Excluding final broadcast deliverables, I can't remember any codec as popular
for intermediate exchange and many types of "mastering".
Over the past year we have been requested to use ProRes for collaborating with
other editors and graphic artists. We also have clients request it as final
deliverable master for further versioning or direct live show presentation.
This is becoming more and more frequent.
We really have to sell the idea of dnxhd as a viable file based deliverable. So
we export from our PC Avid's and encode ProRes on OS X. Our OS X Avid spits it
out directly.
Both FCP and Avid have ProRes support. FCP and OS X Avid can do in and out. PC
Avids are "in" only via AMA quicktime "quick link" but do have realtime playback
performance. So it is a viable cross platform source.
Camera manufacturers like Arri have turned ProRes into an acquisition format for
the very popular Alexa. A growing list of external recorders like AJA KiPro
offer ProRes as their format of choice. A few support dnxhd too. A lot of 3rd
party video cards have ProRes support for capture and real time playback.
I would not rule out ProRes becoming some sort of acceptable broadcast
deliverable. Extreme Reach accepts ProRes for spot delivery directly (as they do
dnxhd too). I wonder what they receive more of?
Any Mac or PC with a current version of QuickTime can decode ProRes. Any Mac
with Final Cut Pro can encode ProRes.
Maybe someday PC users won't have to jump through hoops to encode...but that
doesn't sell Macs.
ProRes was definitely pushed initialy by the widespread adoption of Final Cut
Pro. Now it seems to be really be catching on beyond FCP edit suites.
ProRes scales to 4:4:4, not many codecs can. So, that combined with all of the
above is elevating its PERCEPTION as the professional level codec of choice. It
is the one which lets you go "direct to edit", in marketing speak from a very
respected high end camera manufacturer. You know the one with the hottest rig
going.
So, they way I see it there are only 3 codecs which could enter the popularity
contest for an intermediate level codec...ProRes, Cineform and dnxhd.
Of those three, more devices and more users support ProRes.
I'm really no ProRes or Quicktime fan-boy. I wish dnxhd was more of an openly
accepted standard. But it is not.
And my bet would certainly be on ProRes over Avi Mjpeg.
Christopher Magid
RTVF
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