4K Chat

Hi All,

Several questions.

Out of curiosity what frame rate are you guys shooting when you shoot 4K. Most of my 4K shooting for clients has been at 23.976 in an effort to produce more cinematic images and keep file sizes more manageable. My stock, which is all animation at this stage, has been 1080P at 29.97.

I have not been shooting stock video yet. When I start I had not planned to deliver in 4K but rather to oversample the images down from 4K and deliver 1080P. Is 4K actually selling well around here already ?

I've been toying with the idea of shooting 24fps for my 4K clips. I suspect buyers looking for 4K will probably like that frame rate. Plus, the file sizes would be smaller, and you need slightly less light when shooting lower frame rates.

Hi Don and anyone else who is interested.

I"ve been shooting 4k with JVC's GY-HMQ10 for about three months, mostly in the Black Sea region and France. Its a nice solid camera, but not too big, and easy to use. At just a little under $5,000 its affordable, as such things go. The images are 3840 x 2160 pixels and are beautiful. The fixed lens has limitations. Its not bad for telephoto, but not nearly wide angle enough for some subjects such as cathedrals from which one cannot back up far enough. There is supposed to be a wide angle attachment, but it was not shipping when we left for Europe in September. Some reviewers commented that the camera is not good in low light, but I was mostly shooting in daylight so had no problem. Some well-lit night street scenes in a French village looked OK.

What other 4K cameras are you all using and what do you recommend.

Mary Lee

I did have a problem with the camera suddenly changing (untouched) to very high contrast in the middle of a shot and staying that way until we fiddled with it. We were also shooting with two other regular HD cameras, including one with an extremely wide angle lens, so have plenty of variety from the trip, except for the unusually rainy cloudy weather this fall.

Thanks, I've looked at that one also. Just have some doubts about if the method of four separate SD cards each recording a different segment of the view will be a long lasting technique or a short lived technical start at a problem of extreme data. If one SD card fails or a frame is somehow skipped on one or more cards and not on others will it mess up the entire capture? Can each separate SD card be used as a full 1920x1080 HD clip just showing a different quadrant of the entire capture?

I looked at the JVC as well and would have bought if it wasn't for the issue that the tool they provided to stitch the 4 together was Mac only and I work in PC land! They did supply some demo clips which I downloaded and they were 4 HD video streams.

On the subject of frame rates one of the things those pushing 4K (and higher - NHK) are talking about is higher frame rates. I don't know if the broadcasters will want to pay for that extra bandwidth though (both internally and for transmission).

Either way - buy lots of storage!

First off, you can forget about broadcasters sending 4K over the cable or sats. That won't happen for a long long time. The reality is that most 4K is still predominantly used in post production. The new evolving platform that may slowly grow with 4K is internet streams. Think everything from Vimeo, Yucktube, ah I mean Youtube to Netflix, Hulu and most likely some new ones on the horizon. This was a discussion recently had with another very well versed Englishman/Contributor that knows BBC very well. I at this point see no value (yet) in a 4K TV for example. But when it comes to post, the more data on hand, the better. Hence, higher frame rates are always best as they can be trans coded down easily. The other way may start to show a lot more artifact (possible) or jumpiness. As far as file size... I chuckle.. these exact same conversations were had when HD was introduced.

Samsung and other are dropping Ultra HD TV prices. I have seen some theaters upgrading their projectors to 4K. Even though 3D for stock is dead (my opinion) I see 4K having some legs. Just like when HD came out it took technology to make it happen at a family budget price. Like you say, it's used in post processing which allows the ability to crop and select the view better in a final HD production. There are a lot of cities that now have fiber to the home and for as little at $79 a month have 100 up and 100 down. 4K will not have a problem at that internet speed. As stock shooters we all want a higher frame rate but broadcasters really are not using higher frame rates other than in post processing. Ultra HD cameras for stock shooters are somewhat limited. A couple are ready but use different technology to accomplish the high bit rate. I believe by next NAB there will be lots more options at a stock shooters price (which I believe is $6,000 and under). For those with slower broadband internet 4K will be difficult unless a highly compressed file is processed. So higher ability with 4K but compression will take much of it away. Kinda like shooting 42 mp from a cell phone and claiming it's as good as a camera with a high quality sensor and higher quality lens. I agree not much 4K will be broadcast in the near future. It'll be like Blue Ray and be offered on DVD. By next Christmas I think 4K will be more of a home used term.

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/ultra-hd-tvs-under-1k-theyre-already-here-2D11624104

While shopping at Costco earlier today I noticed that there wasn't one 4K television on display. Guess they learned their lesson last year with 3D TV's if you can't sell them no matter what the price point is don't stock them.

Don what makes you think stations would ever broadcast 4K content. Why do you think stations do not broadcast in 1080p. There is a movement in congress to do away with air broadcast altogether in favor of satellite and cable.

Like others have said, I don't think stations will be broadcasting in 4K anytime soon.

The road to 4K leads straight to the Internet.

How many people now actually receive their TV signal from a roof top antenna. Compared to even ten years ago very very few. Ten years ago or even 5 years ago who would have thought that a large percentage of all TV would be HD now? In the last 75-100 years compared to the prior 5000 years look at the advancements that no one dreamed would ever happen. Over the air broadcasting I believe will soon be something in the history books. Before long most data will be via fiber optic or some newer technology. So yes Jason, I agree not long before everything will be via satellite or most probably fiber to the home.