4K 30fps or 2.7K 60fps?

[Gareee]

“Most”. Not all. You are just one of the few.

Thing is, 4k is dirt cheap now. We bought a new 4k tv for my wife's gaming PC, and we bought a 60" for only $370 at best buy. When we can find a 80" or greater under $1000, we'll replace our main TV.

 

[Travisimo]

One thing I noticed when comparing shooting in 4k/30 vs 2k/60 is that the latter has a very noticeably narrow field of view than 4k or 1080p. This might be something to consider when deciding what mode to shoot in, depending if you want a wider or narrower shot. Of course, if you shoot in 4k you can still crop in post, but if you shoot in 2k, the reverse is not true. Then again, you can't add truly add frames in post, so shooting in 60 fps may be worth that trade-off, depending on the application. Personally, I'll probably shoot in 4k most of the time, perhaps using 2k/60 when I know there's going to be a lot of motion or if I want to slow it down.

 

[Kilrah]

Nice to know, never even looked at the FOV (only tried 2.7 for a short test clip and didn't notice) nor ever read about someone mentioning it.

 

[Kilrah]

Whats your playback device

My PC monitor is currently a Samsung UE49KS7580 TV.

 

[cwil193]

Thing is, 4k is dirt cheap now. We bought a new 4k tv for my wife's gaming PC, and we bought a 60" for only $370 at best buy. When we can find a 80" or greater under $1000, we'll replace our main TV.

Yeah TVs are getting to great prices, but I’d rather have a 4k monitor for my gaming/editing pc.

 

[roadkilt]

here’s how to get the benefits of 4K if your computer is struggling with editing:
1. Buy a BIG hard drive, I have an 8TB (monster sized, for a few hundred $ from B&H Video in New York), to load all those giant 4K files to for long term storage off the SD card.
2. Open the DJI video file in Quicktime 7 or PC equivalent. Skim through the video (its jerky and slow, be patient) and find the parts you want to make into a video movie.
3. Save just the short bits you want to edit by hitting “I” for In, and “O” for Out, go to menu and select Trim to Selection, it will save the file (name it something useful) as a 1080p file. It will now just show the smaller file, so close it and go back to opening the original 4K DJI video file again and repeat for each selection.
3. You now will have a collection of short, 1080p high quality files that can easily be edited on any computer, and still have the original 4K files for future use (maybe a better computer or software) or for pulling out single 8MB high quality still frames for editing as photos. If your target is Youtube then no one will see the difference between 4K and 1080p on their ipads or computer monitors.

 

[Travisimo]

here’s how to get the benefits of 4K if your computer is struggling with editing:
1. Buy a BIG hard drive, I have an 8TB (monster sized, for a few hundred $ from B&H Video in New York), to load all those giant 4K files to for long term storage off the SD card.
2. Open the DJI video file in Quicktime 7 or PC equivalent. Skim through the video (its jerky and slow, be patient) and find the parts you want to make into a video movie.
3. Save just the short bits you want to edit by hitting “I” for In, and “O” for Out, go to menu and select Trim to Selection, it will save the file (name it something useful) as a 1080p file. It will now just show the smaller file, so close it and go back to opening the original 4K DJI video file again and repeat for each selection.
3. You now will have a collection of short, 1080p high quality files that can easily be edited on any computer, and still have the original 4K files for future use (maybe a better computer or software) or for pulling out single 8MB high quality still frames for editing as photos. If your target is Youtube then no one will see the difference between 4K and 1080p on their ipads or computer monitors.

I've been enjoying the benefits of 4k on Youtube on my 5k iMac for nearly 2 1/2 years now, and there's a lot of people out there will similar monitor son Mac and PC. Is 4k necessary for Youtube? No, not even 1080p is necessary for mobile viewing, but just because it's Youtube doesn't mean there are no 4k benefits. A better way of handling 4k editing if your computer is not powerful enough to edit them directly is to use editing software that creates proxy files. It takes some initial time for the computer to create them, but then you have an easier time editing and can still output to 4k (or create multiple files for output).

 

[Mullazman]

You said it Rolin, the only worthwhile comment in an otherwise ambiguous and undefined conversation. Two passes then you can choose the best. Loads of times I've defaulted to 4k but slowing that in post for a fast shot just looks terrible, the morphing is "okay" at very best, based off Optical flow or nearest frame, from my experience.
The 60fps is a good point too I didn't think about it but I guess you are probably getting half the data per frame assuming it's recording 100Mbps in both 30fps and 60fps.
Food for thought.. Thanks.

 

[DJI DelBoy]

For me, it really just depends if you want to slow the footage down. If you're not planning to slow anything down/if there's isn't much movement in your shot (other than the drone movement) - always shoot at 4k (24fps or 30 depending on your preference, 24 is the most used 'cinematic' framerate).

If you want to slow you're footage down to 40% (on a 24fps timeline) shoot in 2.7k 60fps. I found this works well with cars/birds flying in your shot. I would never film in 60fps and output in 60fps, you're footage will look too smooth and give you the 'soap opera effect' and look very unnatural and look the complete opposite of cinematic.

In regards to not using 4k because 'I don't have anything that will play back 4k/most people will be watching in 1080p idea, I don't agree with that at all. Firstly, you really want to future proof your footage, you may not have a 4k display now, but they will become mainstream in several years, just like 1080p screens did. You can even shoot in 4k and just downscale it to 1080p, the footage will still look a lot crisper.

Also if you're uploading to Youtube in 4k, millions of others around the world can enjoy your video in 4k, even if you can't. Even the latest iPhones can display resolutions above 1080p now. 2.7k upscaled to 4k also looks perfectly good.

In terms of processing power, I appreciate editing 4k files straight out of camera takes a lot of power, however you do not need to edit in native 4k. Most editing software (even free ones) have proxy editing options, which downscales your footage for the purpose of editing, then relinking back to the original media before rendering fully back to 4k. You can edit 4k footage even on lower end machines

Would filming in 2.7k 60fps for a cinematic adventure video be okay? And is there a possibility of upscaling it to 4 without a significant loss in quality?