December 19, 2016 at 7:26AM, Edited December 19, 7:27AM
Is it OK to upscale 1080p to 2K resolution ?
I'm shooting a movie and wanna release in Movie Theaters of my city and other cities near by, I want to ask that can we upscale a 1080p video to 2K or it will result in loss of detail, and how it will effect the DCP ?
5 Comments
The alternative is to keep it and window box the video.
While upscaling (even by such a small amount) won't make any dramatic changes in normal footage it will be noticeable for titles and very sharp elements. If you have to upscale you would ideally want to superimpose titles after you do the upscaling.
December 19, 2016 at 7:31AM
The DCP full container is 2048 x 1080. There are two main DCP aspect ratios: Flat (1.85:1 / 1998x1080) and Scope (2.39:1 / 2048x858). The DCP spec says that you have to have one side match your
If you are finishing 1080p, your height already matches, so there's no need to adjust the size. However, I've heard some stories about a very small amount of servers exhibiting strange behavior for 1920x1080 content because that's really close to the Flat resolution at 1998x1080. If I were you, I'd just keep your 16x9 / 1.78:1 aspect ratio and live with the super slight pillar box.
Many theaters don't mask to a perfect 1.85 anyway for their Flat presets, and you'll have a hard time noticing it onscreen.
April 21, 2017 at 1:17PM, Edited April 21, 1:17PM
On the one hand, it is a good idea to keep the quality of the image as high as possible through the production process. On the other hand, you should not try to preserve a concept of quality that's not really relevant. If you are pixel-peeping on an OLED digital display, you might be able to see the fuzz of a 6% scale-up between the white-white of a title and the black-black of its background. But a 7% scale-up means that at most only 1/2 of 1/2 of 1/2 of 1/2 of the light value bleeds into the pixel between white-white and black-black. If you make your titles 85% white and your black 5% to 10%, you actually get more readable text, and the bleed gets buried in the (imperceptibly lifted) blacks.
Pure whites and pure blacks are great for test charts. But they are not only not a necessity for titles, they are not preferred for titles as ultra-high-contrast images are actually hard on the eyes (even if they do make for great charts). Moreover, if you use a reasonable line weight for your titles, then this also becomes incredibly academic.
December 19, 2016 at 8:32AM, Edited December 19, 8:32AM
DCP is compatible with 1920 x 1080, so it's better to leave it as is than to do a lossy 6.7% scale to 2048 x 1080 that ultimately loses the top & bottom of the image. I'd ask whoever's making the DCP if they are going to convert the color-space and Gamma though. If they don't, it will look washed-out on the big screen.
December 19, 2016 at 11:11AM
When im through in Resolve, especially if im roundtripping from Davinci to Premiere with DPX, i Export at 2K and then Import unto a 1080p timeline in Premiere and the image does hold its sharpness and clarity. But then again you have to consider the native codec of your project because that can have a bearing on the uprezzing of your project.
December 21, 2016 at 8:16PM
2K DCI is 1080 (2048x1080). I think you mean 1920x1080 HD footage to 2K? If you superscale in Resolve, the quality loss will be minimal as the vertical lines of resolution are the same. Depending on your finishing aspect ratio, it might actually be no loss it all. For example, if you had filmed in 2K but for a 2.39 crop, the final resolution for a 2K Scope project is 2048 × 858 which is actually less resolution vertically speaking. And if finished with a flat crop, the resolution is 1998 × 1080 which isn't much of an upres from HD anyway.
April 22, 2022 at 4:36PM
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