Apple ProRes 422

[Eugene]

http://images.appleinsider.com/nab-apple-2007-27.jpg
photo from appleinsider.com

Anyone know much about ProRes 422.? I am guessing they named it after 4:2:2. I am going to the Final Cut Studio 2 Tour when it comes to Miami. Anyone else going? I want to find out more about all the new Apple editing software. I hope it will run on my old G5 with its old operating system.

[Ralph Oshiro]

I think they "derive" the 2K data from what I heard termed at the RED booth as 1K and 2K "embedded QT" bitstreams in REDCODE? But I could have this totally wrong of course. All I really know is that ProRes is Apple's new propreitary 4:2:2 CODEC. I did want to say that I spent quite a bit of time at that particular Apple kiosk at NAB, and I continued to stare at that display as closely as I could for a quite a while. The Peter Jackson short looked amazingly good to my eyes in Apple's 2K ProRes CODEC. I mean, to me, it looked AWESOME.

[Clayton Harper]

ProRes as I understand it is a variable bitrate codec that has a whole bunch of different formats. The jist is that you can do full raster 4:2:2 from s single drive. If ProRes works well its gonna be great. Like DVC-PROHD without all the quality issues.

I believe in this example they received 2k files that had been output from Redcine as Prores. At least that's what the guy at the computer told me.

[Mark L. Pederson]

At the NAB Press Event - Apple showed split screens of uncompressed 10-bit & ProRes 422 - and it was visually lossless - REALLY impressive - no question it is going to be the new broadcast workflow favorite -

[Clark Dunbar]

here's the Apple White Paper on ProRes 422

<http://images.apple.com/finalcutstudio/resources/white_papers/L342568A_ProRes_WP.pdf>

[TimothyD]

Thanks for posting that white paper Clark,

In reading it I did notice something troubling though. It looks as if Apple only plans to support 1080i and not 1080p. This is very unfortunate in my opinion because I plan to shoot and edit progressive and only use interlacing when outputting for broadcast (a small portion of what I do).

Is this a problem for anyone else? For me, it ensures that I will only use Prores as a delivery format, not for editing. I will be using Redcode for all editing.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this???

Tim

[Jonathan Smiles]

Thanks for posting that white paper Clark,
In reading it I did notice something troubling though. It looks as if Apple only plans to support 1080i and not 1080p.


The 1080i limitation is for the AJA Io HD external box, not for the codec or desktop Mac with appropriate HD-SDI card

The ProRes codec supports 1080p progressive/interlace/progressive segmented frame as this is a function of the fields setting.

[Simon Blackledge]

aja io/hd not 25 P ? :-/

[Jonathan Smiles]

aja io/hd not 25 P ? :-/

It will be 25psf, 25p over 50i like all Sony gear.

Might actually do true 25p/30p, but it's not clear yet, however 25psf/30psf is fine with all current gear.

[david farland]

Thanks Clark...appreciated...thou the term white paper reaches a new low.
I 'd hoped a codec white paper would have actually talked about the codec i.e wavelet, DCT etc!
I'm assuming it's color space is all rec-709 also.

Dave,

[Clark Dunbar]

yeah - as a white paper it's lacking real details and a comprehensive overview. Let's hope Apple publishes/posts a more indepth paper. Although we may all get FCP6/Studio2 before any updated "White Paper" is released.... and we'll have the chance to test and push the codec to real world situtations

[TimothyD]

Thanks for the info everyone,

Good to know it will support 1080p...

I wasn't planning on coming out of pocket for the I/O HD anyway, I'm gonna put that money into my computer:) So that works out nicely for me...