Somehow we lost Eldor who started this thread. So I'd like to go back to his original question.

As far as I can tell, his 24p camera setting is "Cinema Mode" and I'm still not sure what it's for. He wants 1080 (HD) out.
Two possible solutions were offered to his question of how to use his new Sony 4k camera with his other cameras that shoot 1080 30p and get best results from PDR13.

First was to use his camera's 4k to shoot, then convert all clips to low res, add 1080 30p cclips from another camers, and edit with PDR13. After editing swap 4k clips (same name and folder) with low res clips and Produce. A trick which apparently saves render times in PDR13.

Second option was to shoot 4k camera at 1080 60p AVCHD, combine with his 1080 30p clips from his other cameras in PDR13, and Produce.

I don't have a 4k camera but I would appreciate it if Eldor could try a small project using both suggestions and let us know which gives best results in PDR13?? Power Director 13&14 Ultimate, Photo Director 6, Audio Dir, Pwr2Go 10
Win 10 64, Intel MB DH87MC, Intel i5-4670 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 16Gb DDR3 1600, 128Gb SSD, 2x1Tb WDBlue 7200rpmSATA6, Intel 4600 GPU, Gigabyte G1 GTX960 4GB, LG BluRay Writer

AIS, thanks.

I will be experimenting over the next few days. But I have found that there's another setting on the new Sony AX33 that does allow me to shoot in 1080 30p. It's XAVC S HD at 30p. And the quality seems to be really very good (good enough for my needs).

Unfortunately I have some major issues at work for the next few days and they're seriously affecting my play time.

I really did like that swap/rename and produce trick though.

Hi Eldor

Really glad that you liked swap rename trick as we were getting a bit of stick over it. Do you find it so much easier than using shadow files? Panny TM10, GH2, GH4,

Eldor, in your first post you said that you had heard there were advantages to shooting in 4k - here is an explanation I found on an old reddit.com forum. It seems to back the theory up

4k has 4x as many pixels as 1080p, when you downsize, you average 4 pixels into a single pixel.
Any noise or incorrectness/pixel is 1/4th of the result, instead of the whole result.
Say you have, in 1080p, a single pixel of noise.
And in a 4k video, you also have a single pixel of noise
The pixel in the 4k, is 1/4th as significant, and as such, doesn't have as great an effect.
So when you downsize (average), those 4 pixels become one, and that pixel is 1/4th noise, instead of entirely noise
This is why, even though both videos have the same number of pixels
the one downsized from 4k will appear sharper Panny TM10, GH2, GH4,

Shadowman,
In theory it makes sense but surely the results depend on the algorithm used by the re-sizing software? Does PDR13 use this method of "averaging" pixels or does it discard extra pixels and randomly choose which ones to keep? What about 20Mp photos resized to 1920x1080 (2Mp)? I find it difficult to understand.
I can see the time saving advantage when editing 4k when using the "swap rename" trick if you want 4k out but I find that the camera does the best job of producing quality at the desired output size. Resizing software generally gives poorer quality when downsizing than original camera footage at the desired project size - the exception being if you want to crop or zoom pics before rendering.
I would still like Eldor to compare original 1080 60p AVCHD or 1080 30p XAVC S footage from his camera in PDR13 with same clips shot in 4k using the "swap rename" method. Just a small 2-3 min project.
Remember, he wants 1080 output and he will combine footage from his new camera with 1080p clips fromvhis other cameras that cannot shoot 4k - and he was looking for the "most efficient" solution. Power Director 13&14 Ultimate, Photo Director 6, Audio Dir, Pwr2Go 10
Win 10 64, Intel MB DH87MC, Intel i5-4670 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 16Gb DDR3 1600, 128Gb SSD, 2x1Tb WDBlue 7200rpmSATA6, Intel 4600 GPU, Gigabyte G1 GTX960 4GB, LG BluRay Writer

Hi Al

I don't know, is the answer I have to give. I only know what I see and I think there is a difference.

I Know, let's let Eldor be the judge and jury. My jury is still out Panny TM10, GH2, GH4,