best 4k hd to 1080p conversion?

What is 4K Video?

4K or 4K resolution means a video media (file, stream, disc, .etc), or video device (camera, display, projector, .etc) has approximately 4,000 pixels in horizontal direction.

In digital cinema field, Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) is the dominant 4K standard. The resolution of this 4K standard is 4096x2160, 4 times of DCI 2K (2048x1080). The aspect ratio of DCI 4K is approximately 1.9:1. In digital television area, UHD-1 or ultra-high-definition television (UHDTV) defined in ITU BT.2020 in 2012, is the dominant 4K standard. It has a resolution of 3840x2160 (aspect ratio 16:9 or 1.78:1), 4 times of 1080p Full HD. It's also called 2160p.

In ITU BT.2020, UHDTV only supports progressive scan, which means there is only 2160p, and there isn't a 2160i format. The frame rate of UHDTV can be 120, 60, 59.94, 50, 30, 29.97, 25, 24, and 23.976.

Most 4K videos use High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC/H.265) as compression method. Others may use AVC/H.264. From 2013, YouTube also uses VP9 to compress 4K video. HEVC should allow the streaming of content with a 4K resolution with a bandwidth of between 20 to 30 Mbps, which require 13 to 20 GB disk space for a 90-minute movie. Videos in HEVC or AVC format usually use MP4 or MOV file container to hold them. VP9 video is usually used in WebM file.

4K video uses too much disk storage, network bandwith, and has very high requirement on display devices. To save space of disk or memory, or enjoy 4K video on normal computer, television or mobile device, you can convert them to lower resolution video format.

Source: http://www.faasoft.com/articles/4k-video-converter.html

It will tell you how to convert 4K video to any other lower resolution like 4K to 1080p, 4K to 720p, etc.

An increasing number of cameras are supporting the 4K video resolution and it’s believed to become the standard of video editing and streaming in the future. It’s high quality but it has a bigger size, which means that it takes up more space. It may also not appear properly on a screen that doesn’t support 4k resolution. Currently, 1080p is what is often used for high definition playback and editing. You may want to do all the editing on your 4K video then convert it to 1080p. You can then save the original file for future use. This requires higher resources on your computer. Doing this in an older computer could take a lot of time and effort. If this is the case, then a better option would be to convert 4K to 1080p and do the editing afterwards.

Look at it this way...

If you edit the 4K footage with your titles at 4K, you can easily export it to 1920X1080 now, and then later you can go back and export to H.265 for your new H.265 capable 4K television when the time comes.

The only time I would recommend otherwise, is if the 4K footage is not composed as well as you might like it to be. If you wish you could get rid of stuff around the edges, then that is a strong enough reason to put it all into a 1920X1080 sequence.

Example: You shot a bunch of surfing footage and couldn't get close enough to the action. Using 4K in a 2K or 1920X1080 sequence allows you to effectively seem to zoom in while actually keeping the footage at 100%, and just not seeing it all.

Other than that, you might as well "future proof" your product as best you can.

Should I... keep the sequence at the native 4k hd resolution and scale it down on output via Media Encoder

Yup.

note:

Hi Anthony Lucero.

Welcome to Adobe Forums.

The way it is beast for you to be doing what you wanted

is to do only exactly as what you have said as the second thing.

Happy Confusion.