Why is 4K important

[codydoerfler]

This I am sure is a stupid question, but why is 4K so important? I don’t have a 4K monitor or TV.. and I don’t know anyone who does. I am sure someday 4K will be the standard, but it reminds me of the days of 720p was good enough becuase nothing really would display 1080p. Uploading video to anything for consumption compresses it. So why do I need a 4K drone?

I currently have a Standard and a Spark, mostly take stills.

 

[Sagebrush]

I do commercial shoots under my Part 107 and always shoot 1080.

I give my clients two things. A link to Youtube of the finished product and a copy on a thumb drive. If I put anything on the drive higher than 1080, it'll more than likely give the client a jerky video that isn't going to work on their sub-standard computer.

4K? I'll pass.

SB

 

[Bakersfield Quad]

4k is for pretty videos, used all the time with P4' on things like PBS or Science Channels for aerial shots.
Also, take it at 4k, the resize it and you get the best 1080p from what I have seen.
There are a lot of 4K sets already out there in homes, but not mine.

 

[LarBear360]

This I am sure is a stupid question, but why is 4K so important? I don’t have a 4K monitor or TV.. and I don’t know anyone who does. I am sure someday 4K will be the standard, but it reminds me of the days of 720p was good enough becuase nothing really would display 1080p. Uploading video to anything for consumption compresses it. So why do I need a 4K drone?

I currently have a Standard and a Spark, mostly take stills.

4K is important because the marketing world says so. The reality is very few people would be able to distinguish the difference.

If you want to shoot a still that is going to be used for a billboard along a highway, or a very, very large poster, 4K is the way to go. But for most practical video shoots and editing, you don't need it and it's not worth the hassle. Broadcast TV and Film could use 4K.

The one other slight advantage is you won't lose much in terms quality of you have to crop a video or still.

 

[Helihover]

In a few years 4k should be about where 1080 is now. Years from now when we go back and view older 1080 videos, they are not going to look so great because well be used to viewing 4k. Theres a huge difference in quality, like 4 times better.

From an editors view, 4k is great for making 1080 videos. You are able to crop and take the best from the clip with out sacrificing quality. For example, I have a clip of a bald eagle that flew under my drone while filming and then landed in a tree. I had to zoom a bit during editing to get the eagle to become a "subject" and lost quality doing so. I wish the clip was 4k because then I would of had a killer shot.....

If you fly commercial, you'll need 4k. My video shoot yesterday required 4k. My iMac will not play 4k smoothly enough to enjoy it. So I just dump all the clips into an editor and then export in 1080 to view them.

That being said, most all my personal fun stuff is filmed in 1080.

 

[Helihover]

4K is important because the marketing world says so. The reality is very few people would be able to distinguish the difference.

If you want to shoot a still that is going to be used for a billboard along a highway, or a very, very large poster, 4K is the way to go. But for most practical video shoots and editing, you don't need it and it's not worth the hassle. Broadcast TV and Film could use 4K.

The one other slight advantage is you won't lose much in terms quality of you have to crop a video or still.

You do not use 4k to shoot stills. Yes you can pull stills from video, but thats not the way to get the best still shot. Your best quality still image will be captured in a RAW format which has nothing to do with video.

 

[LarBear360]

You do not use 4k to shoot stills. Yes you can pull stills from video, but thats not the way to get the best still shot. Your best quality still image will be captured in a RAW format which has nothing to do with video.

Yup, sorry for the mixed advice. RAW is the way to go for stills. Those will show up as DNG, I believe and they capture 100% of the information which you can process later.

 

[codydoerfler]

Thanks, I understand stills, RAW vs JPEG ext. Marketing is my real job so I totally get ‘4K is important because the market says so’

 

[PhantomWetSuits]

4K is critical for a number of reasons, Phantom 4 Pro flyers are paying a lot of money for a camera that shoots clean video. The reason why you have the Phantom 4 series is because of the camera having the 1 inch sensor is pure magic.

When your shooting from so far away , you need all the detail you can capture other wise the money you spent for the Camera is going down the drain. 4K is about capturing the details that puts your video over the top of others.

If you were to go on youtube today most of all the 720 and 480 video has been wiped out and one day so will the 1080 P video as they force everyone to upload 4K .

We shoot in 4K , but we do post in 1080 for a lot of the footage so those with poor internet can have a chance to view it.

There is a huge difference in quality on the 30 inch monitor over 1080 P , and the internet is only going to get faster , we have 100 meg so watching 4K is a delight.

When we watch the footage on are 80 inch Samsung curved TV the 4k is breath taking no matter what the footage , all because of the details of the shots.

Recently in a rain storm that we shot we posted that you can see the deer and a coyote , but the fact was you could not see it, as you could only see the footage with the 4K.

Granted its a pain to edit and work with 4K footage but the results are extraordinary and will soon be just normal footage as everything else will be faded out and all that will remain will be 4K and virtual reality footage .

One last note that adds to this viewpoint. There are a few video guys on youtube that have over a million followers simply because the video they shoot is so beautifully clean and detailed and its not that the video is epic , far from it, but just watching a cup of coffee being poured into a cup , has captured the hearts and mind of many.

I hate 4K but I have come to understand that if you want to see the rain, the snow, the ripples in the water, the wild life below than you have to embrace 4K and not fight it as virtual reality footage is coming and 4K will just be enough quality to get you by.

The other thing that sometimes is very handy is that 4K allows you to freeze frame any shot that you took on video and make it a really nice still picture.

This is my 4K shot from the Phantom with no color correction and you can see the quality, watching this on an 80 inch screen is good cinematic quality.

Pay attention to the details , and how its possible to crop over and over again getting to the point clearly.

To watch in 4K click on the vimeo icon and than the gear icon and click on 4K than click on full screen.

 

[Helihover]

P4’s do not have 1” sensors.

 

[PhantomWetSuits]

P4’s do not have 1” sensors.

Noted and changed sorry.

 

[tcope]

A few years ago 460x640 was good. Watch one of those videos today. Same think with 4k. Shoot today to watch it years down the road. Also, when 4k is cropped as needed, it looks better then cropping a lower resolution.

With that said, 4k is not really needed right now. 1080 looks just fine and will for some time now. 4k recording is easy so it's included.

 

[LarBear360]

"If you were to go on youtube today most of all the 720 and 480 video has been wiped out and one day so will the 1080 P video as they force everyone to upload 4K ."



The total number of people who use YouTube – 1,300,000,000. 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute! Almost 5 billion videos are watched on Youtube every single day. I don't see YouTube "forcing" people to upload 4K anytime soon

 

[Sagebrush]

If you were to go on youtube today most of all the 720 and 480 video has been wiped out and one day so will the 1080 P video as they force everyone to upload 4K .

Can you provide documentation? Youtube seems to be full of 480 video.

SB

 

[dubix]

I always shoot 1080

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We will be talking about EVE Online and why 4k is so important. I agree with this and I consider this to be a very important issue that should be discussed in a relaxed atmosphere.
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[AyeYo]

Only client I've ever had ask for 4K who actually knew what they were asking for was a stock footage broker - and in their case it makes perfect sense to have future-proof footage.

Of the remainder, the rest that requested 4K immediately regretted it when they needed to edit the footage. I now give a bit of a disclaimer speech to any client that thinks they want 4K footage. 1080p 60fps is far, far more useful and practical.

 

[LarBear360]

And of course by the time 4K does come around, if ever, these drones are likely to be obsolete and replaced by another line. Yes, we will be ready with our existing gear but most people are going to want to go out and buy the latest and greatest. Of course, those will offer 4K but until then, I get the impression very few people use 4K or need 4K. Except maybe the rain guy:>

 

[Helihover]

If I had the means to properly process 4K (newer iMac) all my videos would be shot in 4K and I’m sure most all of you would have to agree to that. It’s kind of a no brainer. You guys surely are not shooting 480 or 720 right? Because 720 is a lot easier to handle and process than 1080..... No, your shooting as good as picture as you possibly can... Give it some time

Probably 95% of all the videos we watch are on YT and if you couldn’t view 4K on the other side, you just watch it in 1440 or 1080.

 

[AyeYo]

If I had the means to properly process 4K (newer iMac) all my videos would be shot in 4K and I’m sure most all of you would have to agree to that. It’s kind of a no brainer. You guys surely are not shooting 480 or 720 right? Because 720 is a lot easier to handle and process than 1080..... No, your shooting as good as picture as you possibly can... Give it some time

Probably 95% of all the videos we watch are on YT and if you couldn’t view 4K on the other side, you just watch it in 1440 or 1080.

The difference between 720 and 1080 is that 99% of the population actually has a device to view 1080 footage on and therefore it's worthwhile to shoot video in that res. This isn't the case with 4K over 1080p. Almost no one will ever see the quality difference.

 

[Helihover]

The difference between 720 and 1080 is that 99% of the population actually has a device to view 1080 footage on and therefore it's worthwhile to shoot video in that res. This isn't the case with 4K over 1080p. Almost no one will ever see the quality difference.

You missed my point. My point has nothing to do with the veiwers. It has to do what you as the creator can afford. If you could afford to produce 4K video you would because there would be zero difference in post vs. 1080.