4K Video - is it worth it?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,510 words · ~7 min read
0:00
let me start by saying this video was a metric ass ton of work I mean not for me
0:05
mind you Ed did all the heavy lifting so make sure that you show him some love by
0:09
liking the video or following him on Twitter or something because his
0:12
findings are absolutely fascinating if
0:15
you consume or create video content on
0:19
the web welcome to 4K better video
0:22
quality or a big fat
0:28
placebo
0:35
Intel is bringing ddr4 to the mainstream with their allnew core i76700 K and core
0:40
i56600k processors check out the link in
0:43
the video description to learn more so Ed's investigation into 4K video quality
0:48
was actually inspired by a Panasonic camera known as the GH4 at a mere $2,000
0:55
trust me that was amazing when it came out the GH4 could shoot 4K to an
1:00
internal SD card at a bit rate of 100
1:03
megabit per second and you can learn more about bit rate and why it's important here which for the first time
1:08
put 4K video production like prograde
1:11
production in the hands of regular consumers who happen to be in the market
1:15
for what is also a fairly capable mirrorless Stills camera balling right
1:20
we sure thought so we picked one up pretty much right away and the vast
1:24
majority of our b-roll has been shot on the GH4 for months with us going as far
1:29
at one Point as to shoot 4k on our aam a
1:32
Sony fs700 4K on our bcam the GH4 and
1:37
edit on a 4K timeline with a native export of 4K video that we upload but
1:44
this proved to be very challenging at the time the fs 700's High bit rate 4K
1:49
footage was a total bear to work with the file sizes were huge putting
1:53
significant strain on our networking infrastructure when multiple editors
1:57
were working at the same time and we experien other workflow interruptions
2:01
ranging from poor editing timeline uh scrubbing responsiveness to annoying
2:06
file splitting during long clip recording to even export errors when
2:10
rendering out the final videos so we went back to 1080p downscaled from 4K
2:15
using our external recorder on the aam since the fs700 sensor performs so well
2:21
at resolving fine details regardless of the output file resolution anyway and
2:26
continued shooting b-roll at 4k natively
2:29
on the GH4 since while that does slow down the editing timeline it's not in a
2:34
manner that completely cripples the productivity of our editors like the 4K
2:38
native FS footage did so what you've been seeing out of us since then this is
2:42
really important is a 4K timeline with
2:47
downsampled 4K footage off the fs700 that is then re-up sampled back to 4K
2:53
and Native 4K footage from the GH4 that is then exported at 4K when we create
2:59
the file to upload to Youtube or vessel
3:02
fast forward almost a year and we were moving into a new office and rolling out
3:05
three new servers a rendering server powered by two Intel Zeon E5 2699 v38
3:12
core processors a high-speed SSD based
3:15
20 gbit network storage server and a 100
3:19
tbte plus archival storage server these
3:24
potentially addressed almost all of the previous issues Network performance file
3:30
size and rendering horsepower not to mention that adobe hasn't been sitting
3:34
on ass for the last year and Premiere has improved a fair bit as well in terms
3:38
of how it handles high bit rate and 4K files so it was time to evaluate whether
3:42
it was worth it to go native 4K again as part of an investigation into how we
3:47
could use our 36 core video crunching server to improve our workflow so we
3:52
started by taking a closer look at some of the 4K footage that we'd shot
3:56
recently on the GH4 comparing the visual quality
4:00
of the Native 4K footage and then that very same footage down sampled to 1080p
4:05
with a variety of codec trying to figure out how to get timeline performance
4:09
perfect and the results shocked us when viewed on a 4k monitor they were
4:15
indistinguishable from each other and in fact even when compared using overlaid
4:20
still captures in Photoshop and by setting the blending mode to difference
4:25
they were nearly identical so then was
4:28
there any point recording in 4k at all we needed to dig deeper so we
4:33
specifically recorded identical Clips at
4:36
4K and 1080p natively on the GH4 camera
4:41
and compared those against each other this time with the 1080p footage
4:45
upsample to 4K same result down sampling
4:49
4K to 1080p upsampling 1080p to 4K they just all look the same so we broke out
4:55
the big guns and used our proper professional grade camera our Sony fs7
4:59
100 to do the same comparison now we can see the difference
5:05
watching the files over our own local network between the upsampled and the
5:09
native 4K footage with the text on our figurine appearing to be more in focus
5:15
when watching back the native 4K file even though the camera and subject were
5:18
not moved in between shots but what does
5:22
this difference translate to in terms of a real world benefit we all know that
5:27
YouTube has had a 4K option for quite some time but should content creators
5:31
even be worried about shooting and editing in 4k should they export in 4k
5:36
for their upload should you the viewer select 4K when watching we have all
5:41
those answers but Buckle in because if the rest of this video sounded pretty
5:44
technical this is probably going to be a little worse I'll start with the answer
5:48
for the content creators since this affects the content consumers as well
5:53
regardless of your camera working on a 1080p timeline with 1080p footage will
5:59
not not result in a degraded experience for your viewers thanks to the video
6:04
processing done by YouTube the benefit of your fancy camera is basically
6:08
limited to better performance on a green screen and better color grading and
6:13
punching options in post- production something that is arguably much more
6:17
important to the appearance of the footage than sheer resolution anyway so I'm not poo pooing fancy cameras but we
6:23
also discovered that upsampling to 4K
6:27
for your final export is worth the extra
6:30
file size and the extra rendering time because when YouTube detects a
6:35
resolution of 4k on their side they will offer a 4K viewing option to the viewer
6:40
that features a higher playback bit rate
6:43
and therefore sharper image quality on both 1080P and on 4K displays which
6:50
leads us finally to the answer for consumers conventional wisdom would
6:54
dictate that watching content at the native resolution of your display is
6:58
ideal this is something that most of our viewers seem to be aware of based on
7:03
these poll results but if you have the internet connection and bandwidth cap
7:07
limits to handle it this is not the case
7:11
for online video or at least on YouTube watching at 4k on a 4K or 1080p monitor
7:18
yields a noticeable visual quality improvement regardless of whether the
7:23
video was natively shot at 4K or upsampled thanks to YouTube delivering
7:27
the video to you at a higher bit rate
7:30
which leaves us finally with a last message for the content creators out
7:34
there if there's anything to take away from this video it's don't get too
7:38
focused on 4K or resolution in general
7:41
in the same way that a 4K recording phone is not a professional video
7:46
recording device entrylevel 4K cameras are not equal to their 4K prograde
7:51
Brethren but don't worry most Pros are
7:55
just using their 4K gear to have more flexibility during the creation of their
7:59
1080p final product anyway so if you're producing Web video you may actually be
8:05
better served by a superior 1080p camera
8:08
at this time because lenses encoding settings codecs camera sensor size and
8:14
sensor quality all impact the finished product and on that subject stay tuned
8:19
for the results of our investigation into editing codec it's going to be at
8:23
least as interesting as this one especially For You video editors out
8:27
there thanks for watching guys if you disliked this video you know what to do
8:31
but if you liked it please click that like button maybe support us by buying a
8:36
cool t-shirt like this one changing your Amazon bookmarked one with our affiliate code we have the instructions for how to
8:40
do that in the little eye in the corner or even by supporting us directly
8:43
through our community Forum now that you're done doing all that you guys are
8:47
looking for some more videos to check out boom you should check out our recent
8:50
video on the Acer 34in curved gaming
8:54
monitor that I absolutely freaking love
8:57
uh we just did that one and it's not for 4K but uh is it ever sexy see you guys
9:03
next
9:07
time