I sped up the footage. However 4K tv's are still very new and I made sure mine does conform to 4K streaming rather than just be a 4K Tv, which some are. It's technology in its infancy, but a growing one at that. 4K blurays are on the cards; do you think studios will ignore this as a means of re-releasing all their movies (those that they can of course), so it's only a matter of time. Netflix are offering a 4K streaming service and H265 is already on the way.

Look I share your concerns, but for now I'm still delivering DVD's when asked, my Youtube videos can be played at a variety of resolutions and as for the one 4K Wedding I have, I'm working with the couple to ensure good playback. HD has been with us for years and we're still delivering SD content. However HD is now a part of all our workflow in one form or another and I'm sure 4K will equally take a place in the future of Videography.

[Noa Put]

If I recall right the first HD(V) camera appeared in 2005 and yet 10 years later many wedding videographers are still questioning the fact if it makes any sense to deliver in HD since no-one is asking for it.

I think this has much to do with the fact that we assume it must be like that and most clients don't know any better, I decided for all my new inquiries to have dvd as a paying option and Blu-ray and HD on a usb stick as standard delivery. I will also tell my new clients why they need to change their minds and I show them a blu-ray disc on tv first and then a lower bitrate dvd (I have a dvd demo sample that has a lower bitrate which I selected on purpose just so the IQ looks worse but still acceptable) so they clearly can see the difference, blu-ray players have become so cheap now and playing HD on laptop's, tablets and even smartphones, either with a HD files or through services like Vimeo or Youtube has become so easy there is no reason to go for a ancient format like dvd that kills the resolution and quality of your film.

For me dvd has had it's time and I don't want to deliver in a lesser quality anymore, unless the client specifically asks and pays for it.

4K delivery on the other hand I"m not pushing yet because I still have to do my own 4K research, I don't have a 4K tv and have no idea what devices exist today that can stream a 4K file the right way to a 4K tv and I have no idea what bitrate to use for 4K masters. I have read that the first 4K blu-ray disc would appear this year? So that should mean new 4K blu-ray burners and players as well I guess.

If I would get a 4K delivery request for a wedding today I would not accept it eventhough I have two 4K camera's, this because I feel I"m not ready for it, I am only using 4K for it's cropping ability in post and the fact I can extract almost photoquality frames from my footage and I expect to use that to my advantage at least the coming 2 years and by then it should be much clearer where 4K delivery is heading.

[Chris Harding]

Thanks guys

However no-one has answered my question! Apart from USB what disk media can be used for 4K footage .. Can you create Bluray files at 4K resolution and will a BD play it on a UHD TV at full resolution ??

The word delivery suggests some sort of physical disk media so I simply want to know what that media is or are we waiting still for a new disk called a "XXX" Ray that can handle 4K footage and will have a player that will play it .... the UHD format is great but will we have media and players that will run it into a UHD TV and assumably also play BluRay and even DVD!?

Chris

[Noa Put]

If you just google it you can see there are already 4K mediaplayers available.

[Steve Burkett]

At the moment Chris, 4K delivery is either via the Internet or via USB. I'll still class this as delivery, as some of my clients are having their HD videos delivered by USB alone. There will be 4K bluray disks at some point and 4K bluray players. You'd need to upgrade to the right player and buy the right disk; similar to 3D bluray and 3D bluray players you get now. This is something promised for the end of the year; maybe. Until then, any delivery has to be USB or Internet; for obvious reasons USB is better.

However be patient; technology is growing. It seems only yesterday I had to watch online video using realplayer at very poor resolution. Now I'm watching HD Videos via Youtube on my TV. Another few years and I'm sure the playing field will be different. Until then I'm rather enjoying experimenting with 4K despite the deliverable limitations.

[Steve Burkett]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

If you just google it you can see there are already 4K mediaplayers available.

Ah yes I forgot about those.