Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about 4K

During the live “The Benefits of Using 4K Now” webinar, presenters James Fox, Geoff Peck and Scott Hamilton presented info that content creators need to consider in the present and future when it comes to 4K.

When downsampling 4K 420 8bit, will I obtain 1080 444 10bit?

Dawnrunner Team: 4:4:4 Color sampling means that the chroma value of every pixel of the image is being sampled. 4:2:0 means that the chroma resolution is half of the actual resolution, so when shooting 4K your color resolution is actually 2k (lumanince still being sampled at 4K). Your color is already downsampled, so you won’t really benefit as greatly from further downsampling. Downsampling 8bit footage will not make it 10bit, but I do suggest working in 16 or 32 bit color anyway and you won’t lose any of the color depth you had before. While the benefits are not as great with 4:2:0 footage, there will still be a noticable difference by downsampling.

Do we not still work inside the rec709 color space? I mean, consumer 4K TVs ARE rec709, but Sony is the only one developing a rec2020 OLED display. I really see the benefit in shooting 4K and delivering 2K, but what about REAL 4K?

Dawnrunner Team: First, I do think that part of the benefit of shooting and working in 4K is not only the increased spatial resolution but also the improved color. That said, one of the biggest advantages in the having better color rendition is for the post production artists; compositors and graders will get better results when they have better footage to start with. We can’t control the how a consumer will view content, but we can support people with the best displays now. In a year or two the average consumer will be buying displays that do support wider color spaces and at least our content will be there for them to view.

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