4K Timeline or HD?

What do you think? If I want to calculate an HD film for the customer at the end, I only have 4K material - is it better to just cut it in a 4K timeline and then only switch to HD when calculating it, or does it make more sense in an HD timeline right away to cut? Both would certainly go smoothly with my 16-inch Macbook Pro M1.
greetings mathias

Edit in 1080p. 4k is 4x slower to edit than 1080p and you can't see the difference in a tiny monitor anyway. Use proxies of 'automatic' resolution for edits as well and they will chop to 1080p

If your computer has less than 6gb Vram (or m1/m2 mac) you won't be able to render a 4k timeline even if you want to.

If your hardware is up to it, I would say render out a 4k DNxHR master using the 4k natives from a 4k timeline (you change from 1080p right before export) and keep that yourself. You can then chop it to 1080p h.265 or whatever codec the client wants in Shutter Encoder or FFMPEG.

Of course if you have a weak GPU, 1080p timeline to 1080p DNxHR is the best you can do. Still use the 4k natives, so any zoom will look nice.

I would cut the basic edit in HD then switch to 4K for grading and online finishing work, such as graphics, titles etc.

Hey
Basically I'd work in a HD project (therefore TL) with the untouched 4K clips on it, and do all the job like that.
Before exporting, I'd change the TL to 4K to check everything* and then export a 4K master...
I'd Probably make the HD master afterwards, from the 4K one.

*in some cases, I'd probably check some things before the end, if there are CGI, graphics or special assets.

Hey
Basically I'd work in a HD project (therefore TL) with the untouched 4K clips on it, and do all the job like that.
Before exporting, I'd change the TL to 4K to check everything* and then export a 4K master...
I'd Probably make the HD master afterwards, from the 4K one.

*in some cases, I'd probably check some things before the end, if there are CGI, graphics or special assets.

Yes, this is my workflow. Graphics and fusion should not have an issue with you changing resolution. They do go to hell if you change Aspect Ratio.

Keys/Roto best to do at full resolution not using optimized media. Some crazy pixels might show up at 4k that were fine in 1080p.

Yep...
Keys and rotos (and like) are never done in Resolve, going Fusion means standalone for me...

I wanted to know if, with the current version of Resolve (Suite) 18.1, are there any things that will break the editing on your timeline, by changing an edited 1080p timeline to 4k for delivery?

I'm about to start a larger-scale 4K project soon and was thinking of editing the whole thing in 1080 (even though my computer can technically handle shorter 4K timelines...like 15 minutes in length), then change the Timeline to 4k right before delivery.

I read that power window tracking might break, but that comment was years old. Thank in advance.

I wanted to know if, with the current version of Resolve (Suite) 18.1, are there any things that will break the editing on your timeline, by changing an edited 1080p timeline to 4k for delivery?

I'm about to start a larger-scale 4K project soon and was thinking of editing the whole thing in 1080 (even though my computer can technically handle shorter 4K timelines...like 15 minutes in length), then change the Timeline to 4k right before delivery.

I read that power window tracking might break, but that comment was years old. Thank in advance.

I have never had anything break switching 1080p to 4k. But I obviously haven't used every tool in Fusion. I would not be surprised if there are some things there that don't like it

Aspect ratio changes are a complete disaster.

My preference is to edit in the highest resolution timeline that I will need for delivery.

If all I need is HD delivery, then I would edit in HD (and possibly take advantage of the 4K footage by cropping in without detail loss).