BMD cameras and the 4k scaler box.

A friend just sent me a link to this post on eoshd:

http://www.eoshd.com/content/13127/james-miller-adds-167-hardware-4k-scaler-box-sony-a7s-stunning-results

I wonder if someone tried it with a BMPC or BMCC shooting 1080. I guess, in the case of the BMCC upscaling in post from 2.5k raw would work better, but the BMPC could benefit from this. What do you guys think?

I guess, in the case of the BMCC upscaling in post from 2.5k raw would work better

But it's not upscaling he's doing there, it's downscaling to 1080p.
Maybe you'd get better 1080p from the production camera this way but with the Cinema Camera there's nothing to be done as the output is already 1080 from the SDI.

We have already seen video from the BMPC4K comparing in-camera downscaling to HD 1080 video versus doing the downscaling in Resolve. The external downscaling was visibly better when the video showing the comparison was made. The advantage of this external box is that it would feed the Atomos recorder the smaller improved HD 1080 signal.


Rick Lang
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I see, interesting, thanks for the explanation!

Compare this to shooting 4k RAW on the BMD4k and downconverting it to 1080p in Resolve. You will be amazed at the superior quality from the BMD.

The guy from EOSHD isn't the greatest source. He's prone to hyperbole ("stunning results") and not very tech savvy. For example, from looking at the samples, it seems pretty obvious that the CYP HDMI 4K Scaler is adding a light sharpening pass at 4k, then downsampling the sharpened image to 1080p. Downsampling after sharpening makes the final image less noisy and more detailed. The EOSHD guy just tried dialing in an unsharp mask at 1080p, and didn't understand why it looked like a dog's breakfast.

If you want similar results, use a similar process. Sharpen your 4k images in resolve, then downsample for cleaner more detailed footage at 1080p.

The problem is that you can see aliasing now in the sharpened and downscaled video.
You can't have both: super sharpness and no aliasing. That is the reason why most downscaling processes involve some kind of filtering of high frequencies.

it seems pretty obvious that the CYP HDMI 4K Scaler is adding a light sharpening pass at 4k, then downsampling the sharpened image to 1080p. Downsampling after sharpening makes the final image less noisy and more detailed.

Well, that makes a lot of sense for me, I usually work with film scans and the best results for printing are achieved the way you described it.