ProRes 422

Jeff B

Jeff B

Active member
Does anyone know if the HVX200 will be updated to take advantage of Final Cut Studio 2's new ProRes 422? I read somewhere in Apple's announcement that the "new" Panasonic cameras will be compatible, but it did not list models or go into much detail.

I am not sure if I understand what ProRes 422 is exactly and apologize if this has nothing to do with the camera. I am interested in the HVX200 and want to make sure it will be able to take advantage of this technology if I need to do some HD work in the future.
 
ProRes 422 is a codec which promises high quality I frame video with SD file sizes, in other words, high compression but excellent quality. It would be possible to transcode DVCPRO HD footage into ProRes 422 but it really would not buy you that much. On the other hand, we might want to look at a side by side comparison before completely jumping to conclusions. Its greatest uses will be for ingesting HDCAM 8 or 10 bit uncompressed and editing with virtually identical quality but with resources no greater than SD. It will also be useful as a transcoding format for HDV to restore 4:2:2 color space and convert GOP structure to I frames.

I call it the über-codec because it is just universal. It is an excellent way of supporting AVC-Intra without having to write a codec specifically for this new Panasonic format.

Hope this rather simplistic explanation helps. Otherwise, there is an excellent white paper on Apple's site that goes into details.

Ned Soltz
 
nsoltz said:
It will also be useful as a transcoding format for HDV to restore 4:2:2 color space and convert GOP structure to I frames.
Click to expand...


How can it convert the compressed footage of HDV that's already on tape, which is down to 4:1:1 to up the color space to 4:2:2? That doesn't make sense. There isn't extra information that FCP could use unless it came directly from the CCD's or something.
 
will you be able to record in prorez 4:2:2 with something like a firestore (future models of course) like you can with recording QT files in existing devices?
 
blckhawk542 said:
How can it convert the compressed footage of HDV that's already on tape, which is down to 4:1:1 to up the color space to 4:2:2? That doesn't make sense. There isn't extra information that FCP could use unless it came directly from the CCD's or something.
Click to expand...

It's not adding color information. The amount of color space that was acquired when shot stays the same.
 
I had also been wondering whether there would be any benefit to taking DVCproHD to ProRes. Is it supposed to be less processor intensive? That's what would provide the benefit from DVCproHD I would think. Not that I have frequent trouble on my MBP but I don't know anyone who likes to wait for rendering!
 
I suppose we will only know when we compare side by side, but at the moment I do not see any advantage. Now, if you had a mixed timeline of HDV and DVCPRO HD, then it would make sense to render the whole thing in ProRes. In fact, Apple is recommending in the white paper that HDV users render in ProRes.

I am really very excited about this and actually think this might be the number one new feature in FCP 6 (or, I guess we should actually say FCS 2).

Ned
 
nsoltz said:
I suppose we will only know when we compare side by side, but at the moment I do not see any advantage. Now, if you had a mixed timeline of HDV and DVCPRO HD, then it would make sense to render the whole thing in ProRes. In fact, Apple is recommending in the white paper that HDV users render in ProRes.

I am really very excited about this and actually think this might be the number one new feature in FCP 6 (or, I guess we should actually say FCS 2).

Ned
Click to expand...

Here's me speculating :) Supposeddly the Prores codec is very robust and doesn't lose much in multiple encodings. DVCPRO HD, however, is more subject to generation lost with multiple renders, etc.
 
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