Bigasoft ProRes Converter for Mac is designed for Mac users to encode or decode all types of Apple ProRes codecs including ProRes 4444, ProRes 422 (HQ), ProRes 422, ProRes 422 (LT), and ProRes 422.
- Support all Apple ProRes codecs. This powerful ProRes Converter supports all types of ProRes codecs like Apple ProRes 4444, ProRes 422 (HQ), ProRes 422, ProRes 422 (LT), and ProRes 422 (Proxy). So it is also a ProRes 4444 Converter and a ProRes 422 Converter. Encode ProRes 4444 or ProRes 422.
- Apple Os Free Download. Types of Apple ProRes Codecs. Apple ProRes 4444, Apple ProRes 422 (HQ), Apple ProRes. The Apple ProRes 422 (Proxy) codec is intended for use in offline. Mac Software Categories. Powerful Apple ProRes codec encoding technology for Apple editing. Looking for Apple ProRes 422 codec for Windows platform.
ProRes XQ (or ProRes 4444 XQ) was released in June 2014 as an expansion to the already very robust ProRes 4444. The new codec kept all the standard 4444 features post and VFX work have come to love (lossless 12 bit color and 16 bit with alpha), but has expanded the data rate to a staggering 396 MB/s at 1080p24 (vs 264 MB/s with 4444). This increased bandwidth gives the codec an advantage over conventional 4444 when working with expanded and high dynamic range cameras as well as better preserving data through the post process.
Recently, I colored Purity Ring's Begin Again by Young Replicant (a great video that you need to check out). The project was shot on anamorphic (Hawk 2x) Alexa 2K (2048*1536) or (4096*1536 when desqueezed) recorded via ProRes XQ (which the Alexa can now record natively).
I run Resolve on Windows and had yet to encounter anyone using XQ since it had been introduced. When the codec was announced, I read through the white paper and other media available on it and at the time it seemed like the only thing Apple had changed between the venerable 4444 and the new 4444 XQ was the increase it bitrate. This should have meant no new encoding tricks or techniques which would make the format incompatible with NLE's or even entire operating systems. How wrong I was.
It turns out that ProRes 4444 XQ is incompatible with Windows (and Linux) and Apple has never bothered updating Quicktime for these platforms to fix this issue. Great. I had a deadline fast approaching and I wasn't looking forward to borrowing a mac to transcode tons of enormous XQ footage to more manageable 4444. I poked around the internet a bit and found lots of people looking for fixes and coming up empty. One promising lead appeared, however, in a user of a forum who said that they had a script that just changed a few internal characters and made the footage compatible - no rendering required! Unfortunately, I couldn't get in contact with this individual, but the tip set me in the right direction to get XQ playing correctly on Windows.
FourCC
FourCC (or four-character code) is a code that uniquely identifies what encoding specifications are used on a video. This helps software determine how to correctly decode that file even if it may share the same file extension as another codec. For example,
.mov
files could be SVQ3, SV10, RPZA, ap4x (yes, these are case sensitive), etc even though they all look like the same generic .mov
from the outside.When apple introduced ProRes 4444 XQ, they changed the fourCC code from
ap4h
to ap4x
even though the actual decoder did not change. This change means that decoders that work with ProRes will think they are incompatible with ProRes XQ even though they're very capable of playing it back if it was labeled with a ap4h
fourCC. QuickTime on OSX (and the many NLE's and other pieces of software that depend on it) has had its fourCC decoder lists updated while PC QuickTime (and the many NLE's and other pieces of software that depend on it) have not.Fortunately, there's a (relatively) easy fix.
The Fix
If you're looking for something dead simple and effective, check out FourCCchange ($24.95). The program (for which a demo version is available) finds files with a FourCC of
ap4x
(your ProRes XQ files) and changes only them to ap4h
(which will decode on Windows perfectly) without affecting anything else. It gives you the option of backing up files or simply making the change live. If you choose the later option, the whole operation only takes a few seconds.The way this software works is by editing the binary values of the file(s) and replacing every hex instance of
ap4x
with ap4h
(for which only one instance should exist in each file). For those of you who are more tech savvy, you can do this manually (or in batch) using your own preferred hex editor. Simply open the file, search for the ap4x
string (capitalization matters), replace it with ap4h
, and save the file. The new file should play perfectly well in DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro, or whatever NLE you need.For the ffmpeg jockeys out there, there's a simple command to force a new fourCC onto a file:
ffmpeg -i <inputFile> -vcodec copy -acodec copy -vtag ap4h output_FOURCC_XXXX.mov
. The key value here is the -vtag
variable which forces a new fourCC onto a video file while the -acodec copy -vcodec copy
ensures that the actual audio and video stream aren't adjusted in any way.You can take this and add it to a batch file to process an entire folder (and subfolders) at once. Here's an example code below that lets you input any fourCC code for any file extension:
For this batch file to work, you'll need to download a static build of ffmpeg and extract it to
C:/Windows/System32
(don't worry about any warnings that pop up, we're just adding files so it won't be a problem). Next, copy the contents of this file into a notepad and save it as something like fourcc.bat
- the .bat
extension being the key. Drop this .bat in the folder with the .mov's (or whatever) you'd like to convert and the run it. To convert ProRes XQ to play correctly, you'll want to input ap4h
as your desired FourCC and mov
as the desired extension.And there you go! Three different ways to enable ProRes XQ to play back on Windows. Until Apple updates the Windows QT decoder and/or NLE writers figure out a workaround, this is what you'll have to do in order to use this robust codec outside of OSX.
Brief Introduction
Apple ProRes is a video compression format created by Apple, an intermediate codec specifically used in Final Cut Pro and other professional editing software such as Premiere Pro and Avid Media Composer for editing instead of video playback. As a high quality and high performance editing codec using multicore processors, Apple ProRes offers multistream and impressive output image quality as well as low complexity, which leads to excellent real-time editing performance. It supported frame size ranging from SD and HD to 4K and 2K at full resolution.
Apple ProRes offers the optimal editing flexibility because all codecs are frame-independent with the help of variable bitrate (VBR) technology. Apple ProRes is a 10 bit codec to deal with more color data. If your source video is shot at a 8 bit codec, you can convert the video files to Apple ProRes to make use of the 10 bit encoding in order to achieve the color correction in a trouble-free way.
Six Versions for Apple ProRes
Apple ProRes consists of six versions, that is, Apple ProRes 4444, Apple ProRes 4444 (XQ), Apple ProRes 422, Apple ProRes 422 (HQ), Apple ProRes 422 (LT), and Apple ProRes 422 (Proxy). These six types span a wide range of data rates, ranging from maximum compression rate to minimal compression rate, which makes it easy to edit any frame (SD, HD, 5K, 4K, 2K), 10-bit large video files.
Apple ProRes 4444
Apple ProRes 4444 is characteristic of full-resolution and high quality 4:4:4:4 image source that supports alpha channels. It is perfect codec to store and exchange motion graphics and composites because of its lossless nature.
Target date rate: about 330 Mbps for 4:4:4 source at 1920*1080, 29.97 fps
Apple ProRes 4444 (XQ)
Apple ProRes 4444 (XQ) provides the highest quality for 4:4:4:4 image sources involving alpha channels. As with Apple ProRes 4444, Apple ProRes 4444 (XQ) is the best codec to exchange motion graphics.
Target data rate: 500 Mbps for 4:4:4 sources at 1920*1080, 29.97 fps
Apple ProRes 422
Apple ProRes 422 is a high-quality compressed codec offering 66 percent of data rate. It provides higher quality than ProRes 422 LT. It features fast encoding and decoding with variable bitrate.
Target data rate: 147 Mbps at 1920*1080, 29.97 fps
See Article: How to convert MKV to Apple ProRes to work with Final Cut Pro X
Apple ProRes 422 (HQ)
Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) is a higher data rate type of Apple ProRes 422 that delivers the same high quality as ProRes 4444 but for 4:2:2 image source. It provides higher quality than ProRes 422.
Target data rate: about 220 Mbps at 1920*1080, 29.97 fps.
Apple Prores Formats
Apple ProRes 422 (LT)
This codec is more compressed than ProRes 422 involving 70 percent of data rate and 30 percent file size. It provides higher quality than ProRes 422 (Proxy)
Target data rate: 102 Mbps at 1920*1080, 29.97 fps
Apple ProRes 422 (Proxy)
Apple Prores 422
ProRes 422 Proxy is more compressed than ProRes 422 LT with about 30 percent of data rate. It is designed to be used in high quality offline editing that needs low data rates but full-resolution video.
Target data rate: 45 Mbps at 1920*1080, 29.97 fps
Apple Prores 422 Codec Download
Visit Our Tutorial: How Can You Convert AVCHD MTS to ProRes for FCPX Editing