Hey guys,

Whether you’re shooting 4K already or not yet, the arguments against its coming arrival as the default new delivery spec are officially moot, with the release of the $499, 4K-capable GoPro Hero 4:

http://gopro.com/news/gopro-introduces-hero4-the-most-powerful-gopro-lineup-ever

When you’ve got a $500 camera doing 4K at 30p the argument against a delivery falls apart. Whether or not your your camera does that may be open for debate, but the idea that 4K and beyond is where everything is going isn’t.

It’s become so possible now to shoot and edit in 4K there’s no reason to not have clients ask you to finish at that resolution as well. The good news is that at least in the short term it will be a nice premium deliverable you could charge for (or be paid extra for by distributors) as there is currently a shortage of quality 4K content being delivered… and there’s all these TV’s being manufactured that need content.

I believe that the HD vs. 4K argument will look back at this GoPro announcement as pretty much the final nail in the coffin. 4K is not going anywhere… not at that price point. 4K will not be the next 3D. It’s now to HD as HD once was to SD. The format you have in your camera and the workflow you want to learn for post. We’ve been in these waters for a while now and are happy to help, drop us a line.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sam Mestman, FCPWORKS.

This blog post contains the personal musings of FCPWORKS’ Workflow Architect, Sam Mestman. Sam’s also a regular writer for fcp.co and MovieMaker Magazine, teaches post workflow at RED’s REDucation classes, and is the founder and CEO of We Make Movies, a film collective in Los Angeles and Toronto which is dedicated to making the movie industry not suck. If you’ve got any FCP X questions or need some help putting together a system, drop him an email at workflow@fcpworks.com and you can follow him on Facebook or Twitter at @FCPWORKS.

Comments