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4K might become a reality quicker than we think
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[Gary Huff] “The worse thing you can do is go to a Fry’s where they have the 4K demo display smack dab in the middle of all their newest 1080p panels. It’s really hard to spot the difference, except all the 4K demo material is at 30p and not 24, so the motion cadence difference between the two gives a slight clarity edge, which is b.s. since 1080 works the same way.”
Agreed. On the other hand, my local Best Buy has some new 4K panels from Samsung and Sony and the demos are pretty amazing.
The Samsung panel is UHD and their demo material is shot with HDR imaging. While the colors are unnatural, the detail is staggering. On the expansive, wide, city shots, you can read street signs and see pedestrians and cars. The closer you get, the more you see. It’s pretty mind blowing.
The Sony demo has more natural, realistic color. Again very nice detail.
Of course, with most normal material at normal viewing distances a lot of this detail is moot. I agree that better frame rates and color gamut would be a more valuable upgrade right now. But 4K is cool! I look forward to getting my hands on it more often.
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David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
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[David Mathis] “I assume that most motion pictures are now shot in 4K resolution…”
Nope… most are shot in 2K which is just a bit over 1080×1920. Arri understands there’s more important things than resolution when it come to making a good image.
7 of 9 best picture nominees shot with the 2K Alexa.
Best Picture
CAPTAIN PHILLIPS – ARRICAM, ARRIFLEX, ALEXA and Aaton cameras
DALLAS BUYERS CLUB – ALEXA
GRAVITY – ALEXA
HER – ALEXA
NEBRASKA – ALEXA
PHILOMENA – ALEXA
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET – ARRICAM and ALEXA -
[Gary Huff] “4K demo material is at 30p and not 24, so the motion cadence difference between the two gives a slight clarity edge”
Good point!
The only thing more pointless than 4K in the home, is 4K at 24fps. Of course given that downloads will be the first 4K available, I’d assume they will be shot mostly at 24fps despite not needing to adhere to any broadcast standards.
That’s the real hypocrisy of those demanding the quality of 4K. Ask them what frame rate they’ll shoot…
24 of course!!!
Heaven forbid their new 4K camera look too sharp with motion that looks too smooth. Oh no… 4K “video”!!
The “cult of 24” is strong. 4K will overwhelmingly be shot at 24fps… eye roll!!!
Go Peter Jackson go!!
John
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[John Heagy] “Nope… most are shot in 2K which is just a bit over 1080×1920. Arri understands there’s more important things than resolution when it come to making a good image. “
Alexa maxes out at 2880 x 1620, but yeah, I entirely concur and was writing a post to say this very thing when I saw yours go up. You’re absolutely right: it’s mostly 2K, because pixels do NOT equal resolution.
(FWIW, the last two Cinematography Oscars went to Alexa pictures, and if Gravity wins…and I think it will…that’d be the third 3D feature in a row!!!)
Even though it was 4-ish years ago, Avatar was indeed shot at 1920 x 1080, even though 4K cameras were available. The big screen doesn’t NEED big captures if they look good.
What’s especially interesting to me, though, is that indie shops, even one-man bands, get to this new tech long before features or TV do. While engineers were still arguing about how to deliver HD, event videographers were selling future-proofed wedding videos shot on HD.
The same was true with corporate video. You could shoot HD, and show it in the boardroom on plasma screens long before there was a way to broadcast it or put it on a disk. The smaller the scale project or shop, the easier it is to quickly adopt new formats — and it’s very much underway already.
So I would expect lots and LOTS of 4K/5K production for spots, music videos, corporate, and yes, even weddings, long before it’s common in either features or broadcast.
The other irony is that with HD, there was no idea how to stream it, so HD internet was the last thing anyone was thinking of. We can yap about compression, but you know what? I’m totally OK with the HD video I stream from Amazon, Netflix, and YouTube through my Blu-ray player. The 3D streams are noticeably fuzzier than Blu-ray, but still, streamed, smothered, chopped and doubled 720p totally passes the straight face test.
(Credit to Kylee Wall for that Waffle House tech humor.)
And this time, ironically enough, it’s going to be streams and downloads leading the way. Sony is already selling a 4K server with their 4K TVs that comes loaded with some of their movies (Taxi Driver! Yay! Beethoven! Ooops…), with a pretty decent download selection with reasonable prices for both rentals and purchases, and Samsung already has partnerships with Amazon to start streaming 4K in the next few months.
(For you tech nerds: the 4K big dog at Amazon is Ben Waggoner, the King of Compression. He was showing it at CES, and I can’t imagine he’d miss NAB.)
I don’t know if I should mention this, but my PHONE shoots 4K, and I gotta tell ya, the downcoverts over both HDMI and streaming are STUNNING. But c’mon, no reason to bring this up, because nobody in their right mind would dream of shooting anything important with their phone, right?
Right? RIGHT???
Tim Wilson
Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW -
[Andre van Berlo] “A lot of people already have equipment for external hdmi recording.”
Not at 4K.
[Andre van Berlo] “The GH4 as far as I know doesn’t take p2 cards but brand new SD cards”
It will take SD cards, but if you want to shoot 4K internally you have to use microP2.
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[Tim Wilson] “So I would expect lots and LOTS of 4K/5K production for spots, music videos, corporate, and yes, even weddings, long before it’s common in either features or broadcast.”
You will get 4K acquisition for these things from people who rushed out to purchase the cameras because they felt it would give them an edge in getting work.
But they don’t get paid any more for it over 1080p acquisition.
Hardly anyone I know in the wedding biz can get clients to accept Blu-rays. They are all shooting 1080 and delivering in 480. A lot of corporate in the big tech industries here is being mastered in 720p.
Features are already 4k/5k production, even keeping it mastered there. Your statement is completely backwards, save for broadcast.
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[John Heagy] “7 of 9 best picture nominees shot with the 2K Alexa.
“Great, I will use this line when someone starts chirping at me for 4k : ))
FOX broadcast in 720
I always shoot 1080 30p to for a little more frame size.
When I think about how many stations and multi million dollar remote trucks I do sports out of that would have to toss their cameras out, I feel like it’s gonna be a while for the networks.
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[Tim Wilson] “What’s especially interesting to me, though, is that indie shops, even one-man bands, get to this new tech long before features or TV do. While engineers were still arguing about how to deliver HD, event videographers were selling future-proofed wedding videos shot on HD.
The same was true with corporate video. You could shoot HD, and show it in the boardroom on plasma screens long before there was a way to broadcast it or put it on a disk. The smaller the scale project or shop, the easier it is to quickly adopt new formats — and it’s very much underway already.
“Spot on, that’s exactly what we’re doing, a number of other small companies we know are just waiting for the release of the BMD 4K camera and the GH4 and they’ll be doing the same thing.
We’ve been shooting 4K on our F55 for a while now, not because the customer asks for it, not because the customer pays for it but simply because it works better for us. It future proofs our rushes for library sales and it gives us more options in Post-Production for crops, stabilisation and effects.
Steve Connor
There’s nothing we can’t argue about on the FCPX COW Forum
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BMD have just announced their 4K camera is now shipping and they’ve dropped the price to $2,995!
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicproductioncamera4k
Steve Connor
There’s nothing we can’t argue about on the FCPX COW Forum
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[Steve Connor] “BMD have just announced their 4K camera is now shipping and they’ve dropped the price to $2,995!”
This is where it starts to get interesting: when you don’t need to charge extra for 4K because there’s no premium to produce it.
There are obviously infrastructure costs, but most Tube purchasers who are buying them to work in HD will have what they need for 4K. So, a relatively inexpensive camera, and voila.
No kidding, this happened with HD. The broadcast guys had a very hard time justifying it at first (and hey, the majority of my TV channels are still SD), but non-broadcast guys had a hard time justifying NOT doing it.
We’re not quiiiite there for 4K, but for many people already, we’re not NOT there either.
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