downscaling 4K to 2K and to 1080P in Premiere Pro CS6: scaling issue

[Nicholas Natteau]

I just recently downloaded Philip Bloom's Canon 1DC native sample clips, from his 1DC review here:

http://philipbloom.net/2013/01/27/1dc/

Here's what I don't understand about the downscaling process in Premiere Pro CS6:

Let's say I have two sequences: one is 2K (2048x1080) and the other is 1080p (1920x1080)

If 2K is only 6.7% bigger than 1080p (2048 being 6.7% bigger than 1920), why is it that the same original 4K clip (4096x2160) shows up at 100% scale in a 2K sequence, and 53% scale in a 1080p sequence. That doesn't make sense.

Given that 4096 is twice 2048, shouldn't a 4K clip (4096) dropped into a 2K sequence (2048) show up scaled at 50% in a 2K sequence?

Thanks in advance for any feedback / clarification.

 

[jcs]

Check your "Scale to Frame Size" setting.

 

[Nicholas Natteau]

Sorry jcs, I can't find it anywhere. I don't see it in the effects window or in the sequence settings window.

There's a "default scale to frame size" in the General Settings section, is this what you're referring to?
I did check that box, but in my 2K sequence, when I drop any 4K clip it still shows up as 100% when it should show up as 50%.

 

[Gary Huff]

Without adjusting anything else in Premiere, when you drop a clip into the timeline, it's always set to 100% unless you have that "scale to frame size" option activated. Thus, at 1080p in the timeline, you get a 2k image that looks "zoomed in" and a 720p image that is windowboxed.

Not at a Premiere station to check on anything further, but that's the default behavior.

 

[blazer003]

What you are seeing is the middle 1920x1080 of your 4K image. Scale it down and you will see that you have a lot more image that's being cropped off around the edges. It's a mistake I made one time when I made a 720p timeline and used 1080p footage. Several shots were much tighter than I remembered.

Just change the scale to 46% (from 4K to 1080p) and you will see the rest of your image!