4K compressed formats.

So I'm currently experimenting with uploading 4K video to youtube and thought I should share what I've learned as it took me a long time to sift through all of this.

I have a spot I did for a client that we're going to release in 4K and I initially exported it as a Prores 422 video file, and at just under 3 minutes it was 10 gigabytes. Pretty serious size. I tried uploading that to Youtube but every time I did it would crap out at about 50% and restart automatically… luckily I don't pay for bandwidth or that would have been expensive.

So the next step was finding a codec that compresses 4K and maintains the quality, H264 is my go-to codec for internet distribution but alas it doesn't support 4K resolution. After a bit of searching I found that there are two great free options for compressing 4K footage

1) H265 - which is a DIVX codec - and you can download the free compressor on their site. I was blown away by how small it makes files and keeps very good quality (and will play back on systems that I've had a hard time watching 4K prores footage on in the past). However - Youtube does not recognize this format. So while I got my 10gb file down to 100mb it was useless haha. (Vimeo did accept it though… which was cool)

2) WebM - This is apparently a google owned codec and you can download the plugin for Adobe to export directly to .webm files. The compression seems quite nice, no visible banding or artifacts (although I really need to spend more time really examining to be sure) and got the 10gb file down to 250mb. And with these files you can edit natively in Premiere so for me this is a fantastic way to store/archive and subsequently edit 4K footage that I've until now been saving as enormous R3D, PhotoJPG or Prores files.

That is what I've learned so far. If anyone else has more information on the subject I'd love to hear it. This will be an ongoing learning process I'm sure.

Thanks SkywardKick...

Yeah, thanks Sky. After Ma in Law visit I'm gonna get into this. Awesome report, Man!

This is great info, but what can be used for uploading 4k files to Pond 5. They only accept H.264 or Quicktime formats, right?
I have rendered 4k to Quicktime in AE, but the files are huge - like 7 gigs for a 15 second clip. Any ideas how this is done? I am new to 4k.
Thanks

Look at the ProRes and h.264 threads. Lots of active discussion. You are doing something wrong to get a 7 Gb clip with 15 seconds. A 4K should be more like 2 gigs.

H.264 supports 4K resolutions in the Adobe CC suite IF you encode with the Adobe Encoder.

Final Cut ProX encodes H.264 in 4K.

I'm not sure if I have what it takes to go about this. I'm using AE version CS5.5, and Premiere CS6. I don't see any options for 4k resolutions. Are there any add-ons or plug-ins I should get?

You will need Adobe cc. The subscription is reasonably priced.

Or use DaVinci Resolve Lite! The free version supports now resolutions up to 4K!
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/de/products/davinciresolve

They also just released a compositing software like After Effects. The free version has some limits but it's very usable:
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/fusion