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Video beginner questions

Jedi5150

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Hello all, I tried asking this in the Mini sub-forum, but I didn't get any responses, so I'm hoping for better luck here.

I have a little experience in digital photography, including using manual settings, post processing, etc. But I am a complete beginner when it comes to video. With the Mini, I will be limited to 2.7k, which I honestly think will be just fine. At most, my videos will be for showing online, for forums, maybe youtube, etc. My main question is this:

Is 2.7k (or 4k for that matter) actually higher image quality than say, 1080P? Or does it simply mean it can be shown on a larger screen? In other words, will I be making my video less detailed, or more "blurry", by filming it in 1080P instead of using the 2.7k, provided it will only be shown on a screen as large as a computer monitor?

Thanks in advance.
 
I'm still learning too, and it looks like it's a bit of a gray area with the Mini's 2.7K resolution.

On the one hand 4K resolution offers increased sharpness due to both the number of pixels, and also a higher allotted bitrate by Youtube's compression algorithm; but on the other hand, to upload at 4K you have to upscale the image by 48% first to get to 4K so you're losing sharpness there.

Shooting at 2.7K and downsampling to 1080p for uploading offers increased sharpness but sometimes introduces moire patterns and other artifacts compared to shooting at 1080p natively. Also, youtube gives you a lower bitrate when you upload at 1080p so it will suffer more compression.

Shooting at 1080p natively and uploading to youtube at 1080p might be easiest to edit at the expense of some extra compression, but I think you get a bitrate bump if you shoot 60fps. Your camera moves will appear smoother and have less "judder" at 60fps, but it won't be as cinematic feeling.

Another option is to shoot at 2.7K (2720x1536) and upload at 1440p (2560x1440), which is only a 6% downsample and still gives you a slightly better bitrate to play with than 1080p.

I don't know, maybe I'm over-thinking it ;)
 
I'm still learning too, and it looks like it's a bit of a gray area with the Mini's 2.7K resolution.

On the one hand 4K resolution offers increased sharpness due to both the number of pixels, and also a higher allotted bitrate by Youtube's compression algorithm; but on the other hand, to upload at 4K you have to upscale the image by 48% first to get to 4K so you're losing sharpness there.

Shooting at 2.7K and downsampling to 1080p for uploading offers increased sharpness but sometimes introduces moire patterns and other artifacts compared to shooting at 1080p natively. Also, youtube gives you a lower bitrate when you upload at 1080p so it will suffer more compression.

Shooting at 1080p natively and uploading to youtube at 1080p might be easiest to edit at the expense of some extra compression, but I think you get a bitrate bump if you shoot 60fps. Your camera moves will appear smoother and have less "judder" at 60fps, but it won't be as cinematic feeling.

Another option is to shoot at 2.7K (2720x1536) and upload at 1440p (2560x1440), which is only a 6% downsample and still gives you a slightly better bitrate to play with than 1080p.

I don't know, maybe I'm over-thinking it ;)

I appreciate the information. the framerate was a whole other can of worms I didn't want to open, but since you did, I'm curious about it as well. I've read that the cinematic look is 24FPS in the US, and that 60 is smoother. I also have heard people say Peter Jackson used a 48FPS on The Hobbit, and everyone complained that it looked like photojournalism instead of cinematic. But honestly, I can;t tell the difference. I never once noticed that The Hobbit cinematography looked any different than any other move I've seen. I'm having a hard time wondering why I wouldn't want a "smoother" look for everything?
 
I totally found the 48fps "HFR" Hobbit movies jarring, personally; kind of like those TVs that output the super-smooth 120 or 240fps by interpolating the in-between frames and make everything look fake as if it were CGI. Mostly just when people are present in the scene though.

I guess it depends on the story you're trying to tell with the footage. If you're just going for smooth aerial scenic shots, then higher, smoother framerates are probably better. If you're mixing your drone footage in with other storytelling footage then you're going to want to match the framerates of your other cameras. In general, peoples' eyes are used to seeing 24fps for cinema and 30fps forTV/video.
 
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