Upsampling 720p to 1080p?

[aaron_yeo]

<p>So we're going to make a short behind-the-scenes-ish video on a fashion shoot on Friday, and I'll be using a D7000 for most of the shots, and a D90 as a second camera for those talking head things. (Yes, there will be talking heads, thus BTS-<em>ish</em>) Now since the D90 is a little outdated as far as HDSLRs have come, the only format they both offer is 720p24.</p>

<p>My question is, is it okay to upsample the D90's clips to 1080, so it can "match" the D7000's 1080p24, or should I just shoot everything at 720?</p>

<p>Via web distribution, social media embedding, and all that, the target audience will be young adults, many of whom are university students. So that means lots of laptop screens, which usually can't do much with 1080 footage (but YouTube will do the 720 for us), but it'd be nice for those of us who do have big screens.</p>

[frank_skomial]

<p>Shoot at 1080 with D7000, and shoot at 720 with D90. <br>

That is all what you need to do.<br>

Most modern laptops will play HD video at whatever resolution they can with a screen that they have.<br>

E.g. small 12" screen 1280 x 800 Hewlett-Packard DV2 laptop plays full 1080 HD video on the laptop screen, scaling down to available screen resolution, but also plays full 1080 resolution on the HDMI or VGA output socket, if a larger HDTV or more capable monitor is connected.</p>

[aaron_yeo]

<p>Well do I downsize the 1080 or upsample the 720?</p>

[frank_skomial]

<p><em>"Well do I downsize the 1080 or upsample the 720?" - </em>perhaps you do not want to downsize and loose quality. You may have to downsize but only if your possible destination web site video import does not provide proper scaling. In this case perhaps you will need much smaller frame, and loose the benefit of HD.</p>

<p>720 HD is already good quality, and upsizing may not increase the quality. If you are concerned with displaying 720 on 1080 capable device, depending on software, you could see a smaller picture, but most likely the 720 will be projected as full size screen, e.g. 1080, that is the upsizing will be done for you during display time, if your hardware has sufficient processing power.</p>

<p>As an end user, you just shoot whatever your camera best setting allows, and do not do any re-sampling at all. Let the display device, or your computer video driver, or a destination web site import video facility, do the justice to your video.</p>

[AlanKlein]

<p>I don't know the answer to your question. However, I was just thinking about my problems with watching 720 and 1080 HD on YouTube. Because of the bandwidth of my service (DSL Verizon), I can't really get pixels heights above 480 and often not above 320. If I select 720 or 1080, the bandwidth is too low and the thing hangs up until it can collect enough data, then displays video shortly, and then hangs up again.<br>

<br />Will your final facility allow lower quality along 480 or 320 for us bandwidth slowpokes?</p>

<p>Also, I can't really see the difference above 720 or frankly not much better above 480.</p>

<p> </p>

[mc2imaging]

<p>What software are you using? In Final Cut (Pro & Express), you'd set up your sequence for what ever format you want. If you drop 720 in a 1080 timeline, it will want to render it up to match. You could drop all of your 720 in its own 1080 timeline, render and export it as 1080, then bring it into your 1080 timeline with your 1080 native footage.</p>

<p>Of course you can do the opposite by dropping the 1080 into a 720 sequence and render down an export to make them match. </p>

<p>You can drop them both into the same sequence in their native formats, but can get to be a pain with all of the rendering (up or down) it will want to do as you adjust your clips and add effects on the orphan format footage.</p>

[aaron_yeo]

<p>Frank, your answer is great, except it isn't any help when you consider the fact that you can't mix and match (as McManamey pointed out correctly) in the same sequence.</p>

<p>Matt, for future projects in similar setups, which do you think is the smarter option? Upping the 720 or downing the 1080? What should the final output be? (in FCP)</p>

[aaron_yeo]

<p>(We ended up shooting the 7000 at 720/24.</p>