Exporting in 1080 in 4K vs Superscale

I make modest travelling vlog for YouTube and I shoot all my footage in 1080 with a GoPro because I cycle around the world with my bike and I couldnt possible manage storage of bigger files.

Since I bought a new laptop (MacBook Pro 13" M1) last year I was able to export the videos edited on a 1080 timeline in 4k.

Now I finally was able to afford a licence to DR Studio and there is the Superscale option.

What would you suggest my workflow be either continuing editing on a 1080 timeline and export in 4k or editing in 1080 and then Superscale and then export in 4K?

Being able to edit fast is a key as I dont have much time usually, for example if I had to superscale all the clips and then edit on a 4K timeline that wouldnt be ideal because it would make me lose too much time I think and require extra storage.

Thank you for any advise based on your own tests and experience.

My opinion: You can't get 4 times the visual information (2K to 4K) by upscaling. If you can start with 4K information, use that for the final render. Even if you have to render at a slow speed, like 10fps or 4fps, that'll be better than upscaling HD.

If you're shooting in HD, then it's arguable what advantage you would get in uploading 4K. I would run a 5-minute test: do one where you just upload HD, and one where you upload in 4K, and see which looks better to you. I'm pretty certain that YouTube re-encodes everything uploaded, so the idea is the better the source material, and the higher the bitrate, "in theory," the better it will look. But there's only so much you can squeeze out of a GoPro.

By uploading in 4K you get better re-encoding from you YouTube from what I understand.

I make modest travelling vlog for YouTube and I shoot all my footage in 1080 with a GoPro because I cycle around the world with my bike and I couldnt possible manage storage of bigger files.

Since I bought a new laptop (MacBook Pro 13" M1) last year I was able to export the videos edited on a 1080 timeline in 4k.

Now I finally was able to afford a licence to DR Studio and there is the Superscale option.

What would you suggest my workflow be either continuing editing on a 1080 timeline and export in 4k or editing in 1080 and then Superscale and then export in 4K?

Being able to edit fast is a key as I dont have much time usually, for example if I had to superscale all the clips and then edit on a 4K timeline that wouldnt be ideal because it would make me lose too much time I think and require extra storage.

Thank you for any advise based on your own tests and experience.

There's no need to upscale as you're editing, edit in 1080p timeline, when you are ready to render set superscale to 2x, set project to 4k, and render to 4k . Superscaling uses a huge amount of GPU, you would most likely need to proxy that, but really is there any point to that, you are seeing all the information of your original files with a 1080p timeline

There's no need to upscale as you're editing, edit in 1080p timeline, when you are ready to render set superscale to 2x, set project to 4k, and render to 4k . Superscaling uses a huge amount of GPU, you would most likely need to proxy that, but really is there any point to that, you are seeing all the information of your original files with a 1080p timeline

So you're saying the extra steps in the workflow are not worth? Should I just keep editing in 1080 and just render out in 4k without bothering with superscale?

There's no need to upscale as you're editing, edit in 1080p timeline, when you are ready to render set superscale to 2x, set project to 4k, and render to 4k . Superscaling uses a huge amount of GPU, you would most likely need to proxy that, but really is there any point to that, you are seeing all the information of your original files with a 1080p timeline

So you're saying the extra steps in the workflow are not worth? Should I just keep editing in 1080 and just render out in 4k without bothering with superscale?

I was suggesting you edit in 1080p, when complete set your media files to 2x superscale , change project resolution to 4k and render in 4k. It depends on what you're trying to do, If you just want to upload higher then 1080P to guarantee your 1080P will be encoded in higher quality VP9 instead of AVC, then it doesn't matter either route you take

I was suggesting you edit in 1080p, when complete set your media files to 2x superscale , change project resolution to 4k and render in 4k. It depends on what you're trying to do, If you just want to upload higher then 1080P to guarantee your 1080P will be encoded in higher quality VP9 instead of AVC, then it doesn't matter either route you take

My aim is to deliver a little higher quality without slowing down sensibly the workflow. I'll have to try your proposed worked flow and see how much it slows down my editing vs the increased quality.

So you're saying the extra steps in the workflow are not worth? Should I just keep editing in 1080 and just render out in 4k without bothering with superscale?

This is what I would recommend. The super scaler in resolve is very slow. But all these 'AI' Type scalers are.

I would put the 1080p footage on a 1080p timeline. do your entire edit. Change Timeline to 4k. Export at 4k DNxHR HQ.

Watch the export on a 4k monitor. If anywhere you think looks bad, you could try enabling 2x Superscaler for that one section.


And as you said elsewhere, yes always upload to YT at 4k. 60mbit/s h.265 for 24-30fps.

This is what I would recommend. The super scaler in resolve is very slow. But all these 'AI' Type scalers are.

I would put the 1080p footage on a 1080p timeline. do your entire edit. Change Timeline to 4k. Export at 4k DNxHR HQ.

Watch the export on a 4k monitor. If anywhere you think looks bad, you could try enabling 2x Superscaler for that one section.


And as you said elsewhere, yes always upload to YT at 4k. 60mbit/s h.265 for 24-30fps.

Good tips. At the moment I'm exporting in 4K using h.265 at 50mbit/s (24fps) never used DNxHR HQ. I'll try it and also to bump it up to 60.

GoPro hyperlapses are usually the parts that look pretty bad on my YouTube videos.

By uploading in 4K you get better re-encoding from you YouTube from what I understand.

Yes. Youtube makes a MP4 "master" of any file uploaded on their servers, then create different version from it for streaming. Higher res than 1080 (1440p, 4k), they use the VP9 codec, and when people are selecting 1080p in the player, the quality is always better than if someone just upload a 1080p version of their video. So that's good that you're exporting your 1080p to 4k even with a basic upscaling.

It can be overkill but if you have a good Internet connection, you can upload DNxHR file (or ProRes, cineform and others) directly to youtube too.

It can be overkill but if you have a good Internet connection, you can upload DNxHR file (or ProRes, cineform and others) directly to youtube too.

I'm constantly travelling, I'm now in Eurpe and connections are usually good but yeah already uploading a 4K vlog in h.265 at 50Mbit/s could bit difficult in certain countries like when I was in certain parts of Africa.

Hi, sorry to bump this three-year-old thread.

I have the free Davinci Resolve version and I can't superscale my 1080p footage.

What I've done so far is edit and color correct my footage in Davinci, export the XML and upscale it in After Effects, and then polish my edit in Premiere.

But today I noticed Davinci's render options allow me to upscale to 4K.

1. Would I get the same result doing this as superscaling it if I had the studio version?
2. If not, this upscale render option will be better or worse than upscaling the footage in AE?

Thanks in advance!

1. Would I get the same result doing this as superscaling it if I had the studio version?

No

Thank you, Videoneth.