The future has begun again: For several weeks, the VHS inventor JVC has sold a compact-sized camcorder that records 4,000 pixels next to each other and 2,000 vertically. This is the fourfold of High Definition and equates to approximately eight megapixels per image. HMQ 10 is the 5,000 Euro device. It allows documentaries, porn and industrial filmmakers as well as dedicated private individuals to shoot 4K movies.
Sharp pictures, spongy formats
The HMQ 10 looks like a typical, compact professional camera - and so it is also operated: either manually or automatically - depending on time and requirements. In operation, only a very precise sharpness control (peaking) and the precise focusing automatic are detected. They need both to focus, because the small, built-in monitor shows the fine details, which make the special in 4K recordings. Only when playing on large screens would there be any blurring.
Four cables for 4K
But also 4K is only one stage on the staircase to the virtual reality, the virtual representation of real spaces, like in the AlloSphere, an all-round cinema at the University of California, is already realized with good success and a picture composed of twelve projectors . Whether the American broadcasters will implement 4K is, however, uncertain in view of their diminishing importance.
Data slaughter in the computer
It is more likely that Google, Apple and Co. or the TV server manufacturers simply implement the standard. For example, YouTube has accepted 4K footage since 2010. To receive the 4K web movies, however, a very fast data line is required.
4K makes HD only beautiful
As always with picture formats, 4K is not equal to 4K: In the TV area, you usually mean the fourfold Full HD field, which corresponds to an image format of 3.840 x 2.160 pixels. 4K TVs produced in series will probably have the same format as QFHD (Quad Full High Definition).
Kinomacher, on the other hand, promoted projector panels with 4,096 x 2,160 pixels. In this format, the data are currently being delivered to the cinema, which are taken from 35 mm digital film reels. Or they are the same in the format 4,096 x 1,714, if they were filmed in CinemaScope with a picture format of 2.39: 1. The black letterbox strips remain the same as before.
The trends of CES 2013
On the other hand, camcorders for the cinema still enjoy the original 4: 3 format - with an image size of 4,096 x 3.112 pixels or approximately in the old 35mm Academy movie standard with the picture format 1: 3.7 and 3.656 x 2.664 pixels. This classic 35mm format is then quite small for the name 4K.
All these formats and a few of them will appear in the upcoming camera series and in the post-production of films. For the time being, however, there is rare unanimity: Canons EOS devices with 4K recording like the digital cinema cam EOS C500 take up the projection standard of 4,096 x 2.160 pixels, just like the professional camcorders RED Scarlet or EPIC or those made for digital cinema Sony models F65, F55 and F5.
This would be called the other players in the 4K market, all to be settled in the price range from 15,000 euros. However, as early as spring 2013, the price could fall sharply.
First, Canon offers with the EOS-1D C the first reflex camera with 4K recording and Sony builds for its half as expensive model FS-700 a firmware upgrade, which is not the recording, but the play of 4K signals possible
Aptina, the manufacturer of image sensors for Nikon, for example, is watching the filmmakers very carefully. This has announced a new chip, which takes ten megapixels and reads with a data rate of 60 images per second. That would be enough for 4K. How does JVC already manage today what Aptina is planning and which is the most expensive technology for other manufacturers?
The trick: JVC uses four sensors and four HDMI jacks that run four HD signals from which the monitor composes the final image. However, four memory cards in SDXC format are responsible for the recording in the device, the quarter images of which are only combined with the overall image when they are transferred to the computer via software.
Five reasons why 4K comes
However, manufacturers of video cards such as AJA (Kona 3G), Blackmagic (Decklink 4K) or DVS (Atomix HDMI) offer 4K digitization inserts for the PC for the live transmission. They also have four connectors, but HDMI is rarely used because of its built-in instability. HD-SDI has priority over the stable BNC connectors.
LED vs. 4K: High-end Beamer in the test
Also the digital cinema players or playstations, where high-resolution digital films in the cinema or in studios store, use the four-connection technique. In the industrial market - not in the media market - you get monitors that also use the four plugs. Mitsubishi offers about a 56-inch device for about 30,000 euros, TVLogic and EIZO are other providers.
There are many 4K displays for applications in the fields of construction, medicine or exhibition construction, where the price often plays only a subordinate role. Sony makes it with a new 30-inch now also the filmmaker something easier: This PVM-300 also has a four-port connection at a significantly lower price.
Projectors, on the other hand, tend to use dual-link (SDI) pairs or DVI connectors to handle the data from digital film feeders. The first device ever to receive 4K movies via a single HDMI interface (version 1.4a) was Sony's projector VPL-VW1000ES in early 2012. It supports image rates of 24, 25 and 30 Hz.
And then there are still apparent 4K projectors. These already have the large 3.840 x 2.160-pixel panels, but only the usual HD resolution during the demonstration in quad-format. This means that no more details can be seen, but a pixel grid which may still be present disappears completely. JVC is also at the forefront with its DLA-RS66E, -RS56E and -RS48E models, for example.
The editing of 4K video material in the computer paradoxically is currently the smallest problem. Many video editing tools such as After Effects have long been able to handle larger files than Full HD. And on post-production systems like Autodesk or Quantel, there are already lots of 4K movies.
With the growing popularity of 4K recording devices, the editing programs that are very popular with ambitious amateur filmmakers are now also 4K-compatible: such as Grass Valley EDIUS, Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro X, Sony Vegas 9, Avid Media Composer and even the cheap Cyberlink PowerDirector 11 support the media import of the 4K files and have 4K-compatible workspaces.
4K-TV: Toshiba 55ZL2G in the test
How beautifully the 4K editing of film scenes of a RED Scarlet camera in Adobe Premiere CS6 folds, we have even tried. But 4K productions are storage-hungry: 16 gigabytes measures about a one-and-a-half-minute clip from the JVC camera.
Maintaining the data masses during recording and processing are also the biggest problems when building a 4K computer. Multiple Terabytes are fast together and want to be managed, changed and played simultaneously in several data streams. Because the memory can not be large enough.
But Mitsubishi has already introduced a 4K encoder, which instead of today's usual MPEG-4 compression uses HEVC. This new standard should be just as efficient at half the data rate.
But before the 4K world conquers the living room tomorrow, the filmmakers today are already for a very different reason keen on 4K: The giant picture gives them the opportunity to edit their videos perfectly. You can crop the section or zoom up to 4x magnification - without loss of quality.
Also perfect de-coiling is possible afterwards and 4K images, which are down-converted to a full-HD picture, are almost noise-free - the quality increases. On the other hand, video is increasingly being developed at the cutting table and 3D animation programs integrate the camcorder recordings with photos and animated objects from the computer to the scenes that we are given today in the cinema as reality.
The format hardly plays a role in this division of the guild. This is how many 4K movies and commercials are created, which are also set up on YouTube - and are waiting to be viewed by many 4K screens.
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