![]() ProRes Raw is the kind of format you might use with a high-end mirrorless camera made for video, or a dedicated video camera, alongside an outboard recorder. There are others too, but these are made by camera manufacturers, to serve their own cameras. It's the same concept: smaller files, relatively low CPU/GPU strain, and in this case, greater ease of use than the alternative format Cinema DNG. This was introduced in 2018, and provides ProRes-style compression for raw video capture. We can’t talk about ProRes without also mentioning the step-up format, ProRes Raw. While its phones’ video quality isn’t quite as competitive as stills – the need to crank out 30 or 60 frames per second restricts how much computational work can be done to mitigate the limitations of small sensor size – iPhones do still offer best-in-class video. Removing an extra compression step also avoids potential image degradation – it’s like recording a copy of a copy.Īdoption of ProRes is also a sign of Apple’s confidence in the iPhone 13 Pro’s video output. But by removing steps in the process, Apple is making it much easier for newcomers to adopt these best practices from day one. ![]() You can already use tools to transcode the iPhone 12’s MOV (H.264) and HEVC (H.265) into ProRes. ProRes video also comes in the more familiar 'MOV' format.Īpple isn't really doing anything technologically groundbreaking here. That’s the file extension you’ll see at the end of the file name. iMovie has supported it since 2014 – as long as it’s not in an MXF (Material Exchange Format) container, anyway. You don’t need expensive video editing software to use ProRes, either. ProRes may be common parlance among people who make videos all the time, but getting your head around this stuff can be tricky for someone who has a phone and wants to start making funny, well-produced social media videos, for example. The introduction of Apple ProRes on the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max, which Apple has said is come "later this year", will make this video format more mainstream than it has ever been. Why is ProRes on the iPhone 13 Pro a big deal? That means smoother gradients, and less obvious color banding. ![]() First, your computer will handle it better than the files your camera spits out – and even if the original footage only has 8-bit color, edits you make can be processed at a higher color fidelity. Using the 10-bit ProRes is a good idea even if your camera only shoots 8-bit video too. However, if you’re dealing with high-resolution capture and any real length, it’ll chew through SSD space at an intimidating rate. If you have a camera that can shoot uncompressed raw video, you might think you want to use that. It’s a practical, high-quality format to use when working on a video project. Who uses Apple ProRes?Īnyone who edits video in one of the industry standard suites, like Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve, has probably considered using ProRes at the very least. That said, YouTube does actually support ProRes 422.Ĭontent creators can upload a ProRes file directly to YouTube, although it’s going to end up in the H.264 format once it has been through the platform’s compression wringer anyway. You’d use ProRes in the editing/production part of the process, before converting the final clip into something people can play on their phones, or on their TV via a USB stick – most likely an H.264 or H.265-encoded file. If you have an older laptop it may not even be able to handle 4K H.265 playback smoothly. And it is precisely this style of encoding that makes them a bit of a pain, and processor drain, to work with in an editing suite. Why wouldn’t you just use ProRes all the time? An H.264 or H.265-encoded clip is still going to be much smaller, as those formats are designed to provide decent image quality at low bit-rates. An Atomos Ninja V external recorder, for example, supports ProRes 422 LT, 422 and 422 HQ, for example. However, if you use hardware that can record ProRes natively, you’re going to be limited to what it supports, too. Which of those six formats filmmakers choose depends on their priorities of image quality versus file size/portability. It's not yet clear which of these will be coming to the iPhone 13 Pro series, but Apple says you'll be able to shoot in 4K/30p in the format (unless you choose the 128GB model, in which case you'll annoyingly be restricted to 1080p at 30fps). It’s a family of six quality standards, from the space-saving 'ProRes 422 Proxy' right up to the ultra-high-quality 'ProRes 4444 XQ'. ProRes is a compressed format, but one that aims to be “visually lossless”. This tells us one of its key characteristics. The sell back then was it “produces stunning HD quality at SD file sizes”. Apple introduced ProRes in 2007, as part of its Final Cut Pro 6 editing software.
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