HD or UHD

[Rubik]

I understand that many of you do not want to step into 4k (UHD) video yet. So, I did a simple test with the CGO3+ camera to see which camera resolution produces the best results when producing video in 1080p (HD). Here are 2 screen grabs from my 4K monitor. The first is was shot in UHD-30p and rendered in HD-60p. The second was shot in HD-60p and rendered in HD-60p (all XAVC-S). It should be very clear that the UHD-to-HD process produced much better results; less pixalization (grass) and more detail (fence) than the HD-to-HD process.

 

[Rubik]

However, the test clearly showed that HD-60p produced much smoother motion than UHD-30p when rendered in 60p. So, if smooth motion is important for fast action or pans, you might be happier shooting and rendering in HD-60p.
I also learned that taking screen shots from the monitor using PrtScr button produces MUCH better results than taking "snapshots" inside the editor (Cyberlink PD15 in this case).

 

[Eagle's Eye Video]

Something to consider for folks out there... you can never increase resolution higher than what you originally captured. Yes you can take a 1080 file and use a file converter to make it 4K but you will still only have a 1080 resolution file, that is the size of a 4K file. Do a Google search on the term "empty magnification".

Unless you need those higher framerate modes, I would recommend shooting in 4K, because even if you do not have the computer power to render 4K today, you can as mentioned above, use a MP4 converter to create 1080 files to edit today, and still archive the original 4K footage to be available to edit at full resolution when you upgrade your computer in the future.