Is ProRes good enough for broadcast delivery?

[Walter Biscardi]

ProRes is more than good enough. People deliver DV and DVCAM every single day and ProRes is higher quality than that.

We have started delivering our HD Broadcast masters via a ProRes finish workflow through Color.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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[Bob Zelin]

let me make this very clear to you. Most broadcasters acknowlege AVID as a standard. AVID DNxHD145 is the same resolution as Apple ProRes422. AVID DNxHD220 is the same resolution as Apple ProRes422HQ. Little companies like CBS Network own AVID Unity ISIS servers that broadcast signals at AVID DNxHD145.

What does this mean. This means that EVERYONE is using and broadcasting COMPRESSED HD signals. The person that tells you that “professional only use uncompressed HD” is an idiot, and should be shot. You will have great success with Apple ProRes422 and Apple ProRes422HQ. Both are excellent. Is ProRes422HQ technically better than ProRes422 – yes.

Now you are working with Digi Beta, which is not an HD format. You can choose 8 bit uncompressed Standard Def, or 10 bit uncompressed Standard Def, and not use much more bandwidth and drive space as with ProRes422, and of course, this will work very well. Is there a disadvantage in working with ProRes – absolutely not. Standard def uncompressed uses A LOT less space than uncompressed HD material. HD is why I make such an issue about uncompressed vs. compressed, but for Digi Beta standard def signals, you will have similar performance by choosing uncompressed SD at either 8 or 10 bit.

Bob Zelin

[Vince Sanchez]

Bob Zelin wrote:
“You can choose 8 bit uncompressed Standard Def, or 10 bit uncompressed Standard Def, and not use much more bandwidth and drive space as with ProRes422,”

That’s not true as far as I’m concerned. Our 1 hr 8 bit uncompressed masters were over 70GB and had a data rate of about 23MB sec. This year we’re delivering using Pro Res and our masters are 17GB and our data rates are just slightly more than the DV we used to use offline. Now we start in ProRes and never have to do an online upres. A couple of our aux edit bays can still edit pro res over the network like with DV, we could never do that with uncompressed. The quality if great and we have no plans for going back to uncompressed.

Thanks,
Vince Sanchez
Intel Quad Mac 2.66
AJA LHe
HD link
OSX 10.4.11
FCP Studio 2

[Bob Zelin]

according to the AJA Data Rate calculator,
ProRes422HQ for standard def is 8.84mb/sec, and 1 hour of storage takes up 32.51 GB.

ProRes422 (145mb/sec) standard def is 5.89mb/sec, and 1 hour of storage is 21.90 gb/sec.

8 bit uncompressed standard def is 20.97mb/sec, and 1 hour of storage is 76.20 gb/sec.

So Vince is absolutely correct – uncompressed SD takes up twice the space that ProRes422HQ takes up.
Is it good enough – absolutely.

Bob Zelin

[Rod Main]

Thanks to you all for these responses. I am feeling a lot more confident the more I read. My skills lie nearer the editing end of the spectrum than the engineering end!
Can anyone find a way of expressing a comparison between Avid Meridien 2:1 resolution and Apple ProRes? This is what I am historically used to conforming and laying back to DigiBeta for delivery in my pre FCP days.

[Bob Zelin]

AVID Meridian 2:1 is doo-doo. Those are the old days. Modern edit systems – even the cheapest pieces of junk, outperform Meridian systems.

You will be happy with Pro Res 422. Make believe that these old AVID resolutions never existed. Remember AVR27 – hit your head against the wall until you say “whats AVR27”.

And for those still using a Meridian system (and there are a lot of you – particularly in LA) – you will be dead soon, and we won’t care. Modern AVID users use MXF media, take your old crap, and die !

Bob Zelin

[Rod Main]

ok

[Andre D’elena]

Just to pile on…we’re getting lots of material from the big networks (mainly CBS and NBC) at DNx100. We asked them why not 145 and they said 100 was good enough. Nuff said.