mixed footage outputting for festivals

[giordanowolf]

With a  project that has half 1080p footage and half 720p footage, being produced for film festivals, which will produce better quality:

sequence at 1080p and upscale the 720 footage?

or

sequence at 720P and downscale the 1080 footage?

The screener will be dvd or bluray and the final output will be DCP. I have never output to DCP before.

I am asking here because I have gotten mixed answers elsewhere.

[SamDogDigital]

A few years ago we had some helicopter aerials shot which for a reason I can't remember was recorded at 720P.  It has always been scaled up and used in 1080 timelines. Hard to tell the difference up against originally shot 1080 clips.

[shooternz]

Its easy to do a test to satisfy your self on the matter.

[Peru Bob]

giordanowolf  wrote

sequence at 720P and downscale the 1080 footage

That's my recommendation for DVD or Blu-Ray.

For DVD you don't need more than 720 and most Blu-Ray upscale 720 footage well.

However,

the final output will be DCP.

According to the specifications the following aspect ratios for DCPs are valid:

The pixel array size and frame rate shall be one of the formats listed in the table below:

• 2K Scope (2.39:1) Resolution: 2048x858 FPS:24/1 or 48/1
• 2K Flat (1.85:1) Resolution: 1998x1080 FPS:24/1 or 48/1
• 2K Full (1.90:1) Resolution: 2048x1080 FPS:24/1 or 48/1
• 4K Scope (2.39:1) Resolution: 4096x1716 FPS:24/1
• 4K Flat (1.85:1) Resolution: 3996x2160 FPS:24/1
• 4K Full (1.90:1) Resolution: 4096x2160 FPS:24/1

Stereoscopic picture essence tracks shall be limited to the 2K formats, and shall have a frame rate of 48/1 and an edit rate equal to half the frame rate.

from here:

https://www.easydcp.com/support-faq.php?id=24

[Roei Tzoref]

degrading your footage would be a shame. I would scale up my 720's, maybe use detail preserve upscale effect in Ae or some other 3rd party plugins that can handle the scaling better than Premiere. if I don't have much time I'd just scale it in premiere. don't forget to turn on "use maximum quality" on export.

detail preserve upscale is demonstrated in this tutorial along with a proper DL workflow between Ae and Pr:

Use Dynamic Link with After Effects