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julianm44443758
julianm44443758
Inspiring
October 20, 2017
Question

2k or 4k timeline

  • October 20, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 2989 views

I have half of the footage filmed 4k compressed(not raw) and the other half 2k(1920 x 1080) compressed and a few minutes of 3840p or so.  I have been editing the film on 4k timeline so everytime I import a 2k clip to it i have to hit the scale to frame button to make sure it fits the entire screen of the program monitor which is ok and not a problem. The 2k footage on my 27 inch 4k monitor seems to look fine although on a 4k timeline. This feature film aims for successful worldwide distribution so I'm wondering if I should keep it as it is all the mixed footage on 4k timeline or downgrade somehow all the 4k footage to 2k and copy paste the entire project to 2k timeline(1920 x 1080p) so instead of having an exported 4k timeline I would have a 2k film ? Thank you for your prompt help in advance.

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    2 replies

    E
    excited_Genie16B8
    Legend
    October 20, 2017

    1920 x 1080 is actually HD, a bit less than the DCI 2k spec.

    My own preference is to deliver at the lowest clip resolution.  Downscaling looks fine.  Upscaling...not so much.  Especially on a 30' screen.

      Kristian Gabriel
      Kristian Gabriel
      Participating Frequently
      October 20, 2017

      As long as your workflow is working and flowing well...the way you are working is fine. It's easy to scale down than scale up. If your 4K workflow is going well...I would keep going and then the final output will transcode and flatten everything to the file format and size of your choice. If you are having issues with playback--transcoding everything to one codec and a consistent size virtually eliminates most issues you will have in post. What is your final output? 4K, 2K, other? Natively mixing camera media works better in Premiere than most editorial applications out there--but there can also be many issues and risk in this as well. If this is a feature film and you want 100% consistency with an almost 100% error-free media workflow--transcode everything to one format. That's it. If you have a great workflow already and things seem to be working for you, I would continue what you are doing unless you plan to introduce more camera formate and/or media with varied frame rates. For features, we work with 2K as well--so this is a great choice if you need to save space and make your project a little lighter. Either way, the new Shared Project feature in 2018 offers greater flexibility for feature films and large projects by breaking up media and assets across sub-projects. This could be useful if you primarily work on features. FYI--there is a preference for automatically scaling media to your sequence size when dragging clips of a different size. Remember that you can also batch scale many clips at the same time.

        julianm44443758
        julianm44443758Author
        Inspiring
        October 20, 2017

        Thanks for your reply. Yes on this timeline there is some clips with lowered frame rates from the original 24 fps and both mp4 and mov video clips. And regarding the 2k or 4k, personally i think 2k is good enough for everything and looks even better at least with certain cameras than 4k, and as Jim mentioned ( If i read correctly) that the 1920p footage exported as 4k would probably look much worse on a movie theater screen than on a home computer. So downgrading everything to 2k would make sense but I read somewhere that Netflix for example requires 4k these days ? which sounds odd..

        Further, if the slowed down footage is a bit choppy after rendering with optical flow, I assume next option to try is the interpret footage option ? or would the premiere pro smooth it out automatically even more while exporting ?

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