Hi all.
I'm making a DCP of compilation of short films. Half the films are 4K
source, the other half are 2K.
If I make the DCP as 4K, the 2K films will get uprezzed to 4K, but the
majority of cinemas will probably only have 2K projectors, so will
downres to 2K again.
Will that result in the 2K films looking worse than they would have if
the DCP was made 2K in the first place?
i.e. This would involve 2 translations: (1) DCP-o-matic 2K -> 4K scaling
and (2) J2K decoding discarding a resolution level. Are the two
translations a good mirror of each other? Or do they work in different
ways so it could result in the 2K film looking less sharp than if DCP
had been encoded in 2K in the first place?
Obviously, the 4K films would look less sharp if encoded as 2K. But what
I'm wondering is whether I need to make both 2K and 4K DCPs so the films
can be presented optimally in all cinemas, or whether just a 4K DCP will
cover all cases.
Hope this makes some kind of sense!
Jim
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I don't see an issue generating a single 4k DCP from mixed 2k and 4k sources. I
don't think any degradation will occur.
Do you need to create them all in one single DCP? If there is no specific reason to do
this, why not make every one at it's 'native' resolution, and the cinema will
have more freedom to create a playlist?
In general - the only reason not to create 4k DCPs is if there is a chance that some
smaller cinemas would play them with inferior software players. Some of them can not or
will not play 4k DCPs, or need an additional license for 4k. All proper DCI servers will
play 4k, even if the projector only supports 2k.
- Carsten