Apple’s ProRes codecs offer a unique combination of reduced-resolution decoding modes, fast feature and multicore processing advantages. These codecs not only provide impressive image quality and reduced storage rates, but also deliver unparalleled real-time editing performance and support for multiple streams.
All Apple ProRes codecs support all frame sizes (including SD, HD, 2K, 4K, and 5K) at full resolution. The data rates are determined by the frame rate, frame size, image content, and codec type.
Apple ProRes 4444 XQ*
The XQ 4444 ProRes Apple codec supports a data rate target of approximately 500 Mbps, with a frame rate of 29.97 fps and a resolution of 1920×1080. It preserves the highest-quality imagery-range generated by today’s digital sensors, including extreme visual effects such as tone-scale highlights or blacks. This format also supports 16 bits per channel for image data and 12 bits per channel for alpha channel, providing significantly greater dynamic range preservation compared to standard Apple ProRes 4444. Additionally, it supports alpha channels (4:4:4:4) for image sources.
ProRes 4444 XQ is compatible with OS X Mountain Lion v10.8 or newer.
Apple ProRes 4444X
The RGB and Y’CBCR pixel formats are both used for the encoding and decoding of direct video. It supports a frame rate of 29.97 fps and a resolution of 1920×1080, with a data rate target of approximately 330 Mbps. Compared to uncompressed 4:4:4 data, this codec features a remarkably low data rate of 16 bits per channel. It is a high-quality solution for exchanging and storing motion graphics and composites, with excellent multigeneration performance and mathematically lossless alpha channel. The 4444 ProRes Apple codec is an extremely high-quality version of Apple’s ProRes codec, offering full-resolution mastering-quality visuals that are perceptually indistinguishable from the original material. It supports RGBA 4:4:4:4 channels, including alpha channels, for 4:4:4:4 image sources.
Apple ProRes 422 High Quality
The HQ 422 ProRes Apple codec supports the reencoding and decoding of video sources at a rate of approximately 29.97 fps and a resolution of 1920×1080, with a target data rate of 220 Mbps. It can carry a single-link HD-SDI video signal, offering the highest-quality professional HD video preservation while remaining visually lossless through many generations of encoding and decoding. This codec supports full-width, 10-bit pixel depths at a 4:2:2 color subsampling. It has been widely adopted across the post-production video industry for its visually lossless preservation of the highest-quality professional HD video. Additionally, the HQ 422 ProRes Apple codec offers a higher-data-rate version of the same visual quality as the 422 ProRes Apple codec, but for 4:2:2 image sources, the 4444 ProRes Apple codec preserves the same high level of visual quality.
Apple ProRes 422
The target data rate is approximately 147 Mbps for a resolution of 1920×1080 and a frame rate of 29.97 fps. While offering nearly all the benefits of the high-quality compressed codec Apple ProRes 422, Apple ProRes 422 HQ provides even better real-time multistream editing performance, with a data rate that is 66 percent higher.
Apple ProRes 422 Light
The target data rate is approximately 102 Mbps, with a resolution of 1920×1080 and a frame rate of 29.97 fps. The codec that is perfect for storage environments with limited capacity is LT 422 ProRes Apple, which compresses files to 30% of their original size while maintaining approximately 70% of the data rate compared to the highly compressed codec, 422 ProRes Apple.
Apple ProRes 422 Low-Resolution
The target data rate for the full video resolution of 1920×1080 at 29.97 fps is approximately 45 Mbps. However, workflows intended for offline use that require low data rates can use the Apple ProRes LT codec, which is even more highly compressed than the Apple ProRes 422 Proxy codec.