My 4k footage in HD timeline is terrible!! (FCPX)

B

Ben01

New member
Hi all,

I’m wondering if anyone can solve this for me as I have tried very hard on google and all I get is “4k footage downscaled to 1080 is super sharp!!”... well, not for me it isn’t!!

I shoot with two bits of gear - a phantom 4 Pro shooting 4k @ 60fps (I like to be able to slow it down) and a gh4 shooting 1920x1080 60fps - again I like the option to slow it down.

I will preface by saying my drone footage always looks great and super sharp whenever I preview it in QuickTime or even Final Cut Pro itself. But when I put the drone footage into a 1080 24p timeline it becomes extremely soft!! Very blurry and just looks terrible. I have in the past resorted to applying a sharpening effect on the footage to bring it back but it is still nowhere as good as the original footage.

Please can anyone suggest why this is happening and what I’m doing wrong ?? I have suspected that it may have something to do with the fact I’m shooting the drone footage at 4k - 4096x2160 which does not divide evenly into 1920x1080 but a)I’m not sure this would actually effect the sharpness and b) I haven’t had a chance to trial just shooting in UHD 4k - 3840×2160 - which is exactly double.

Thoughts please ?
 
I think maybe what you're seeing is simply the loss of resolution. I edit 99% in UHD/4K and whenever I do have a 1080p timeline and drop any 4K clips into it, they don't look as sharp as in their native timeline.
 
See this is what confuses me because literally everything on the internet suggests dropping 4k footage into a 1080 project will have it look even sharper than the original - which to me makes sense as your taking a massive image (film) and squeezing it into a frame half the size.
 
Do you have Spatial Conform set to FIT or NONE? I set to NONE and scale down the footage to approx 55% (UHD/4K) in a 1080 timeline, looks sharp to me
 
Ben01 said:
See this is what confuses me because literally everything on the internet suggests dropping 4k footage into a 1080 project will have it look even sharper than the original - which to me makes sense as your taking a massive image (film) and squeezing it into a frame half the size.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I've ever heard that...

There is a theory that 4K 420 8-bit turns into 1080p 444 10-bit, but not sure it becomes sharper.

4K has more detail than 1080p. It will appear "sharper" 99% of the time when comparing side-by-side in a 4K timeline vs. 1080p timeline.

So when you're viewing your 4K on a 1080p timeline it just won't look as sharp because you are losing information.

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P.S. I googled what you're saying and here's the first link that popped up:

http://www.fcp.co/forum/4-final-cut-pro-x-fcpx/27108-4k-footage-in-a-1080p-timeline-slightly-blurry
 
For the sake of prudence, let's separate "sharpness" from resolution, or 'resolved detail'. A 4k image with identical framing as a HD image will always resolve a lot more detail (properly shot, identical setups and so on...).

But a 4k image scaled down to 2k/HD will show a better 'per pixel quality' relative to the frame size, since you're interpolating 4 pixels into one—averaging them. So four 4k pixels become one super HD pixel.

But in this HD image you will not have enough image elements (pixels) to recreate the smallest details of the 4k image. It is normal to apply some sharpening after images have been rescaled. Sharpen to taste. But sharpening is nothing else than artificial edge contrast, so it doesn't add detail. But we has human will pick up on it and perceive the image as sharper.

Regardless of shooting 4k or HD, most people use a '0 sharpening i camera' approach. In this case your images will most likely benefit from some sharpening in post, even if it's only local (which I prefer myself). And if you DO sharpen your images, it should be quite easy to restore the correct level of detail now that you have those nice 'HD super pixels' at your disposal.
 
Quick question...have you rendered any footage out to a final file or "test" file yet?

Make sure to tick better quality instead of better performance under the viewer dropdown in FCPX. You'll see noticeably sharper footage on your screen. BTW it doesn't affect sharpness when rendered to a final file...that should be sharp in either case.
 
David_Manning said:
Quick question...have you rendered any footage out to a final file or "test" file yet?

Make sure to tick better quality instead of better performance under the viewer dropdown in FCPX. You'll see noticeably sharper footage on your screen. BTW it doesn't affect sharpness when rendered to a final file...that should be sharp in either case.
Click to expand...
I was just about to ask this same question... if you have "Better performance" selected - that's likely the culprit. I would export out a file - preferably something of decent quality that isn't highly compressed - and then judge your sharpness from that. Also what Bruce says ^.
 
'Better performance' doesn't affect the export; that option just makes it easier on the system during playback.

Only proxy does if you've created proxies and have that option selected.
 
@NorBro agreed. I’m suggesting it’ll clear up the footage in his timeline. He hasn’t specified whether the soft footage is only in the timeline or also exported, rendered footage.
 
I hear you...I was just affirming/supporting your previous post (just to be clear) where you mentioned the same thing.
 
Sorry for the delayed reply - but yes I have exported the file and the end product is exactly the same.

And yeah the difference between “better performance” and “better quality” makes no real noticeable difference to the footage in the timeline.

I’m liking the idea of a 4k timeline and rendering out to 1080. Failing that I may just shoot my drone footage in 1080 to begin with??
 
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