Guys, I have done it. The 4K-pilot is finished. It was rendered at 15 Mbps in 4:3 format at a display size of 2846x2160p (4:3).
I also used the original NTSC audio and adapted to the PAL-running time while maintaining the original pitch; also, I have pitch corrected the german audio so the PAL-Speedup has been taken care of (no more high pitched voices).
The motion is nice and smooth (as it is at 25 FPS).
There are only minor imperfections: Slight block artefacts with explosions and fast moving scenes (barely noticeable), sometimes the added grain is more visible but also adds nice detail, so I will keep that for it looks less “oversmoothened/arteficial”. There is still some minor rainbowing and there is that one frame were the deinterlacer couldn’t handle it all, but it’s again minor. Unfortunately with the pilot, there is a sort of “double border” on top/bottom, but that is only present with the pilot and I didn’t want to crop further to avoid losing parts of the image.
Overall, I am happy with the result. I think it is a really nice compromise between upscaled/enhanced quality, retained detail and filtered image properties.
The 1080p-version is being rendered right now and should be done in 12 hours. I will then upload that as well.
Finally, I will do comparison shots and write the text for the release topic. I will invite you guys and then you can get your hands on the pilot.
As for specs: The 4K-Version will have a size of roughly 10 GB (9,9) and the 1080p-Version will have about 6 GB. Since the pilot (double episode) runs 87 minutes (PAL) and the single episodes clock in at about 43 minutes (PAL) we can assume that the size for the singles will be about 5 GB at 4K and 3 GB at 1080p.
I think size-wise those figures would be ok, since a complete 26 episode season at 4K would take up 130 GB and at 1080p it would take 75-80 GB. In comparison, if I were to copy the DVD-files with original sizes (1,8 GB for singles at SD-Resolution) I would end up with a season count of 45-50 GB, so that appears reasonable to me.
I hope you’ll agree.