ProRes 422 broadcast standard?

[Dave Haynie]

Incidently, DNxHD _is_ an actual standard. Like Apple, Avid created DNxHD as a high quality format for intermediate, post, or interchange. But unlike Apple, they didn’t keep it proprietary, they released it as a standard.. that’s SMPTE VC-3. Part of any real standards process documents the full thing in enough detail to allow independent implementations. Mainconcept has an independent implementation, for example.

Sadly, it’s true that Apple has pushed ProRes as a format for this same use — primarily to ensure that Apple’s PCs and software remain a standard anywhere ProRes is adpoted as the standard. Avid has done a far worse job of advocating DNxHD.

-Dave

[Dale Spetz]

It turns out that I can submit DNxHD, so this is a good thing. Maybe Apple is not going to take over the world, after all. Thanks for the info and help.

[John Rofrano]

That is a good thing. After calling lots of post houses that only accept ProRes we did find one that would accept Sony MXF so things might be slowly changing. Glad to hear it.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Max Ferrara]

Hi, i was reading this thread today and just wanted to remind you that the following is really not true.

“No. There is no way to get there from a Windows computer period. It is a proprietary Apple format that can only be created on a Mac.”

there are both freeware or opensource Prores codecs as well as commercial ones.

5dtorgb has a free version for win x64 which encodes Prores in an avi container which plays on Mac if needed. Also FFmpeg supports Prores and it actually encodes faster than the Apple codec, check reduser forums for more benchmarks on this. Another codec is called ffmbc.

One new codec is Cinemartin Cinec, which is offered as free trial at this time. There’s a commercial codec as plugin for many programs called Drastics MediaReactor Workstation.

[John Rofrano]

[Max Ferrara] “there are both freeware or opensource Prores codecs as well as commercial ones.”

Hi Max, Can you recommend a workflow that works with Vegas Pro? I started testing these and I still don’t have a ProRes file that works. In particular I tested 5dtorgb and it blew up with my Sony camera’s AVCHD footage and it encoded some MP4 footage to a file that neither QuickTime nor Vegas Pro can read.

Can you explain how you create a ProRes file on Windows that can be used with Vegas Pro or even read by QuickTime?

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Max Ferrara]

5dtorgb prores encoding in mov container worked on my system with both sony vegas 11 & 12. in avi container Vegas 12 doesn’t open it, but i can play it in any player including Windows Media Player. I don’t remember if Vegas 11 was able open prores avi, sorry.
You probably have a very old quicktime player for windows if Vegas can’t open them. the bad part is that Vegas is using the Apple Quicktime codec to open prores or other type of .mov files, so you must keep it updated.

The track properties in Vegas shows ” Apple ProRes 422 ” for the video stream.

The new one, Cinec, works too as prores encoder and Vegas 12 opens its files. The current trial is 2 cores limited, if the final is unlimited it should be really fast.

[John Rofrano]

Funny I couldn’t get 5dtorgb to work. I have the latest QuickTime Pro. I’ll have to look at Cinec. Thanks,

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Max Ferrara]

If it doesn’t work in Windows Player and Vegas fails too, you surely have problems with the system codecs. More exactly, you have a forced codec, probably by accident, which is on the preferred list but fails to load.

Use Windows Media Player Classic Homecinema to see which one is it if you don’t have other tools, it shows the full filter tree for a video, forced and compatible filters too. Even more, it allows color management and 10bit output on compatible hardware.

This is the first time I read about issues with prores on Windows and Linux, or with 5dtorgb, you have to find what’s causing it.

[Aleksey Tarasov]

FYI, Cinec is just another GUI for FFmpeg & FFmbc (I think that ALL video converters for Windows, which claim that they can convert to ProRes – are wrappers for FFmpeg, nothing more).

to convert a video file to Apple ProRes 422 HQ with ffmpeg use the following command (avi is just for example):

ffmpeg.exe -i "input-video-file.avi" -c:v prores -profile:v 3 -c:a copy "output-filename.mov"

Vegasaur.com – Plugins for Sony Vegas Pro

[Max Ferrara]

thanks for that command line, will test it