Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Should I Deliver in 5K WS or Downgrade to 4K? (Shot on RED Gemini)

Rafal Szermanowicz

Active member
Joined
Feb 25, 2009
Messages
29
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Wroclaw, Poland
Website
www.grupa13.com
Hey everyone!

I’ve been shooting on my RED Gemini for over 4 years, primarily in 5K WS.
Most of the time, we edit, grade, and deliver in native format.
I want to ask you what (and why) the best workflow is.

  1. Edit, grade, and deliver in native 5K WS, or
  2. Downscale everything to 4K (standard or WS).
I understand that 4K is more common for final delivery due to compatibility and streaming standards. Still, I’m also curious if keeping the project in its native 5K format would provide noticeable benefits in terms of quality or flexibility.

Some considerations:

  • My clients requested a 4K final output (according to YT specs) but haven’t explicitly asked for 5 K.
  • Would downscaling to 4K improve perceived sharpness or reduce noise compared to delivering in 5K?
  • Does anyone deliver in 5K WS regularly? How has that been received by clients or platforms?
  • Do you have any advice on the workflow (e.g., color grading or exporting) for maximizing YouTube streaming quality (editing and grading in Resolve)?
I would love to hear your experiences and recommendations.

Cheers
Rafal
 
It depends on the editing software. Basically I do work on a 4K timeline in Resolve, while my footage is 5K-6K mostly. I don't do scaling much, if at all. I tend to deliver in 4K, but in Davinci there's always an option to render in native (aka original footage) resolution (checkbox on render page) if needed. Overall, it will downscale from the original format to the timeline resolution with the method selected in the Davinci Preferences (default is bicubic sharper as I recall). The only thing to avoid in Davinci is rendering at higher resolution than the project is set to (like project is 4k and the export settings are 6k) - it will upscale from 4k instead of using the default camera res this way. I don't see any big deal with working on a 4K timeline. At least, using a 4K monitor I can't even see it.
 
I'm not sure I understand the question. I always deliver in whatever aspect ratio and resolution my client requests-- so I don't give them 6k r3d files if they ask for 4k prores.

Is your question whether it's better to downscale/transcode BEFORE edit and grade? I don't usually do much post, but when I do deliver an edit/processed files, I always keep the project in highest quality (so native 5k WS) as late into post as possible, so that any reframing or color work is done with starting with the highest quality material. I've had editors work on my files in a lesser codec/lower resolution and never re-link to the original files before exporting for color, and it kills me!
 
Really depends on the project and delivery requirements. But I'll say this, I've been mastering in 4K, 6K, 8K, and higher for years now with "the future in mind" and that has paid off.

Not really suitable for every project, but for a significant amount of my work we master at the highest resolution possible. Then if delivery needs change, i.e. needing a 4K master rather than a 2K, it's a fairly straight forward process.

Most of my projects today deliver in 8K and 4K in SDR and/or HDR. Pretty much the same for me since around 2016. Prior, it was 4K and 2K.
 
Back
Top