2k from 4k

[Tom Camarda]

Greetings all,

I have a project coming up to be shot on the Scarlet...(Production companies own). I 've been shooting on the Alexa lately so am trying to research as much as possible on this camera. The producers want to capture in 2k to match the quality of video game graphics that will be featured in the spot. Of course, I prefer to shoot 4k and scale down. (That's why we shoot RED , right!?) Aside from the crop factor with the lenses, is the anything else I need to be aware of when shooting 2k on a RED? Isn't it fairly easy to scale down the 4K HD image to 2K during transcode? Will the difference in quality be noticeable in broadcast?

Thanks for the replies!

Tom Camarda
Los Angeles, CA.

 

[Mark Toia]

Shoot 4k !... Down res to 2k when your done, blur it, grain it, junk it up as much as you want at the end... its easy make good pics look bad, not the other way around.

I get the shivers when people say they are going to shoot in 2k on a red... there is like no reason too.

Ever...

(Unless you doing it on purpose for slow mo reasons)
https://vimeo.com/27227399

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Shoot 4K. Then the image can be whatever you want it to be in post. Downsampling to 2K will give excellent results and will actually make it easier to match 2K/ 1080p game graphics after the fact because their will be more control on sharpness and detail. The image can be softened or sharpened as part of the dwonscaling process or roughed up as needed. When you shoot 2K on Scarlet, or any RED camera for that matter, you are setting yourself up with a host of compromises. Sensor crop to the equivalent of Super16 or approximately the same as a 2/3" HD camera being one of them.

Only reason I ever shoot with smaller cropped sensor formats on RED is if I need faster frame rates. On Scarlet that's somewhat of compromise in and of itself because the camera really doesn't do "high speed" frame rates.

I've also learned to fight production companies and agencies that think they only need 2K acquisition. All too often they are not happy with the results even though it's what they thought they wanted. So I always put my foot down and shoot the best quality possible. Then I deliver the original R3D's and whatever 1080p/ 2K format they think they want. Never had any complaints that way.

 

[Tom Camarda]

Thanks for the feedback. Since production owns the camera, I figured I'd give them the benefit of the doubt...4K it will be. They will down res in after effects.

cheers,

Tom

 

[Les Dittert]

There is always that 3k setting as well. Makes pretty valid 2K out the other end. Goes to 48 fps too.

 

[Timur Civan]

Make sure you use the correct aspect ratio. Remeber 4k is actually "quad 2k", meaning 4 2k images arranged in a rectangle.

If they want proper 2048x1080, I believe the native 4k on a scarlet is 4096x2160, meaning the down scale is a nice neat 4:1 down conversion.

If they want 1080p as a final resolution, use 4kHD