Is there a difference between 1080 and 4K?

JoostGT3 · Aug 14, 2017

Capediver said:
I think what benlorne is referring to is a technique used in be Adobe Premiere Pro...the editing program creates lower res "copies" or proxies of your video files for viewing when editing, then uses the full res files when rendering to final edit....this lowers the resource requirements while editing.

And I found a way to do it in Adobe Premiere Elements as well:

Import footage
Create a custom exporting profile, mine is 480p no sound (that is important, otherwise it will give you errors later)
Export all the clips with the newly created profile. These are now the proxies.
Create a new project, and add all the proxies as project assets. Also add the smallest of the originals as asset and drag this to the project bar first.
This will make sure that the project settings for exporting later are to the correct resolution.
Create the movie
Delete the first imported high-res clip.
In the project asset menu, click "replace clip" or something alike (don't remember the exact menu label)
Do this for all clips
Render/Export the movie to any desired resolution
Bob's your uncle!

John Gowland · Aug 14, 2017

I watched it on my Samsung Galaxy 8+, a quite old 1080p monitor and a huge white screen projected from a HD 1080p data projector.
I did see some slight differences. But as others have pointed out realy need to see it on a 4K monitor to appreciate the difference.
Any way far more importantly lost my Mavic today. Whinds were high but it refused to come home. It had come home in even stronger winds before so I think it malfunctioned. I will have to post the loss and what to do about it as a new topic. Have the care thing but I read they need the aircraft. Spent hours looking for it with no luck.

Luc.vn · Aug 14, 2017

John Gowland · Aug 14, 2017

Very nice, thanks. Informative, funny and helps a lot

John

topdetop · Aug 14, 2017

Always the same problem. If you have the computer and screen for 4K, please do it but if your plan is to show a few of your shots to friends on your mobile don't bother.
Shooting in 4K in Log will always give you more definitions, more ELN flexibility and details on a 4K screen and on the rendering in 1080p...

Robert Mitchell · Aug 14, 2017

Aerial-Pixel said:
I always shoot 4K, even if the intent isn't to view it on a 4K device. It leaves the door open for cropping, rotating etc. without affecting quality.

Not to mention, a frame grab from 4K makes an acceptable still image, especially if used for web reproduction

Bergumbira · Aug 14, 2017

John Gowland said:
I took this today at 4K, and it took my Macbook Air a long time with lots of fans and bare bones progs running to process.
A lot of effort and time. But is it worth it? I can not see hardly any difference between 1080 and 4K.
Now it could be my poor eye sight or my low 1080 monitor, but I can see only the slightest difference.

Can any one see a difference? There is supposed to be 4X better quality. I have run it over and over and just can't see anything but the tiniest of difference in definition.

Help please?

John.

Yes, between 1080 (1k) and 4 k is a difference of about 3k... In case you got 4k screen to display exactly what you created...
Is like having a Mercedes but a too small garage to park in and a too small wallet to maintain it. If nothing your display devices are 4 k is pointless to shoot in 4 k and it's normal you can't see the difference with your 1080 monitor

Brojon · Aug 14, 2017

The think I noticed was the watercolor effect - make sure you have sharpness at +1 otherwise the crappy Mavic compression kicks in and turns the details into mush.

Kilrah · Aug 14, 2017

Bergumbira said:
Yes, between 1080 (1k) and 4 k is a difference of about 3k...

You're confusing 4K (3840) horizontal and 1080 vertical.

"4K" (UHD) is twice the pixels of 1080 in both dimensions, easy enough.

Bergumbira · Aug 14, 2017

Kilrah said:
You're confusing 4K (3840) horizontal and 1080 vertical.

"4K" (UHD) is twice the pixels of 1080 in both dimensions, easy enough.

I know, I just make it simple. 720 hd, 1080 full hd, 2.7k and 4k uhd.. And 5.2 k on inspire2

dorubrad · Aug 14, 2017

Depends also on the fps with the Mavic, 1080 over 30fps (60 and above) is messed up due to moire

mastermind · Aug 19, 2017

As a side note. How many shoot in 2.7k as opposed to full 4k to save on some storage. Thats what i have been doing. Files sizes are considerably smaller. And resolution is still better than 1080.

chris765_2000 · Aug 19, 2017

John Gowland said:
I took this today at 4K, and it took my Macbook Air a long time with lots of fans and bare bones progs running to process.
A lot of effort and time. But is it worth it? I can not see hardly any difference between 1080 and 4K.
Now it could be my poor eye sight or my low 1080 monitor, but I can see only the slightest difference.

Can any one see a difference? There is supposed to be 4X better quality. I have run it over and over and just can't see anything but the tiniest of difference in definition.

Help please?

John.

I think the primary difference is that you can play a 4k video on a large screen over 65 inches without the picture becoming blurry. I've noticed that when you play a video at a resolution below 720 that it looks fine on a small 27 inch TV. When you watch the same video on a 65 inch TV it is terrible. Ever noticed how lower resolution TV shows look terrible on a large TV. I don't think you can tell the difference between 4k and 1080p on most monitors. I think the monitor on which your viewing the video can have more of an impact on picture quality than the resolution. I think resolution is marketing hype and over rated. Just like with computers where they make you think that there is a huge difference in performance between a 2 ghz and 3 ghz processor. So many other factors are as important if not more important. I'd shoot in 1080p at 60fps. A lot easier to process the videos. I use Adobe Premier as it can utilizes all six cores of my processor as well as my 2 graphic cards set up in SLI. As others mentioned, you need high performance hardware and a good editing program that can utilize the hardware if you are going to process 4k video. I built a computer specifically for this. Without the right hardware and software it can take 8 hours to process a 4k video. The computer I built cut that down to 30 minutes. Adobe Premier isn't cheap and there is a learning curve, but it is a very powerful application.

chris765_2000 · Aug 19, 2017

chris765_2000 said:
I think the primary difference is that you can play a 4k video on a large screen over 65 inches without the picture becoming blurry. I've noticed that when you play a video at a resolution below 720 that it looks fine on a small 27 inch TV. When you watch the same video on a 65 inch TV it is terrible. Ever noticed how lower resolution TV shows look terrible on a large TV. I don't think you can tell the difference between 4k and 1080p on most monitors. I think the monitor on which your viewing the video can have more of an impact on picture quality than the resolution. I think resolution is marketing hype and over rated. Just like with computers where they make you think that there is a huge difference in performance between a 2 ghz and 3 ghz processor. So many other factors are as important if not more important. I'd shoot in 1080p at 60fps. A lot easier to process the videos. I use Adobe Premier as it can utilizes all six cores of my processor as well as my 2 graphic cards set up in SLI. As others mentioned, you need high performance hardware and a good editing program that can utilize the hardware if you are going to process 4k video. I built a computer specifically for this. Without the right hardware and software it can take 8 hours to process a 4k video. The computer I built cut that down to 30 minutes. Adobe Premier isn't cheap and there is a learning curve, but it is a very powerful application.

Collins makes a good point about one of the advantages of shooting in 4K. Better for cropping and panning.

Ron_Dog · Aug 19, 2017

I shoot in 2.7K then render it to 1080/30. Most of my friends don't have a monitor with 4 K resolution,so in the long run,it dosen't seem to make much diffrence. I also down load on Vimeo,and they don't have a option for 2.7! Just 4K and 1080,720,ect. 2.7 dumbed down to 1080/30 looks ok to most people. .

WAXMAN · Aug 19, 2017

Hedonist222 said:
You can't see 4k resolution on a 1080 monitor.

I think that was my problem. When I shot in 4K everything was jerky(exp.cars going by). When I switch to 2.7K the problem was gone. I either need a 4k monitor or a updated computer? Don't know yet.

hspallek · Aug 19, 2017

collins said:
I always shoot in 4k (or at least 2.7k) and then output my footage at 1080p.

The reason to do this is that the 4k resolution lets you crop, pan and smooth your final video.

If you look at your video about half way through there is a white bird standing on a fence. But it is very small. Now if you zoom in 2x, you have 1080p footage of the bird with the bird largely filling the frame (which I think would be quite a bit more interesting.)

I am not convinced that 4k makes much difference when viewed on youtube (and it requires a faster connection). However using 4k footage is very helpful in creating a better overall video.

Unfortunately, editing 4k really needs a fairly powerful computer with a decent video card.

I agree with what is said and would add that you can work in Adobe Premiere Pro (and presumably other NLEs) with proxies. See instructions here:
Ingest 4K
http://www.4kshooters.net/2016/10/17/how-to-improve-4k-video-editing-in-premiere-pro-cc-on-a-relatively-slow-computer/

https://blogs.adobe.com/creativecloud/taking-advantage-of-new-proxy-workflows-in-premiere-pro-cc/

Filmscum · Aug 19, 2017

charliesRig said:
I've always shot in 1080p 60fps
Yesterday was the last time I will shoot in 1080P
with my mavic
had a great video Last night looked good inflight when I opened it was another story very sad
That's all I'm going to say about that
.................C.
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