Upscaling a 2.5k image on the BMCC

[Tom Sefton]

How do you mean upscale 2.5k to be the equivalent to 1080p?

If you grade your footage at 2.5k in resolve and render a 2.5k ProRes file, you could import the file into a 1080p project….

[Chris Tompkins]

Upscale?
2.5k is already larger then 1080.

Chris

[Alexander Nilsen]

I mean to enlarge the image so it would be 1080 from 2.5K. Let say I would scale up/zoom in/enlarge the image on a 1080 resolution, at some point it would be equivalent to 720 and my question is how many percentages of zooming in would I need to apply to get 1080 from 2.5K?

Blackmagic Cinema Camera 2.5K EF
Canon XA10
Merlin Steadicam
Tilta 3 DSLR rig
iMac intel i5

[Chris Tompkins]

see chart here:

Chris

[Tom Sefton]

2.5k = roughly 2500 horizontal pixels
1080 = 1920 horizontal pixels

if you need to stabilise your footage due to camera shake, grade your footage in resolve and export a full 2.5k resolution ProRes422HQ file.

Import this to AE or Motion and make a 1080p project. Bring the footage into the smaller project and you will notice the difference in size. Adjusting for camera shake shouldn’t be a problem.

[Alexander Nilsen]

Ah ok but don’t I need to enlarge the image in motion to make it look like an 1080 image after stabilizing the shot?

Blackmagic Cinema Camera 2.5K EF
Canon XA10
Merlin Steadicam
Tilta 3 DSLR rig
iMac intel i5

[Chris Tompkins]

The Warp Stabilizer in AE is great also.

Chris

[Matthew Sonnenfeld]

There will be no enlarging at all. 2.5K is larger than 1080p. You downscale 2.5K to be 1080p. By placing 2.5k in a 1080p timeline/project the software will automatically scales the footage correctly, or you can resize it to fit, but that would be making it smaller, not larger by any circumstance.

To stabilize the footage and have the best 1080p results, do your color grade in DaVinci resolve, then export full 2.5K ProRes files and bring those into a After Effects 1080p project. Use the Warp Stabilizer on the footage and AE will use the extra resolution to best stabilize the footage by pan/scan outside the 1080 frame.

You could also use the built in stabilizer in Resolve though the Warp Stabilizer is very easy to use if unfamiliar with the DaVinci’s toolset.

Co-President at fourB Productions, Inc.
Blackmagic Cinema Camera, RED Scarlet-X, Panasonic HPX170, Canon 7D
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 16GB RAM
AJA IoXT
Adobe Production Premium CS6, Avid Symphony 6, Final Cut Pro Studio 3
The College of William and Mary