Apple’s ProRes codec is great, boasting great images and manageable files sizes, but its wider adoption is hampered by its proprietary distribution model. When Apple got into the editing business at the turn of the century it was a very different company. Avid had threatened to abandon the Mac platform, and Apple wanted to continue selling high end workstations to the professional video market. Few dared to imagine that Final Cut Pro would eventually challenge Avid as the dominant professional NLE.
While I’ve been quite pleased using ProRes 422 as an editing codec, I’ve been hampered in adopting it in a wider range of tasks. Visually, ProRes compares well to Avid’s DNxHD family of codecs, but unlike DNxHD ProRes is Mac-only. I can’t send a ProRes encoded QuickTime file to a PC for encoding, as a source for After Effects work, or import into an Avid or Premiere Pro system. Because Avid’s DNxHD is cross-platform, and Avid has a track record of supporting legacy codecs in later revisions, I have used all manner of Avid codecs for archiving purposes.
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Frank Capria was an editor and post production director at WGBH in Boston for 15 years, receiving credits on series such as American Experience, NOVA, and FRONTLINE. He's also worked on several independent documentaries, most notably Eyes on the Prize.