Are you sticking with UHD or going to jump to 4K cinema

With some of the newer cameras announced offering 4K cinema (4096), at lower prices are you considering upgrading from either HD or UHD. The GH4 only does 4K (4096) at 24 fps, the new crop of cameras seem to be offering 4K at 30 and 60 fps.

Second question are you happy producing UHD and the level of sales or is just about future proofing right now.

I am a newbie in this class. I'm starting off and and will stick to UHD for the next year or two. I think the 4k from the GH4 has some jutter issues so I'll keep away from that. One thing I just figured out, is uploads sure take longer.

Yeah GH4 UHD ProRes HQ for 12 to 15 seconds can take me around 3 hours to upload with my broadband. That's why until I move I'm uploading UHD as h.264.

I ended up settling on ProRes422-LT for the time being. It looks about half the size of regular 422. 4k or UHD sure is a mixed blessing though.

For h.264 do you have a way to get that into a .MOV wrapper? I can't seem to do it in Premiere Pro; I can only get a MP4.

zanyseus, use great care with that LT. It's really bad. You are losing quality.

I do both, depending on source aspect ratio, mood, quality of shot, whether cropped in, etc.

Not many 4K sales here anyway. I do it for its own sake. Only one of my normally used cams is HD, and I hope to replace that soon. With the FS700 I opt for higher spatial resolution (4096 at 120fps) vs temporal resolution (2048 at 240fps) even though the novelty of 120fps is not so great, especially considering the brevity of the buffer. Still looks better.

@ zanyzeus, yes I can get it in a Mov wrapper in Final Cut Pro X, I agree with Mizamook about ProRes LT, if possible Regular ProRes is the way to go.

@Mizamook, Doesn't the Sony FS700 tap out at 8 seconds on 240fps? I think I'm going to stick with UHD the downloads of UHD are sparse so I'm defiantly in future proof mindset.

I was tempted by the Blackmagic URSA mini price point but the added costs to get the thing fired up with power and memory cards is making me think a little more. I do like the idea of shooting ProRes 4.4.4 in camera.

Did you see the Blackmagic external 5 inch monitor with SD slot, will take a 4K feed and down covert to ProRes HD and record to the card for $350 and the screen is full 1080 it's the same screen as the URSA mini.

Thanks for the heads up on 422LT guys. Regular 422 in UHD is just too big, I'll have to figure out how to get h.264.MOV

@Normstock - Sorry for the lack of detail. I use the Odyssey 7Q+ and FS700 RAW option. Sadly, yes, very sadly, the limit for 4K 120fps is 3.8 seconds. Really not long enough. Turns into 14 second clips, which is fine, but say, for instance, my eagle was shot using every frame of the old 8 second limit. I could still use that and buffer to ProRes, which would be better, but it's not RAW, it's not 4K. Big tradeoff. I can record RAW 2K (2048x1080) continuous until the drives fill (about 20 minutes footage per terabyte) but again, it's not 4K, and recording 240fps continuous without end trigger buffer recording kinda makes for difficult processing joy!

@zanyzeus - I learned the hard way about LT. Recorded to LT and 422 and 422HQ directly via HDMI from my Z5U using a PIX220 recorder. Reason I switched from the higher bit rates to the lower is that I got lots more recording time. Well, suffice it to say that it's a good thing I also recorded the in-camera HDV to tape, as that was lots better quality than the LT.

I've tested this with the FS700 and it is the same. AVCHD recorded internally looks better than LT, but LT takes up more space.

Tests on my machine using After Effects and Vegas with Miraizon ProRes codec show very similar results. This version of ProRes has issues for us Windows users, mileage varies, of course. I loathe it and love it. But I have to use either HQ or 4444.

Tests on my machine with a program called Acrovid so far using ProRes 4444 and 422HQ both look pretty darn good. In some cases I feel I can be happy with HQ. I can see too much difference after encoding when I go lower, so I don't.

Someday I'll try to forgive Apple for not making ProRes properly available to Windows users, but they've got a chip on their shoulder. I guess they are being vindictive.

Great to have that many options Gene. I will stick with UHD for the moment, there's no extra work when integrating it with previously shot HD material. The different aspect ratio of the 'true 4K' doesn't seem to be used by many of the new 4K (or UHD) TVs either.

Indeed Stef, I agree. I prefer to stick with the higher resolution 4096x2304 for 16:9 in that case. In the case of "2K" or the various "other" aspect ratios like 17:9 its' a matter of preference - you give the producer a bit more leeway to crop and reframe, but I doubt they'd NOT buy the clip should it be "only" 16:9.

It's easier to crop in a timeline to present the most salient aspect of the shot with regard to the shots before and after, and of course, the story, and it's harder as a producer of single clips to crop bits out. So I say leave it in if you can, and let the buyer decide.

I'm glad the distinction has settled a bit - UHD or 4K. Interesting read, this article, to either help elucidate, or to muddy the waters more, but it's pretty well written: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/174221-no-tv-makers-4k-and-uhd-are-not-the-same-thing

I could be hooting from the wrong branch in the tree...just starting to get a handle on some of this stuff here.

Whatever it is, I'm trying to develop a "standard" so I can get on with it here at Mizamook HQ. Had a breakthough tonight...I'll post it in a bit.