Devinda Fernando Posted June 7, 2014 Share Posted June 7, 2014 I have a few basic questions that I’ve been trying to get answered over the past few months. After checking all the forums online I still can’t seem to get a simple and comprehensive answer to them. Perhaps someone can help me out? What is the difference between 2K Raw footage and 2K H.264 footage in terms of quality? Is there a difference in when you scale the image (zoom in) in editing, i.e. can 2K raw footage be zoomed in further without loss of resolution as opposed to a compressed H.264 2k footage? Is there a difference in color grading in post-production? (I’m assuming yes, but what would that be specifically?) Are there different types of 2K Raw? 8Bit 10Bit, 16Bit etc? and what would the difference make for your average professional video production such as a Music Video, TV Commercial, Wedding, etc? Are some 2K Raw formats better than others? Canon, Sony, Red, or Arri, etc? If so why are some better than others? (In what way) And finally. If you shrink/scale down 2K footage to SD (NTSC TV format) do you loose resolution? Let me ask that another way, - if I shot a man’s head during an interview in NTSC and then output to NTSC I would have your standard 480x720 lines of resolution. If I shot the same footage in HD (1080i) and then I scaled down that footage to NTSC would I retain the same lines of resolution within the smaller NTSC Rectangle frame? i.e. would there be more detail preserved n the 2K image scaled down to NTSC (more pixels per square inch?) or would the scale down result in a loss of resolution and the image quality be the same as if I shot the original in NTSC to begin with? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrgl Posted June 7, 2014 Share Posted June 7, 2014 A processed image has less flexibility to manipulate. However, you might not be good at manipulating the image, or you may think your camera does it well enough. Ultimate, you must as yourself this: do you have the time and effort to make decisions your camera would make otherwise? If yes: shoot Raw. If no: shoot compressed.RAW vs h.264 Raw footage is uncompressed. Therefore its fidelity is greater than h264.Scaling Up Because h264 footage is compressed, it will scale worse than RAW.Grading RAW footage grades better because of no compression.8Bit 10Bit, 16Bit etc Has to do with color depth. The greater the number, the more colors are captured.Scaling Down By definition you're losing resolution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.