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April 2014 www.tvbeurope.com


Uncompressed 4K may give you the best possible colour and image resolution, but it also requires you to use some of the most expensive cameras, massive amounts of incredibly fast storage, and requires uncommonly big budgets


TVBEurope 19 4K Challenges


4K wasn’t the only topic absorbing visitors to London’s recent BVE expo, but it was a key discussion point in many conference sessions, and one of the most passionately debated ones. David Fox reports


BROADCASTERS MAY not want to move to Ultra HD any time soon, but 4K was certainly the number one topic at this year’s BVE conference, with many standing-room only sessions (such as ‘Taking the fear out of 4K’), as creatives wonder if they should move to the higher resolution format now or wait for it to become more established. “There is every reason for shooting 4K, for future sales. If you’re a producer and you’re not shooting at 4K, you’re an idiot — unless you are shooting really cheap, trashy stuff that is going to get thrown away,” cinematographer Geoff Boyle told a session, ‘The end-to-end 4K workflow — what does it mean for production, post and broadcast processes?’. “If you have personal value in


what you are shooting, then shoot it in 4K, post in 4K and share it in 4K, or at least store the EDLs and rushes so you can go back and re-generate it in 4K,” because you don’t want “to make something that is not saleable,” he added. “If you’re shooting now for


TV, you should be thinking whether in years to come you’ll want to re-master that and broadcast it in 4K,” said William Isaac, chief engineer, Glassworks, which has facilities in London, Barcelona and Amsterdam (where its infrastructure has been built for 4K). However, he sees “no immediate need to do a job in post at 4K.”


DoP and cinematographer, Alister Chapman, who did a separate session, ‘Shooting 4K in extreme conditions with the Sony F5 and FS700’, shoots 4K “because it looks really, really good and it future proofs my content, because I shoot a lot of stock footage.” He was an early adopter of HD, and video that he shot 10 years ago in HD is still making him a good income. Also, there aren’t many people shooting hurricanes and tornadoes in 4K, so it helps differentiate his footage further. His clients include National Geographic, BBC Natural History and Discovery.


“4K doesn’t need to wait for


broadcasters before it will catch on, because of downloads and higher quality displays,” and “by starting at 4K, you get very nice looking HD pictures,” he added. Chapman specialises in shooting severe and extreme weather, such as hurricanes, tornadoes and the Northern Lights, as well as commercials and drama. “If you’re doing high-end


drama, or even reasonable- budget drama, and you think you’re going to have a future sale, if you don’t future-proof yourself you haven’t got a future sale,” said Boyle, who has shot movies, commercials and TV series using almost every 4K camera. “Only if you think your work is rubbish should you shoot it at anything other than 4K.”


Consultant and editing trainer


Larry Jordan pointed out that at NAB 2013 people were saying the same of 3D: “‘If we don’t shoot 3D our future as cinematographers is over’,” but now “we have got to shoot 4K or we have doomed ourselves to financial extinction.” However,


Boyle responded that last year, 10 of the top 20 grossing movies


Chapman: 4K Raw can be “very manageable, and it really isn’t that expensive to do”


However, shooting Raw means “you have to get the workflow right”, and “it will vary from shoot to shoot,” said Boyle. But, you needn’t handle vast amounts of data in post if you move to an intermediate format, such as DNxHD or ProRes, for editing at a lower bitrate. It will only be at conform and finishing that you’ll need to go back to the Raw video. Jordan felt that Boyle glossed


“There is every


WERE 3D, as were each of the biggest grossing movies for each of the last five years. But, there is very little outlet for 3D on TV, replied Jordan, although he sees “a lot of sense in acquiring in 4K, but it’s really important to understand that not all 4K is created equal. If you’re shooting the equivalent of AVCHD in 4K, you’re better off shooting high frame rate 2K, because you’re going to get a much better picture, because the compression of AVCHD is so severe.” Boyle admitted that his


approach is aspirational. “It is impossible for most people. I accept that, and I agree totally about ‘don’t shoot bad 4K, shoot better 2K’. Shoot the best you can, but always aspire to doing


reason for shooting 4K, for future sales. If you’re a producer and you’re not shooting at 4K, you’re an idiot” Geoff Boyle,


cinematographer the ultimate.


Even if you have to make some compromises, don’t start off with a compromised viewpoint.” The only Raw formats that


are totally uncompressed are Canon and ARRI. ARRI isn’t 4K, but the rest of the camera works so well that Boyle doesn’t care - “4K is only part of what makes the image, and the colour response and the latitude of that camera is so good, I will happily forego any resolution.” At BVE, Boyle had projected


material shot with 2.8K Raw (ARRI) and 6K, “and nobody in


the audience could tell which was which.” In cinemas, people are too far from the screen. “Only the front row might be able to see 4K — any further back, they can’t.” For him, 4K is a TV medium. “The big screen in the home you get close to,” where there should be enough


resolution that you can’t see the pixels.


It’s just more… The amount of storage required for 4K is a big worry for many, but as Boyle said: “It’s just more data. If you are used to working with a HD workflow, then 4K is exactly the same. It’s just more.” Storage prices have dropped considerably. Boyle bought 8TB recently for a 4K show, for just £200. “The amount of data, and the cost of storage, is not necessarily an issue,” he said. He is obsessive about shooting “as uncompressed as possible, because...I want as much to manipulate in post as possible.”


over the storage requirements of uncompressed 4K. “It is so much data that if you don’t have an infrastructure and bandwidth to move this gigantic file around your post facility, you’re going to have wonderful images you can’t edit because your bandwidth isn’t there.” Installing the right infrastructure and storage will be a significant cost, he warned. “It’s not just about storage and bandwidth,” added Isaac, “it’s also about processing power and rendering.” Glassworks does a lot of 3D CGI work, and rendering a 4K frame takes four times longer, and as that part of the process usually happens near the end of a production, they are under considerable pressure for time already, so it has to be taken in to account during planning. “Simply shooting a 4K image because you can misses a lot of issues,” added Jordan. Uncompressed may give you the best colour and image resolution, but “it also requires you to use some of the most expensive cameras, some incredibly fast storage, massive amounts of storage, and requires working on budgets to which Geoff has become accustomed.” Boyle agreed with everything, “except the last bit.”


Choosing cameras “What camera and codec you shoot on “has direct implications for post,” added Jordan. “When you are working with 4K, it affects your entire system,” he said, so you need to pick the right camera, the right storage, and sufficient bandwidth to connect it, the right editing software and


Beyond HD: Capturing the 4K storm


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