Prores is to Final Cut as X is to Premiere

[AtoZustra]

So what is Premiere's "preferred" format? As I understand it: even though we can "natively" edit all kinds of footage in either program, HDV for example, it still has to be decoded/rendered, whereas ProRes is truly native and simply has to be read off the drive.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

[Barry_Green]

There is no direct comparison, because Premiere doesn't work the way Final Cut does. Final Cut has decreed that all files must be Quicktime and, while you're at it, all codecs would preferably become ProRes.

Premiere doesn't care. It'll take any file format and any codec. Use whatever you want. Throw multiple files of multiple types on the timeline. Export to whatever you want. Use Avid's DNxHD or Cineform's codec if you want a high-bitrate intermediary codec, or use something else if you want. It's totally open.

All codecs need to be decoded and rendered, including ProRes. When you edit ProRes footage, each time you do a transition or a video effect, the NLE has to decode the footage to uncompressed, apply the transition or effect, and then (when rendering out) it gets re-rendered into whatever your output codec is. There's nothing "native" about ProRes, as vs. any other codec.