GH5 21:9 how to shoot and deliver

KINOKS

KINOKS

Well-known member
We are soon starting production on a short doc meant for film festival distribution in EU. We want to deliver in 21:9 ratio, withouth shooting in anamorphic.

What is the best practice here; to shoot in 4k, crop, and deliver in 2k, or shoot in uhd, crop and deliver in HD? Or just deliver 4k cropped or UHD cropped?

Tnx!
 
21:9 is kind of non-standard. I would recommend using 2.39:1, which has been the "Scope" standard since the early 70's.

Many external monitors will offer framing guides for this type of thing.
 
KINOKS said:
We are soon starting production on a short doc meant for film festival distribution in EU. We want to deliver in 21:9 ratio, withouth shooting in anamorphic.

What is the best practice here; to shoot in 4k, crop, and deliver in 2k, or shoot in uhd, crop and deliver in HD? Or just deliver 4k cropped or UHD cropped?

Tnx!
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Curious why you have to use 21:9 ?

Personally, I'd prefer shooting in DCI 4K for the post adjustment wiggle room.
But, I'd also suggest going with standard 2.39:1 or 2.40:1, but that's just me.
 
Come on guys. Even if you didn’t really know the answer it takes two seconds to google 21:9 to realize it’s a real standard.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/21:9_aspect_ratio

Basically it’s a mathamtatically more accurate form of 2.39:1.

I would approach it just like any other ultra wide format:

1. Shoot normal and crop in post. This gives you a letterboxed 21:9 video inside of a standard 16:9 video. Good if you are delivering somewhere where they only accept 16:9 sources.
2. Shoot normal and use in a custom size project to match the delivery resolution and aspect ratio. This gives you a true 21:9 video.
3. Shoot anamorphic and crop accordingly to deliver a true 21:9 video. Basically the same as any other anamorphic workflow but a slightly different aspect ratio.
 
Haha yeah, 21:9 is 2.39:1.

Anyway, I decided on shooting 1080 50p (as gh5 surprisingly doesn't allow for 2k/4k at 50p!!!) and to crop, then export 2k 21:9. Will be doing a smtpe dcp obviously as the frame rate will be 25.
 
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btw, Whether you deliver cropped or letterboxed is really a question for the festival, and will likely change from venue to venue. Regardless, shoot with guides and edit in a cropped timeline - you can export both ways.
 
I thought 21:9 was 2.37:1, not 2.40:1 ?

I'm familiar with it, and already googled, just wondered why THAT exact numbering term was needed for his project instead of the more standard 2.39:1
 
KINOKS said:
Haha yeah, 21:9 is 2.39:1
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It really isn't. 21:9 is the messed up version of CinemaScope that some displays use, kind of like 16:9 is the messed up version of Flat that most TV's use.

But 16:9 and 21:9 are not the same as 1.85 and 2.39 They are different. To the point where 21:9 isn't commonly found as an option for framing guides, whereas 2.39 is.
 
Jim Simon said:
It really isn't. 21:9 is the messed up version of CinemaScope that some displays use, kind of like 16:9 is the messed up version of Flat that most TV's use.

But 16:9 and 21:9 are not the same as 1.85 and 2.39 They are different. To the point where 21:9 isn't commonly found as an option for framing guides, whereas 2.39 is.
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Yeah, the format will be 2k scope 2.39:1 2048x858. This is a normal dcp standard. sorry my bad :)
 
KINOKS said:
Yeah, the format will be 2k scope 2.39:1 2048x858. This is a normal dcp standard. sorry my bad :)
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Are you sure shooting 1080p is the best choice if you need to deliver 2048x858? 1080p is only 1920 wide whereas you can shoot 4k DCI that can be scaled perfectly to 2048 wide and cropped the. Rest of the way to get to 858.

I assume you need 10bit for log or else you would have done 4k 50p. Have you considered an external recorder instead? That way you could get DCI 4k 10bit at 50p and scale down to 2k.
 
Thomas Smet said:
Are you sure shooting 1080p is the best choice if you need to deliver 2048x858? 1080p is only 1920 wide whereas you can shoot 4k DCI that can be scaled perfectly to 2048 wide and cropped the. Rest of the way to get to 858.

I assume you need 10bit for log or else you would have done 4k 50p. Have you considered an external recorder instead? That way you could get DCI 4k 10bit at 50p and scale down to 2k.
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Believe me I have! But alas for this project it's going to have to be 1080p. The GH5 can't shoot 48/50p at 2k/4k, so then we just said fu*k it and went with it's internal 1080 50p 200mbs 422 10bit codec. This saves us a lot of bulk, which is really welcomed for this project anyway as the camera package has to be minimal. Maybe with a Ninja V, but then again, we would be doing UHD @50p and not 4K. The resolution loss between an upscaled HD to 2k compared to downscaled 4k to 2k is not really a factor for me. And a softer look is also welcomed for this project as it's about old folks with dementia.

The only thing that actually bothers me with the 1080p mode is aliasing which I am actually surprised to see tbh.
 
Thomas Smet said:
Are you sure shooting 1080p is the best choice if you need to deliver 2048x858?
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I can't speak for all software and video formats, but I've found that placing 1080 ProRes into a 2K Scope sequence in DaVinci Resolve is quite workable. The very minor upscale doesn't have any appreciable impact on perceived detail.
 
Jim Simon said:
I can't speak for all software and video formats, but I've found that placing 1080 ProRes into a 2K Scope sequence in DaVinci Resolve is quite workable. The very minor upscale doesn't have any appreciable impact on perceived detail.
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That is not quite true, there is more impact because the rescaling is minor.
Lookup Nyquist's theorem if you want to get the details on this.
 
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