ProRes RAW Getting Significant 3rd Party Support

[Gary T]

Looks like ProRes RAW is getting rolled out in a bunch of new products. Two notable omission are Adobe Premiere and DaVinci Resolve, but that may change since tomorrow is the first big day of the conference.

https://www.provideocoalition.com/p...umber-of-post-production-systems-at-nab-2019/

This Pond5 announcement is interesting.

https://www.newscaststudio.com/2019/04/05/pond5-prores-raw-nab-show-2019/

I missed this but apparently Adobe’s tools started supporting ProRes export late last year!?!? Is anyone here using this? I find it surprising they don’t support ProRes 4444XQ, but I guess most will find ProRes 4444 more than enough.

https://theblog.adobe.com/adobe-pro-video-apps-now-support-prores-export-on-windows/

 

[cyvideo]

Twelve months on I guess I have to ask who in the broad small post house and one man band shooter editor community is using the following software packages.

Assimilate
Colorfront
Filmlight
MTI Film
Telestream
Grass Valley

None of which are in the mainstream of NLE production software. GV Edius (of which I'm a registered user) possibly being the exception but there again it is not in the mainstream like Adobe Prem or the rapidly advancing Davinci Resolve that is being used more and more in the independent production community. BM with Resolve are highly, highly unlikely to support ProRes Raw with the advent of their own BRAW. Grant Petty has somewhat intimated that when interviewed about the likelihood of it happenening. Much more important though is that not one camera manufacturer has implemented internal ProRes Raw since its announcement. ARRI, Sony, Canon and BM have their own RAW formats to support so are unlikely to pick up another competing codec. Especially a competing codec that requires a camera manufacturer to enter into a licensing agreement. Can't see it happening. Sure there are about ten cameras that can use ProRes Raw via a few Atomos products but currently that's it. Today as it stands If you use one of the cameras that can support ProRes Raw you are confined to working with FCPX on Mac. Nothing wrong with that but the dream of ProRes Raw becoming a de-facto industry wide standard within 12-18 months as some pundits postulated a year ago is now looking like a rapidly fading dream. I see little or no excitement about ProRes Raw in my small part of the world. How is it traveling in your world, your thoughts?

Chris Young

 

[marvinhello]

Jeremy Young said in an interview that "I know 20 cameras will support ProRes RAW".

 

[Tom Roper]

BMD have always supported raw codecs from camera manufacturers. Now there is a universal raw format from Apple that involves licensing. Who needs a universal raw format? The cameras that don't have internal raw codecs now, and then as a subset, those that can output raw via HDMI or SDI.

The major questions are what's in it for Apple? How does Atomos stand to benefit from aligning with FCPX and not PP and BMD? What does BMD stand to lose by not licensing Prores in Resolve?

Speaking as a Resolve user shooting Sony 16 bit raw I certainly don't want to be paying extra for Apple licensing in my products, but I also don't see BRAW as figuring in as an adoptee of major camera makers besides BMD's own native cameras.

The bottom line if I were Grant; for now there's no urgency to do anything until the market direction becomes clear. He could make his own universal recorder/monitor with BRAW.

So why would Atomos choose Prores? Two reasons, branding and a possible concern that BRAW isn't true raw, as reportedly sensor data is being stored as YCbBr.

If you are committed to FCPX and Prores all is good. If you want to use Resolve or PP with Prores raw there could be some concerns ahead.

 

[Tom Roper]

CEO at Assimilate, explained, “There is potential for ProRes RAW to become a ubiquitous camera format, which means camera manufacturers would no longer need to develop the variety of SDKs, resulting in significant cost savings, lowering the barrier to entry, and streamlining the camera workflow. This would also be advantageous to all DITs and post artists who would benefit by streamlining their workflows by working with a ubiquitous file format rather than the large variety that exists today, thus saving time, money, and enabling faster time to market.”

I disagree with Jeff.

“Our philosophy has always been to provide the tools that our users need,” said Wolfgang Lempp, CEO at FilmLight.

I agree with Wolfgang.

Randy Reck, MTI’s Director of Development, said, “We believe the industry is ready to adopt ProRes RAW as a standard for acquisition, naturally building on the success of the ProRes codec family”.

Agree with Randy's readiness to support, disagree on camera manufacturer's readiness to adopt.

“Supporting Apple ProRes RAW in Switch means our customers can reap the benefits of powerful ProRes performance, in a format ideal for high-dynamic-range (HDR) content creation. With the introduction of ProRes RAW our Switch customers have everything they need in a professional cross-platform production tool – whether in the studio, the office, or even in the field.”

Prores raw doesn't reap any benefits not already shared by other raw codecs. Branding is the value added.

 

[markfpv]

the dream of ProRes Raw becoming a de-facto industry wide standard within 12-18 months as some pundits postulated a year ago is now looking like a rapidly fading dream. I see little or no excitement about ProRes Raw in my small part of the world. How is it traveling in your world, your thoughts?

Chris Young

Chris - I have to agree with you. When it was initially announced, as a FCPX user, I was hoping to give it a test run within a year. But I own no Atomos products - or any camera that captures the format. I was somewhat thinking or rather hoping (certainly not logically or with much faith of it really happening) that existing cameras that can record ProRes internally (ie Sony's FS7 w/ ext unit), might get an update for Apple's new raw within that first year.
Most of my work does not require Raw - but having that option - in semi compact file sizes would be great for occasional work. But it seems the market is splitting into different raw factions - and these may all stick around for the forseeable future.

 

[Tom Roper]

FS7 is something of an enigma. Sony has not been averse to Prores but curiously doesn't support E-OCN compressed for anything but Venice/F55/F5

 

[Greg_E]

I'd prefer something that is open source.

 

[DLD]

I'd prefer something that is open source.

HEVC is an "open source" as one can get these days. From the XT-3 thread, HEVC-transcoded-to-whatever may be a more significant development than ProRes Raw, given the multitude of proprietary compressed Raw formats.

 

[Gary T]

Nothing wrong with that but the dream of ProRes Raw becoming a de-facto industry wide standard within 12-18 months as some pundits postulated a year ago is now looking like a rapidly fading dream. I see little or no excitement about ProRes Raw in my small part of the world. How is it traveling in your world, your thoughts?

Chris Young

I am very exited about ProRes RAW, but I think many of the pundits who said ProRes RAW would be a de-facto standard in 12 months were overly optimistic. That kind of adoption doesn't happen overnight. According to Atomos’ Jeromy Young, it took Apple months after NAB to create and release the SDK so I’m not surprised that a year out there are only half dozen or so software companies who currently support the format.

I am also not shocked there haven’t been more hardware announcements. Apple apparently surprised almost everyone, including the camera vendors, with ProRes RAW. My understanding is camera vendors often have their firmware updates planned a year or more in advance so I don’t think it’s unusual we haven’t heard much. The only camera available that shoots ProRes RAW is the DJI X7 from Apple’s, and even as a launch partner it took them months to release compatible firmware. Let’s see how things are going next year.

 

[Gary T]

Speaking as a Resolve user shooting Sony 16 bit raw I certainly don't want to be paying extra for Apple licensing in my products, but I also don't see BRAW as figuring in as an adoptee of major camera makers besides BMD's own native cameras.

a possible concern that BRAW isn't true raw, as reportedly sensor data is being stored as YCbBr.

I agree that the other major camera vendors are unlikely to implement BlackMagic RAW. I just don’t see what’s in it for Panasonic, Canon, or Sony to support the format, especially if they share your concern about it being a true RAW format.

I think ProRes RAW is a different matter and I think we will see at least one of those manufacturers implement the codec eventually. Panasonic seems like they would be a good fit since they don’t have a compressed RAW format. A 6K Varicam 35 that captures ProRes RAW internally could be a real winner. I could see Sony being the most resistant since they already have a lower quality RAW format and a ProRes RAW capable FS7III could make it harder to sell an F5 replacement. Of course these are all guesses and I have no idea what any of their plans are.

I also agree that you might not be the target audience for ProRes RAW since you have an established Resolve workflow with a your F55/F5. You F55 guys have had it good for a long time; I remember BMD supporting a prerelease F55 with a dev version of Resolve on Sony's Europe's test shoot. It seems like this 1.0 release of ProRes RAW is intended for guys like me shooting with EVA1s, FS700s, FS5s, and FS7, but I think better support for the higher end cameras should be on the way.

ALEXA owners seem pretty fired up about ProRes RAW. ARRI is getting asked about the format often enough that they made the question one of their FAQs. I expect conversations Apple is having with ARRI and others will make the next iteration better suited for higher end work.

https://www.arri.com/en/camera-faq-overview/will-you-support-prores-raw--49338

speaking as a Resolve user shooting Sony 16 bit raw I certainly don't want to be paying extra for Apple licensing in my products,

If you are committed to FCPX and Prores all is good. If you want to use Resolve or PP with Prores raw there could be some concerns ahead.

I agree, as a FCPX user I’m pretty happy and expect things to get better over time. Others will likely be able to get in on the fun soon as well since Jeromy Young has said he expects ProRes RAW to be adopted by Adobe and others over the next year or so. Of course that doesn’t help you if you want to edit now but ProRes RAW didn’t exist 13 months ago. I think some patience is in order.

The major questions are what's in it for Apple?.

Jeromy Young has been clear that Apple and Atomos are working to create an ecosystem around ProRes RAW. Apple wants to sell Macs, and they have optimized their hardware and the MacOS to make Final Cut Pro perform exceptionally well especially when compared to to similar Windows systems with the same hardware. I expect Apple’s notoriously rigorous standards for hardware encoders will mean I can trust any ProRes RAW file I get and that kind of relablitly is one of the reasons people like me buy Macs.

Agree with Randy's readiness to support, disagree on camera manufacturer's readiness to adopt.

Jeromy Young is on record saying there are 20 camera in the pipeline that will support ProRes RAW. I suspect that number will look even better in a couple of years.

Prores raw doesn't reap any benefits not already shared by other raw codecs. Branding is the value added.

I disagree here and find that ProRes RAW has a performance advantage versus many other RAW codecs. I especially like that it works quite well on older systems. We have a number of Macs here including a couple of ancient systems that have been relegated to personal productivity work. I’ve tested ProRes RAW on one of those Macs, a 2011 i5 iMac, and I was stunned to get real time playback on 4K footage with a LUT. I can’t get anywhere near that kind of performance with RECODE RAW or Canon’s Cinema RAW Light. Of course we get better performance with our newer systems, but it’s comforting to know that every Mac we have can used in some capacity with ProRes RAW.

This graphic is from the ProRes RAW white paper and makes a pretty compelling performance argument for the format vs Canon's Cinema RAW Light and REDCODE RAW.

https://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/docs/Apple_ProRes_RAW_White_Paper.pdf



Having said all this, I am also pretty excited about the moves BMD is making and expect I will buy a Pocket Cinema Camera 4K sometime this year. I also like what they are doing with Resolve. The multiuser features are look pretty darned cool and that feature set keeps getting better and better.

 

[Gary T]

I'd prefer something that is open source.

Open source sounds good but if you have 50 different companies attempt write to their own code to implement a published standard there are going to be misfires. No thanks! The last thing I want is get a RAW files from a camera that doesn’t behave as expected. I don’t have time for that and I am frankly happy that Apple has a rigorous certification process that ensures compatibility. I want my ProRes RAW to work every single time and if the price of reliability is vendors having to go through a painful certification process, so be it. I’ll pay a little extra for their pain.

Were you thinking of BlackMagic RAW when you mentioned open source? My understanding is that BlackMagic RAW isn’t open source but BMD does allow other software vendors free access to the SDK for decoding the codec. My understanding is BlackMagic RAW encoding is proprietary.

BMD's compressed CinemaDNG was pretty cool but apparently it got caught up in their IP battle with RED.

 

[Tom Roper]

Good points Gary T!

 

[cyvideo]

Jeremy Young said in an interview that "I know 20 cameras will support ProRes RAW".

Tom for sure that is what my name's sake may have said. I've spoken to him a number of times at trade shows and seminars and he can be hard man to pin down if you are after a definite statement on particular technical questions. As for Resolve supporting ProRes Raw I think that is somewhat complicated by the past legal stoush that Grant Petty and Jeromy Young had. Well known to those of us in the Australian post production industry. No love lost there!

http://sites.thomsonreuters.com.au/journals/files/2010/09/WR-1.2_VassWatson.pdf

Officially as it stands I believe the list of supported cameras is as follows with the new Nikon Z6 and 7 to follow. A few people who jumped on that Atomos Nikon combo have been burnt so far as both Atomos and Nikon have not committed to a date for this marriage to take place. I'm wary. If there are any other cameras you know of with official ProRes Raw support please list them as this informs more of us interested in these ProRes Raw developments.

Here are the cameras that can currently shoot ProRes RAW:

Canon

Canon C300 Mark II (Up to 4K DCI 30p)
Canon C500 (Up to 4K DCI 30p)

Panasonic

Panasonic EVA 1 (Up to 4K 60p or 5.7k 30p)
Panasonic VariCam LT (Up to 4K DCI 60p)

DJI

DJI X7 (Up to 5.2K 24p) – Internal RAW Recording

Sony

Sony FS700R : Mark I & II (Up to 4K 60p)
Sony FS5 : Mark I & II (Up to 4K 60p)
Sony FS7 : Mark I & II (Up to 4K 60p)

NOTE: All the above mentioned cameras (except for the DJI X7) do not shoot RAW internally and require external video recording monitors to do so.

Chris Young

 

[patrickbaldwin]

Tom for sure that is what my name's sake may have said. I've spoken to him a number of times at trade shows and seminars and he can be hard man to pin down if you are after a definite statement on particular technical questions. As for Resolve supporting ProRes Raw I think that is somewhat complicated by the past legal stoush that Grant Petty and Jeromy Young had. Well known to those of us in the Australian post production industry. No love lost there!

http://sites.thomsonreuters.com.au/journals/files/2010/09/WR-1.2_VassWatson.pdf

Officially as it stands I believe the list of supported cameras is as follows with the new Nikon Z6 and 7 to follow. A few people who jumped on that Atomos Nikon combo have been burnt so far as both Atomos and Nikon have not committed to a date for this marriage to take place. I'm wary. If there are any other cameras you know of with official ProRes Raw support please list them as this informs more of us interested in these ProRes Raw developments.

Here are the cameras that can currently shoot ProRes RAW:

Canon

Canon C300 Mark II (Up to 4K DCI 30p)
Canon C500 (Up to 4K DCI 30p)

Panasonic

Panasonic EVA 1 (Up to 4K 60p or 5.7k 30p)
Panasonic VariCam LT (Up to 4K DCI 60p)

DJI

DJI X7 (Up to 5.2K 24p) – Internal RAW Recording

Sony

Sony FS700R : Mark I & II (Up to 4K 60p)
Sony FS5 : Mark I & II (Up to 4K 60p)
Sony FS7 : Mark I & II (Up to 4K 60p)

NOTE: All the above mentioned cameras (except for the DJI X7) do not shoot RAW internally and require external video recording monitors to do so.

Chris Young

They only got burned buying a Z6 and an Atomos product because they didn't read the internet properly. Nowhere has it been said that this capability was already available.

 

[cyvideo]

They only got burned buying a Z6 and an Atomos product because they didn't read the internet properly. Nowhere has it been said that this capability was already available.

100% agree. Always Caveat Emptor. They only have themselves to blame. Too many people just accept what they hear or read and take it for gospel. You can't beat hands on confirmation for yourself.

Chris Young

 

[TheTrickster]

They only got burned buying a Z6 and an Atomos product because they didn't read the internet properly. Nowhere has it been said that this capability was already available.

If it was another company that mentioned that ProRes RAW was coming to the Z6/Z7 via their recording hardware, then I might of got one and a NinjaV - however as its Atomos and their endless list of 'this is coming soon' features that never appear - I've stayed well clear.

 

[Tom Roper]

Jeremy Young said in an interview that "I know 20 cameras will support ProRes RAW".

This reads like an endorsement but the comment is a mischaracterization of the 20; they simply have existing raw outputs that are inherently compatible with external raw recording to the ProRes raw format as with any other compatible raw recorder that would typically format bayer sensor + metadata info to cDNG.

The real support given is by FCPX to ProRes Raw. It's wonderful for users to have faster running scripts that are smaller and more efficient on Apple platforms, and for all the raw capable cameras that don't already have a native raw codec. I don't think RedCode Raw or Arriraw are going away. For Sony FS7, FS5 with 12 bit raw output ProRes raw could be a nice upgrade but for a Venice, or F55/F5 16 bit raw you don't even have access to the output without the AXS-R5/R7 recorder and AXSM memory cards, and Sony already have E-OCN.

 

[Greg_E]

Properly run open source projects do not have such wildly varying performance issues, at least not from something like a codec. BMD Raw is not really open, just like CinemaDNG was not really open.

 

[Gary T]

As for Resolve supporting ProRes Raw I think that is somewhat complicated by the past legal stoush that Grant Petty and Jeromy Young had. Well known to those of us in the Australian post production industry. No love lost there!

http://sites.thomsonreuters.com.au/journals/files/2010/09/WR-1.2_VassWatson.pdf

Chris Young

I had heard Jeromy Young used to work at BMD but I didn't know there was a legal case. No wonder there is so much antipathy on all sides.

My read of the details in the document you linked is Jeromy Young looks like a pretty standup guy. He wasn't sanctioned in any way by the courts for wrongdoing, and he apparently kept others from doing anything he thought was dishonest or improper. It looks like he didn't like his boss or job, and had an idea for new company so he quit said job to plan his new company. His former employer sued him but he was cleared of wrongdoing. The court then instructed him to keep doing what he had already committed to doing, not use any of his former employer's trade secrets in his new business.

“Overliese stated that plans for SDI (video) cards to be developed by Atomos would “blow away everything Blackmagic has”. These and other documents were made available to Young via an internet-based file-sharing facility. Young strongly rebuked the idea of competing with Blackmagic upon reading the documents." 


“Young was not found to have improperly used any confidential information. The confidential information did not come to him by way of his employment with Blackmagic, rather by way of his association with Overliese. Further, the evidence suggested that Young discouraged Overliese from pursuing an arrangement in competition with Blackmagic.“

A few people who jumped on that Atomos Nikon combo have been burnt so far as both Atomos and Nikon have not committed to a date for this marriage to take place. I'm wary.
Chris Young

It's hard for me to feel sympathy for anyone who feels burned by Nikon and ATOMOS. When HDMI RAW was demoed at CES, both companies made it clear it was a work in progress since Nikon hadn't decided important details like bit depth and whether the signal was going to be to be encoded as linear or log. Jeromy Young clearly stated in interviews like the one below with Newsshooter that they hoped to get the feature out sometime in the second half of this year. Why are these people getting angry that it wasn't out in March or April? Emotions, emotions, emotions...

I think you're right about Resolve not supporting ProRes RAW anytime soon but that may change in a year or so if there are 40,000 DSLR and mirrorless shooters capturing ProRes RAW. I like having options so I hope BMD released their own recorder that captures BlackMagic RAW from the same cameras that work with my Shogun Inferno.

Keeping a list of cameras with any flavor of ProRes RAW support sounds like a great idea!