Is Apple Pro Res 4444 a suitable form for delivery?

[Brian Mulligan]

Sure, assuming that is a codec that they can handle at the delivery point.

Brian Mulligan
Senior Editor – Autodesk Smoke
WTHR-TV Indianapolis,IN, USA
Twitter: @bkmeditor

[Jeremy Garchow]

I agree, but what’s your source material?

[John Heagy]

[Penny Clark] “Would the Apple Pro Res 4:4:4:4 be a suitable way to export my final sequence?”

ProRes4x4 is RGB… ProRes 422 is YUV (YCbCr to be accurate). Any broadcaster will require YUV for broadcast, so you’d be leaving that color space conversion to each broadcaster. This is something I expect few would have much experience with.

Sending ProRes 422 would be “Apples to Apples” as far as what you see and what gets broadcast.

I believe ProRes4x4 has the ability to be 4:4:4:4 in both RGB and YCbCr, but I don’t believe 4:4:4:4 YCbCr is enabled.

John Heagy

[Penny Clark]

Thank you for the responses!

It’s not for broadcast, it’s going to be on DVD. It’s a new thing for me, I’ve never worked with 4:4:4:4!

The source material is coming for animators so they should be movs.

Thanks again!

[Steve Connor]

I genuinely can’t imagine why they would need a ProRes444 file for authoring a DVD, overkill to say the least

Steve Connor
“The ripple command is just a workaround for not having a magnetic timelinel”
Adrenalin Television

[John Heagy]

[Penny Clark] “It’s not for broadcast, it’s going to be on DVD.”

Same RGB vs YUV color space issue applies to DVD as well. No consumer deliverable is 4:4:4. The vast majority is 4:2:0 including DVD, BluRay, and h.264 web media.

[Penny Clark]

Ok I’m confused then! Does that mean they’ve sent me the wrong delivery spec? I was just going off of that!

[Chris Harlan]

[Penny Clark] “Ok I’m confused then! Does that mean they’ve sent me the wrong delivery spec? I was just going off of that!
“

Is what you are delivering the final element before final compression, or is it one more element in what someone else is assembling?

[John Heagy]

[Penny Clark] “Does that mean they’ve sent me the wrong delivery spec? I was just going off of that!”

What is the deliverable spec?

When I said “consumer deliverable” that meant the final end user file on the DVD or web site. The file you send is typically a mezzanine format of higher quality, 4:4:4 is really never that format.

[Penny Clark]

The delivery spec is if it’s tape they want 1080p 23.98 4:4:4, it then continues to say a digital master is the same spec as the tape. As we don’t have a machine we were always doing an export!

As far as I’m aware I deliver it and then they do the final compression. It shouldn’t be going any where else!