ProRes 422 HQ files

[Haitham Lawati]

Is there any possibility to work with ProRes 422 HQ files on PC? Are there any conversion softwares to convert from ProRes 422 HQ to any PC-supported format?

[Andrew Smith]

Unless I'm mistaken, you should be able to play these files back without any problems. At worst, you will have to install a free codec from Apple for playback.

The difficulty comes when you want to export to that format on Windows.

Andrew

[Haitham Lawati]

My concern is related with video footages shot and recorded in external recorders connected with cinematic cameras. If I acquire ProRes 422 HQ files from the recorder into Premiere Pro CS6 running on Windows platform, would it be possible to run these files in the timeline? Does Premiere Pro accept ProRes 422 HQ files if this software is running on Windows?

[Battle Vaughan]

Yes, CS6 will (through Quicktime) let you ingest pro res files and they play on the timeline. You can't export prores in Windows, export will convert to a different codec. It's a Quicktime thing, import only.

[Haitham Lawati]

If the ProRes 422 HQ files is in 4K resolution, what preset do I have to choose at the first when launching Premiere Pro?

[Andrew Smith]

I run with CS6 on Windows. If you want to somehow send a 10 second sample clip, I will check for you to see if it works.

Andrew

[Battle Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Haitham Lawati

If the ProRes 422 HQ files is in 4K resolution, what preset do I have to choose at the first when launching Premiere Pro?

I checked my answer with a downloaded sample file. I didn't see any 4K files. I don't know if 4k is supported.

However, the easy answer is, select any preset, then drag one of the clips to the timeline. If it's supported, PPro CS6 will recognize it and ask if you want to convert the sequence settings to match the clip. Easy-peasy, let Premiere do the work.....

[Haitham Lawati]

Originally Posted by Andrew Smith

I run with CS6 on Windows. If you want to somehow send a 10 second sample clip, I will check for you to see if it works.

Andrew

I don't have any ProRes 422 HQ files. I will try to find it out and experiment it on Premiere Pro.

[Jack Zhang]

Be careful. If you're editing a big project like a 40 minute TV show or a 90 minute movie, Quicktime on Windows is limited to 32bit memory limitations. Once you go over using 1GB of RAM by Quicktime, programs will throw corrupt frames or blank frames that WILL appear in your final render.

This is the one front of PC editing that has not been overcome. The problem will only get worse as more and more devices default to ProRes recording. The solution is to transcode everything, which is what the OP was asking. I'd transcode to XAVC-Intra, bearing in mind the encoding program has to be completely exited after each file is encoded. Leaving a batch to process with the QT plug-in left open after each encode will run into the same problem with running out of memory.

There is no one all and be all solution, unless you transcode everything on a Mac first to XAVC to use in Windows.

[Andrew Smith]

Jack, I've never encountered this sort of thing, despite shooting entire conferences in the past on the Ninja and having the video saved to ProRes format by the device.

I'm guessing Apple never allowing ProRes files to be saved/exported to on Windows helped a little. :-)

Andrew

[Jeff Pulera]

I recently edited 6 dance recital shows on a PC with CS6, using 2.5-hour 1920x1080 ProRes 422 clips from an Atomos Ninja 2 without issue. No dropped frames/glitches of any sort.

I've been using this workflow for various projects for about 3 years now. Can't speak for 4k though.

Thanks

[Gary Huff]

This could be more of an issue with 4K ProRes instead of 1080 ProRes. People are unprepared for how much power and disk space this is going to take up. I suspect a ton of 4K cameras will be sold that will end up shooting 99% 1080.