More detail from Apple on ProRes

[Stuart Simpson]

Great news as far as we’re concerned. Our big beef with HDV (and XDCAM flavours of HDV) isn’t the quality – for many of our clients it’s as good as they need – it’s he huge render times. And don’t get me started on the conform render…

-Simmie
2 G5 – Kona LH
3 G4s – Cinewave
1 xbox360, 1 PSP, 1 PS2 & a Gamecube
https://www.speak.co.uk

[Winston A. cely]

Sounds very cool, but I’m still a little confused. So when I’m capturing, I don’t choose the native format of the footage, I choose the ProRez 422? Or do I choose the native format and FCP automatically puts it in the 422? I think why I’m confused is because the ProRez somehow keeps the information of the native footage, but it acts like it’s smaller footage.

[Zak Mussig]

All of your questions would really depend on what format you’re working with and what hardware you use for ingest.

To capture in Pro-Res 422 you’ll need either a capture card or an io-HD. You can’t capture this format over firewire w/o an io-HD.

As far as the file size and quality is concerned… it’s smaller than Uncompressed HD and the quality is supposedly on par with uncompressed. That doesn’t mean the file sizes or data rates are trivial though. If you’re working with HDV now, you may need a lot better drive setup to take advantage of ProRes 422.

Apple has a white paper on the format available… https://images.apple.com/finalcutstudio/resources/white_papers/L342568A_ProRes_WP.pdf

That may answer more of your questions.

Zak

Zak

[Zak Mussig]

So I just tested that link I just gave you and it went to a generic “page not found” type of page. The link is on the FCS site, specifically on the page about format support in FCP.

Zak

[Ben Holmes]

By the way – I’m not endorsing all of the inaccuracies and vague terms in this article – it’s clearly not written by a video pro.

Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd

EVS & FCP specialists for live OB operations.

New HD edit/slomo truck on the road this month. Dual FCP systems/6 slomo positions.

[Stuart Simpson]

I find this section of the PDF interesting:

“Rendering
Although native editing of HDV and XDCAM HD formats with Final Cut Pro is popular
and has many advantages, ProRes 422 can still bring signifi cant benefits to the render-
ing process. Because long GOP formats are complex and highly compressed, rendering
tends to be slow and may reduce the quality headroom present in the stream. Through
a new user preference in Final Cut Pro 6.0, the editor can choose to render effects in
HDV and XDCAM HD using ProRes 422. This will result in faster rendering time and a
higher-quality 4:2:2 composite. For projects that are mastering to HD-SDI, ProRes 422
is the perfect rendering choice.”

Sounds like FCP using the mixed formats timeline capability in an interesting way… I wonder if this setting is global? Could I work on a 10 bit timeline, but render in ProRes?

-Simmie
2 G5 – Kona LH
3 G4s – Cinewave
1 xbox360, 1 PSP, 1 PS2 & a Gamecube
https://www.speak.co.uk

[George Loch]

This article comes mainly from the PDF that was posted. So, read the PDF to get the full story.

Meanwhile, I am particularly interested in how this codec appears to be a great one size fits all solution. It scales from SD to HD and with the open timeline, this will make a great post codec for any source.

-gl

[Erik Lindahl]

This codec did rasie my eyebrows a bit yes. It will be interesting to see how it works compared to DVCPRHD or DV50 in SD.

What I think is a bit odd is Apple NOT creating a 4:2:2:4 or 4:4:4:4 codec that works nativly in realtime in FCP. Perhaps the open timeline will accept Animation-files with alpha now?

[Ray Palmer]

[Zak Mussig] “To capture in Pro-Res 422 you’ll need either a capture card or an io-HD. You can’t capture this format over firewire w/o an io-HD. “

So working in Pro-Res 422 and my off speed Varicam footage. Will we be able to remove the filler frames? Right now the FRC plugin only works via fire wire not the HDSI.

[Gary Adcock]

[Ray Palmer] “So working in Pro-Res 422 and my off speed Varicam footage. Will we be able to remove the filler frames? Right now the FRC plugin only works via fire wire not the HDSI. “

not true ray

I have show you that via a Kona Card you can capture the VFR content. The IoHD will do the same.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows