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Getting cine 4K from Arri 3.8K ProRes?


Dylan Gill

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Hi all, I recently shot a short film on an Alexa Mini w/ Zeiss Superspeeds, using the UHD ProRes 4444 XQ in lieu of ARRIRAW, since our camera rental didn't have it.

We framed for 1.85:1, and have a 16:9 'negative'.

I would like to uprez it to cine 4K so I could create a 4K dcp, but have no idea how to do a marginal uprez, most youtube videos address HD or 2K to UHD.

How can I get this to the 4096 (and what vertical resolution?), so then I can crop to 3996x2160?

Or would it be easier just to do the DI at 2K, as it would be easy to render the colored files at 1998x1080?

Thank you for your help.

 

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are you planning to pillar box it inside a 1.89 "Full" dcp (4096x2160) or are you planning to generate a DCI 4k Flat dcp (3996x2160) ?

it would also be possible to create a "hdtv dcp" of 3840x2160 and letterbox the 1.85 there but I am assuming you specifically want the 4k Flat type output.

 

In that case (the required output being 3996x2160) I would just scale the image to that resolution directly without the 4096 intermediate. you would lose the same amount of image quality but the scaling process would be simpler without the intermediate step (both horizontal and vertical are scaled upwards anyway by the same amount whether you do the intermediate or not. the scaling amount is exactly the same because the vertical resolution of both formats is the same (you are scaling horizontally by the same amount and cropping vertically by the same amount)

 

You will can calculate the scaling percentage from the horizontal resolution difference between 3840 and 3996 or just do it automatically in the software you are using (for example in Resolve you could set the Scaling to "Fill" in the settings and then reframe vertically the desired amount

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are you planning to pillar box it inside a 1.89 "Full" dcp (4096x2160) or are you planning to generate a DCI 4k Flat dcp (3996x2160) ?

it would also be possible to create a "hdtv dcp" of 3840x2160 and letterbox the 1.85 there but I am assuming you specifically want the 4k Flat type output.

 

In that case (the required output being 3996x2160) I would just scale the image to that resolution directly without the 4096 intermediate. you would lose the same amount of image quality but the scaling process would be simpler without the intermediate step (both horizontal and vertical are scaled upwards anyway by the same amount whether you do the intermediate or not. the scaling amount is exactly the same because the vertical resolution of both formats is the same (you are scaling horizontally by the same amount and cropping vertically by the same amount)

 

You will can calculate the scaling percentage from the horizontal resolution difference between 3840 and 3996 or just do it automatically in the software you are using (for example in Resolve you could set the Scaling to "Fill" in the settings and then reframe vertically the desired amount

I'm going for a "FLAT" 1.85:1 dcp

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ok then I would scale it directly to 3996x2160 and reframe during scaling.

 

if you really need an intermediate version of it (for example if the upscale needs to be done before grading and reframing or similar reason) then you could do an intermediate upscale version at full image height (the resolution being 3996x 2245) where the image is upscaled horizontally. then this version can be later vertically cropped+vertically reframed in 3996x2160 timeline without any further scaling. It depends on the software used how this is most practical to do (if the quality of the upscale would be substantially better if doing the intermediate instead of scaling directly in the grading software).

 

of course you could also grade in UHD resolution and upscale, crop and reframe the end product after the grading. It depends of your grading workflow which way would be the easiest and whether or not you will need the intermediate versions (do you for example need an graded upscaled but uncropped version of the movie or alternatively an letterboxed UHD distribution version of it? if the UHD version is also required in great quality then it may be practical to do the upscale after the grading so that you would grade in UHD using temporary bars as framing guides and then do UHD direct export and DCI flat upscale export after the grading. You should consult the post producer and colorist about the upscale options and at which stage the upscale would be most practical to do. If the program allows I would do the grading in UHD if all the material is already UHD and then do the upscale to the end product but it depends on a lot of things, especially how well your grading software does upscales compared to external soft)

Edited by aapo lettinen
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ok then I would scale it directly to 3996x2160 and reframe during scaling.

 

if you really need an intermediate version of it (for example if the upscale needs to be done before grading and reframing or similar reason) then you could do an intermediate upscale version at full image height (the resolution being 3996x 2245) where the image is upscaled horizontally. then this version can be later vertically cropped+vertically reframed in 3996x2160 timeline without any further scaling. It depends on the software used how this is most practical to do (if the quality of the upscale would be substantially better if doing the intermediate instead of scaling directly in the grading software).

 

of course you could also grade in UHD resolution and upscale, crop and reframe the end product after the grading. It depends of your grading workflow which way would be the easiest and whether or not you will need the intermediate versions (do you for example need an graded upscaled but uncropped version of the movie or alternatively an letterboxed UHD distribution version of it? if the UHD version is also required in great quality then it may be practical to do the upscale after the grading so that you would grade in UHD using temporary bars as framing guides and then do UHD direct export and DCI flat upscale export after the grading. You should consult the post producer and colorist about the upscale options and at which stage the upscale would be most practical to do. If the program allows I would do the grading in UHD if all the material is already UHD and then do the upscale to the end product but it depends on a lot of things, especially how well your grading software does upscales compared to external soft)

Thank you, I will talk to my colorist about this.

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Open DaVinci Resolve

Create a 4k 17:9 project (only available in the paid versions)

Drop your finished raw uncolored sequence into the timeline

Globally scale the project to fit the 17:9 aspect ratio frame (cropping the top and bottom slightly)

Go to the export tab

Select 4k 17:9 export Pro Res 4444 or create your use EZ DCP right from that window

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Select 4k 17:9 export Pro Res 4444 or create your use EZ DCP right from that window

 

I prefer exporting to jpeg2000 sequence and wrap that to mxf container with the other dcp materials in separate program. for low budget stuff it is also cheaper because no need to purchase the easydcp license then .

 

it is also possible to export to TIFF format after grading (DCDM style materials) and convert the tiff to jpeg2000 sequence in another program before wrapping to mxf for the dcp creation. The post house will handle this for the OP so no need to worry about it in this case

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I prefer exporting to jpeg2000 sequence and wrap that to mxf container with the other dcp materials in separate program. for low budget stuff it is also cheaper because no need to purchase the easydcp license then .

 

it is also possible to export to TIFF format after grading (DCDM style materials) and convert the tiff to jpeg2000 sequence in another program before wrapping to mxf for the dcp creation. The post house will handle this for the OP so no need to worry about it in this case

 

If you pay for Resolve 15.2, it comes with Kakadu, which is a free DCP creator. But you can't even do 17:9 stuff in the free version anyway.

 

The biggest problem with encoding DCP's is not the compressing and building the materials, it's the disk formatting. The EXT2 format requires a paid plugin to work properly on both mac and windows machines. So that's an additional cost for most.

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The biggest problem when making dcp's is actually quality control. They are pretty hard to check for all errors without investing significant amounts of money to equipmemt. Ideally you would need a full server and projector setup.

 

For free and low budget stuff I prefer rendering the jpeg2000 out of resolve and wrapping with opendcp software.

Commercial high budget stuff is always full done in post house and check screened in movie theater.

 

It is pretty cheap to get the ext file system work in pc or mac, I have couple of computers with the plugins installed

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If you pay for Resolve 15.2, it comes with Kakadu, which is a free DCP creator. But you can't even do 17:9 stuff in the free version anyway.

 

The biggest problem with encoding DCP's is not the compressing and building the materials, it's the disk formatting. The EXT2 format requires a paid plugin to work properly on both mac and windows machines. So that's an additional cost for most.

 

 

The biggest problem when making dcp's is actually quality control. They are pretty hard to check for all errors without investing significant amounts of money to equipmemt. Ideally you would need a full server and projector setup.

 

For free and low budget stuff I prefer rendering the jpeg2000 out of resolve and wrapping with opendcp software.

Commercial high budget stuff is always full done in post house and check screened in movie theater.

 

It is pretty cheap to get the ext file system work in pc or mac, I have couple of computers with the plugins installed

I'm going to get a dcp made by a post house- simple dcp in LA. I'm more concerned about getting to cine 4K (why waste the 3.8K footage we already have?) while protecting the framing. I reached out to the colorist, but he hasn't responded yet. I'm guessing the head room in the 16:9 negative will be the picture information thrown away in the scaling? That's ok with me, but when it starts effecting what happened in the framelines, I get a little worried.

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I'm going to get a dcp made by a post house- simple dcp in LA. I'm more concerned about getting to cine 4K (why waste the 3.8K footage we already have?) while protecting the framing. I reached out to the colorist, but he hasn't responded yet. I'm guessing the head room in the 16:9 negative will be the picture information thrown away in the scaling? That's ok with me, but when it starts effecting what happened in the framelines, I get a little worried.

 

Yes the head room of 16:9 will be thrown away in the scaling. You will scale horizontally and vertically by the same amount so that horizontal stays uncropped but you will crop the vertical by tiny bit to fit to the different aspect ratio. You have planned this beforehand and shot for the 1.85 ratio so it will be no problem but it is probably necessary for you to fine tune the vertical framing a little bit during the crop which may necessitate different workflow than if it would just be a straight upscale with the end result having the same aspect ratio than original.

 

the vertical framing can be done before grading, during the grading or after it to the original resolution OR upscaled version of the image (graded or non graded) and it depends of the other workflow and the quality of your available scaling tools and available grading time which of the options would be most practical for you. In most of our workflows the fine tune of framing is done during grading but it is also for example to grade the image with full height and then crop the graded image or to grade the image with full height but do the framing adjustment during the grading so that there will be some headroom available even after the grading and you still have the final framing available in the render output, just crop the vertical to correct resolution and that's it. The latter option is most practical when you are doing letterboxed outputs where you need to add black bars over the final graded image for the correct aspect ratio masking, then you will get the framelines (bar edges) with better quality by having the full height grade output available instead of cropping in grading to for example 2.39 in a 2.39 resolution timeline and then trying to fit that exactly 2.39 image inside the same aspect ratio bars (will usually need one pixel smaller bars to mask the frame edge and that will change the aspect ratio slightly in the end product)

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I'm going to get a dcp made by a post house- simple dcp in LA. I'm more concerned about getting to cine 4K (why waste the 3.8K footage we already have?) while protecting the framing. I reached out to the colorist, but he hasn't responded yet. I'm guessing the head room in the 16:9 negative will be the picture information thrown away in the scaling? That's ok with me, but when it starts effecting what happened in the framelines, I get a little worried.

 

If your frame lines were 17:9 protected, then it won't hurt anything. Your colorist will understand the process and will probably adjust all of the framing anyway.

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If your frame lines were 17:9 protected, then it won't hurt anything. Your colorist will understand the process and will probably adjust all of the framing anyway.

 

We had 16:9 view, with 1.85 framelines. Never heard of working with 17:9 before, however I am a novice

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We had 16:9 view, with 1.85 framelines. Never heard of working with 17:9 before, however I am a novice

 

So yea, 16:9 is 1.75:1 and 17:9 is 1.85:1. For some reason the digital world uses the 17:9 aspect ratio when it comes to display and monitoring and it kinda stuck with the setup in the software too. For instance, a 1.85:1 native monitor doesn't have that aspect ratio listed, it has 17:9 tho. So it's just another number to remember, that associates with the finishing and monitoring process.

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So yea, 16:9 is 1.75:1 and 17:9 is 1.85:1. For some reason the digital world uses the 17:9 aspect ratio when it comes to display and monitoring and it kinda stuck with the setup in the software too. For instance, a 1.85:1 native monitor doesn't have that aspect ratio listed, it has 17:9 tho. So it's just another number to remember, that associates with the finishing and monitoring process.

Interesting, thanks for the heads up, sounds pretty straightforward then

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  • 3 months later...
On 1/31/2019 at 3:23 PM, Tyler Purcell said:

Select 4k 17:9 export Pro Res 4444 or create your use EZ DCP right from that window

We are in color now, the project is in DCI 4K 1.85:1, now that it's almost finished, my colorist was going to export TIFF's but I asked him to do prores instead for my conform editor. Was this a mistake? 

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13 hours ago, Dylan Gill said:

We are in color now, the project is in DCI 4K 1.85:1, now that it's almost finished, my colorist was going to export TIFF's but I asked him to do prores instead for my conform editor. Was this a mistake? 

.tif would be the best quality for the DCP, but I doubt you'll be able to see any issues with ProRes 4444 for the DCP master.  There is an advantage to rendering to an image sequence though.  If any errors are discovered, only the fixed frames need to be re-rendered and placed into the folder.  For ProRes, you'll need to re-render the entire reel or project.

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9 minutes ago, Bruce Greene said:

.tif would be the best quality for the DCP, but I doubt you'll be able to see any issues with ProRes 4444 for the DCP master.  There is an advantage to rendering to an image sequence though.  If any errors are discovered, only the fixed frames need to be re-rendered and placed into the folder.  For ProRes, you'll need to re-render the entire reel or project.

Copy, how hard/how long would it take to load a 4K tiff sequence into Premiere for the online edit? My editor is out of town until tomorrow and we have to finish this today because my colorist is leaving town tomorrow haha 

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16 hours ago, Dylan Gill said:

We are in color now, the project is in DCI 4K 1.85:1, now that it's almost finished, my colorist was going to export TIFF's but I asked him to do prores instead for my conform editor. Was this a mistake? 

Yea, just use Pro Res 4444 or DNXHR 444

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2 hours ago, Dylan Gill said:

Copy, how hard/how long would it take to load a 4K tiff sequence into Premiere for the online edit? My editor is out of town until tomorrow and we have to finish this today because my colorist is leaving town tomorrow haha 

Premiere won't be able to work with tiff sequences. Even DaVinci can't play them back in real time. So you can't use them. So you'll just need to export a Pro Res file. 

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13 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Yea, just use Pro Res 4444 or DNXHR 444

 

12 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Premiere won't be able to work with tiff sequences. Even DaVinci can't play them back in real time. So you can't use them. So you'll just need to export a Pro Res file. 

Good to know! Thank you. Prores 4444 XQ ok? That's what we shot with, have no idea what the difference is, but would be nice if we could keep it the same. Just learned an hour ago the colorist is doing the online from my editor. Trying to get this finished is driving me insane 

Edited by Dylan Gill
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1 hour ago, Dylan Gill said:

 

Good to know! Thank you. Prores 4444 XQ ok? That's what we shot with, have no idea what the difference is, but would be nice if we could keep it the same. Just learned an hour ago the colorist is doing the online from my editor. Trying to get this finished is driving me insane 

Yea that's it! Pro Res 4444 XQ

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  • 1 month later...

Hi guys, emergency question! TIFF deadline is this week, and I hated the color grade from artist one, so hired a new guy, but it seems that the provided files (XML, EDL, and reference video) aren't giving him the easy ability to upscale to 4K/1.85. 

 

I told him to color it in 3840x2160 and then my editor and I will take care of the crop and upscale. Is this easily done in Premiere?

Edited by Dylan Gill
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11 minutes ago, Dylan Gill said:

Hi guys, emergency question! TIFF deadline is this week, and I hated the color grade from artist one, so hired a new guy, but it seems that the provided files (XML, EDL, and reference video) aren't giving him the easy ability to upscale to 4K/1.85. 

 

I told him to color it in 3840x2160 and then my editor and I will take care of the crop and upscale. Is this easily done in Premiere?

DaVinci is better, it has a better scaler. But Premiere will work. 

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