Is ProRes RAW just compressed RAW in a ProRes wrapper?

Cary Knoop said:
I think some people clearly have a bias towards Apple including 'explaining' Apple's 'on our hardware only or you have to pay a fortune' closed policy as something that is really positive.
One would hope Panasonic, as a company, takes a more neutral stance on this.
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I do not have an Apple bias. But I will note that in my former position at Convergent Design and before that as a Technical Specialist at AbelCine, one of the biggest issues with RAW has been an utter lack of standards and consistency. RED tried to maintain a head to toe control for consistency, but anyone who used a RED Rocket knows that the results from that hardware did not match those from RED’s own hardware. Adobe processes CinemaDNG differently than Resolve. Open-Source sounds nice for independents and for post people trying to push their “special sauce” abilities, but it is a nightmare pain in the ass for producers and clients who want consistency and predictability. If it takes an Apple to maintain control and consistency then so be it.

Separate to this, one of the beauties about how ProRes RAW is implemented in FCPX is that it is not only extremely easy to use, but it also remains RAW throughout until you render out your deliverable. The same is not true for other systems.
 
Cary Knoop said:
Some perspective on all this ProRes Raw hype:


Start at 6:31
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Yes this is one of the reasons I have been asking questions. As it stands there are not many comprehensive answers out there. Especially with regards to the camera color science in the NLE software where it has to be because as Petty says ProRes RAW lacks all the color science. From Apple's ProRes RAW white paper:

"In contrast, ProRes RAW directly encodes the Bayer pattern image. Demosaicing and processing are deferred to the time of playback and are performed by application software....
Using ProRes RAW lets you defer the choice of demosaicing algorithm until post-production and allows you to take advantage of raw processing enhancements and demosaicing algorithm improvements in future software."

For me the pivotal comment is: "...to take advantage of raw processing enhancements and demosaicing algorithm improvements in future software." Most demosaicing algorithms are proprietary so who's to say that the camera manufacturers, NLE providers et al are all going to play happy families with these future improvements. Hmm! A lot of ground to cover me thinks and I don't think I'm over thinking it.

Chris Young
 
Well, I have been burned by Apple in ways that I haven't been burned by Windows (yet), so yes I do have an anti-Apple bias and freely admit this. What prevents Windows applications from writing out Prores files? How many Windows versions of NLE's have been able to integrate Prores as an output format? What about Linux platforms, or are they just using the "pirate" ffmpeg Prores?

I like that camera control unit for the studio cameras, wonder if they could talk to my Sony cameras.
 
Greg_E said:
What prevents Windows applications from writing out Prores files?
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Apple will not allow.it.
How many Windows versions of NLE's have been able to integrate Prores as an output format?
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None. See first answer.

Apple will not license or create ProRes output on Windows, period (unless something's changed and I haven't been paying attention).

That's it. Game over. ProRes is a single-platform codec and will almost certainly always be one.

Here's the thing: ProRes "won", regardless of any faults, regardless of whether other codecs were "better", and regardless of platform singularity. Apple provided a workflow that generally just works, and works good enough, and lets producers and editors just get on with their work.

For those reasons, I expect ProRes Raw will also be a success. It won't matter that it's single-platform, it won't matter that you will be constrained to an Apple-only workflow. Producers will demand it, and that will be the end of the matter.

You can argue other formats are "better", and I will respond that 1080i is the prevailing worldwide HDTV broadcast standard -- interlaced! Is there anything worse? No, no, there is not. But it is the broadcast standard, so clearly arguments about "better" or "open" are not relevant to the broadcast/video world.

I hate closed systems and reliance on a single provider. I don't have an iPhone and don't edit on Apples. But, as a book publisher, I had to buy a Mac because like it or not, the entire design and publishing industry is Mac-based. I tried to use InDesign on Windows, and it just created problems with my graphic designer and printer. I bit the bullet, got a Mac, bought the Mac version of InDesign, and it has been effortless smooth sailing since. I still resent it, and I really only use that Mac for working on my books, but -- that's the reality and I figured I could cut my nose off to spite my face, or I could quit whining and just do what needed to be done and get back to the business of business.

To me, ProRes has been largely the same thing, and ProRes Raw will likely be the same thing. You ain't gotta like it, but you may very well have to adopt it and just do it so you can get on with business.
 
Mitch Gross said:
Separate to this, one of the beauties about how ProRes RAW is implemented in FCPX is that it is not only extremely easy to use, but it also remains RAW throughout until you render out your deliverable. The same is not true for other systems.
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Raw has to be like that really or you just lose its potential.

Do you mean prores raw is not like that on other systems or (much) raw is not like that on other systems? I think davinci is?
 
cyvideo said:
Yes this is one of the reasons I have been asking questions. As it stands there are not many comprehensive answers out there. Especially with regards to the camera color science in the NLE software where it has to be because as Petty says ProRes RAW lacks all the color science. From Apple's ProRes RAW white paper:

"In contrast, ProRes RAW directly encodes the Bayer pattern image. Demosaicing and processing are deferred to the time of playback and are performed by application software....
Using ProRes RAW lets you defer the choice of demosaicing algorithm until post-production and allows you to take advantage of raw processing enhancements and demosaicing algorithm improvements in future software."

For me the pivotal comment is: "...to take advantage of raw processing enhancements and demosaicing algorithm improvements in future software." Most demosaicing algorithms are proprietary so who's to say that the camera manufacturers, NLE providers et al are all going to play happy families with these future improvements. Hmm! A lot of ground to cover me thinks and I don't think I'm over thinking it.

Chris Young
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There are only a few players in this game. I can tell you that Panasonic has engineers who work directly with post system engineers to ensure that every development on our side and theirs work together smoothly and properly. Sometimes a beta software "breaks" something and we all scramble to fix it. This is not something treated casually. For example, while Panasonic and Blackmagic Design are competitors on several product lines, we absolutely work together to make sure that Resolve works correctly with our files. That's just one example of many.
 
morgan_moore said:
Raw has to be like that really or you just lose its potential.

Do you mean prores raw is not like that on other systems or (much) raw is not like that on other systems? I think davinci is?
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ProRes RAW is only on FCPX at this time. What I do mean is that there are many workflows that do not take advantage of this, or at least require a lot of "round-tripping" and extra work to achieve it. For instance, the implementation of ProRes RAW means that one actually edits using the RAW files without transcoding or making proxies. Load footage once, do all work including edit / color grade / FX / titles natively, then render out finished work. Yes FCPX is a limited tool compared to some others, but I certainly hope that the ease of this workflow will be adopted by other systems. Currently it is not nearly so simple elsewhere.
 
Barry some higher end video edit/colour systems have licensed ProRes on Windows. Nucoda is the most affordable as far as I know. Some of the higher end software suites got licenses for ProRes somwhere around half a decade ago. Blackmagic even had it for Fusion last year but since it has merged with Resolve, I presume that has disappeared now. I have heard that some people have gone as far as using a Mac Mini as a "dongle" on a network so they could get Resolve on Windows to create ProRes files.
 
Andrew Stone said:
Barry some higher end video edit/colour systems have licensed ProRes on Windows. Nucoda is the most affordable as far as I know. Some of the higher end software suites got licenses for ProRes somwhere around half a decade ago. Blackmagic even had it for Fusion last year but since it has merged with Resolve, I presume that has disappeared now.
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Fusion standalone has not disappeared.
 
For windows there are two Apple licensed applications that will encode ProRes that I know of, Assimilate Scratch and Foundry Nuke.
 
Ten reasons Why Prores Raw is better than anything else (exept the URSA Mini of course):

1. cool name
2. it is apple
3. has 'pro' in name
4. raw is cool too
etc.
 
From a user perspective working with ProRes RAW off of a C300 II, I have found that the RAW to Canon Log 2 conversion built into FCPX produces results that look almost exactly like the internal CLog 2 of the camera. The scopes and grading attempts proves that there is quite a bit more information stored in the 10bit ProRes RAW file than in the internal 10bit 422 H.264 based file. Both files playback and edit without a problem.

One thing I have discovered about the internal ProRes RAW and the output of the C300II is that the RAW stream of the C300II shows aliasing and moire that doesn't show up in the internal footage. The aliasing appears as color fringing at high contrast edges. I am guessing this phenomenon has some other name than aliasing but I don't know what it is. The RAW appears more detailed, but it is at the expense of whatever anti aliasing and noise suppression that is occurring in camera. For this reason, I wish there was some way to control the demosaicing process to hopefully get rid of some of this color fringing and aliasing. BTW, this color fringing also shows up in the regular ProRes that is recorded by an Atomos recorder so it isn't just a function of FCPX.

The color fringing comparison between the RAW and internal recordings can be seen here: https://vimeo.com/265066192/d7b490d772
 
Interesting. Thanks for posting. Assume you can see that fringing in the high contrast areas at 1x as well and on studio monitor? And what lens were you using?
Would love to also see a real stress test of over-the-top grade on each footage to see if the raw holds up lots better when pushing things to extremes - if you have time to do more tests.
 
My very outside understanding is that Apple license ProRes. They can do it in hardware and in software. They don’t do it for free.

They also have very very strict enforcement of ProRes encoding in hardware. That’s also very different to encoding to ProRes inside an OS. Think about it. I see lot’s of people quoting the ProRes white paper, but that’s nothing really to do with HARDWARE encoding. This is why non-standard QT (pixel) formats are harder to get in hardware. It’s only very very recently we started seeing this.

Apple are also incredibly secretive about their licensing processes which puts me in a difficult position because I’ve seen some eyebrow raising antics. Imagine you make a very expensive machine that you want to put a thunderbolt port on. Then imagine what you say when Apple do what they always do when you ask for a port to be certified on your hardware and they ask you for ten of those units to test because that’s what they always ask for in their destructive testing. Imagine the total world market for your device is maybe 50-100 units at 30K a piece.

Yes Apple suck because they ruthlessly control their own ecosystem. But it’s also why it’s so adopted. Because it just works and it works faster than just about anything else on Apple hardware. Speed is a big advantage even on underspecced Mac hardware.

DNG for RAW is a great theory but for the user it’s incredibly inconsistent experience. Even for Resolve users in the Blackmagic ecosystem with RAW from a Blackmagic cameras, there’s a lot of acrobatics that to the novice seem un-intuitive to get the most from the camera.

It’s funny to see people complaining about Apple and PRORES and yet RED to me are the same. You can’t open their files without using THEIR propriety and very secret and closed SDK. You don’t know what’s happening between your files and the app using those files. They weren’t even very open about what bit depth the files and cameras were int he first few years.

I’ve always said the best thing about RED is REDCODE. They have a great “smart” codec in terms of compression AND the way the consistent way they manage the experience for the user BECAUSE they so closely control the experience through their secret SDK. But it’s why the format has been so successful. RED educated the masses about RAW video before anyone was doing it years again and gave you the tools to do it on modest systems.

Here’s the thing though with PC...

There are some windows platforms that will encode TO ProRes.

They all can READ ProRes. So my question is, who of you is wanting to master as RAW ? Because I don’t know of any RAW formats that you would master to. Maybe Cineform ? Who amongst you here will raise your hand and say that’s what you’d do to master to ? Can you even master to REDCODE ? No of course not.

I don’t think anyone realistically wants to encode to RAW as a deliverable. It doens’t make sense to.

So just like the way ProRes works now where it reads just fine on PC systems, I imagine it’s going to work the same way. Read your ProRes files, edit and then master to your desired format.

JB
 
Hi John, nice post. I won't argue with any of your points although some of my experiences have differed. I will note that the general gist of what you're saying matches what I have been trying to state.

Also, when I noted that ProRes RAW will likely become a standard deliverable, I should have clarified that this would be a part of a deliverables package. For example, Netflix requires a finished graded master version of a production but also requires an edited master in Log without color grade. This is for archiving purposes should they wish to regrade later on in HDR or who knows what at some future time. I expect that ProRes RAW will become ubiquitous enough that it will be accepted if not required as a form of pre-grade edit master, just like a Log edit master in 4K ProRes 4444HQ might be delivered today.
 
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