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Is it also possible to encode video with Apple ProRes on Windows and Linux?

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  • Aside the better (because multiplatform) answers given by the other users in past there was also this plugin for premiere: miraizon.com/products/codecsoverview.html but if you try to buy it it says that sales are ended, i wonder why. I suggest you ffmpeg too ;)
    – user3450548
    Nov 3, 2015 at 8:16

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As of December 2018, Adobe Creative Cloud aps, such as Premier, After Effects and Adobe Media Encoder give you the ability to encode in ProRes without any post-hoc conversion.

If you don't use Adobe CC aps or want a free, open source tool, ffmpeg can encode video using ProRes, and runs cross-platform. ffmpeg is a command line tool, which means that it can be automated.

There are a plethora of free GUIs for ffmpeg for those unfamiliar with the command line.

This ffmpeg command:

ffmpeg -i input.avi -c:v prores -profile:v 3 -c:a pcm_s16le output.mov

will do the trick.

The -profile switch takes an integer from -1 to 5 to match the ProRes profiles:

  • -1: auto (default)
  • 0: proxy ≈ 45Mbps YUV 4:2:2
  • 1: lt ≈ 102Mbps YUV 4:2:2
  • 2: standard ≈ 147Mbps YUV 4:2:2
  • 3: hq ≈ 220Mbps YUV 4:2:2
  • 4: 4444≈ 330Mbps YUVA 4:4:4:4
  • 5: 4444xq ≈ 500Mbps YUVA 4:4:4:4

The approximate bit-rates are for 1920×1080p footage. All of the profiles are progressive, 10-bit, and little-endian (byte order).

The profiles are explained on the Apple website. There doesn't as yet seem to be support for RGBA encoding in 4444 and 444xq which the official Apple codec supports.

You may also use prores instead of prores_ks, which may be a little faster, but does not offer the 4444 profiles. For more background, please read this FFmpeg Wiki article. The prores_ks encoder is now default, and you only need to specify prores in the command, even when encoding prores 4444.

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  • Could you expand to say what the different profiles are and what they mean?
    – hellocatfood
    Feb 8, 2016 at 16:33
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    @hellocatfood I added a link to the Apple website which explains the profiles.
    – slhck
    Dec 20, 2018 at 15:03
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    little-endian — whatever that means --> The decoded 10-bit samples are actually stored as padded 16 bits. The lower 8 bits are presented first, followed by the upper 8 bits. Big endian is upper 8 followed by lower 8.
    – Gyan
    Feb 7, 2019 at 5:53
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I've tried a bunch of front ends for ffmpeg and finally settled on Tencoder. Widows only. It has a preset for ProRes and is very easy to customize so you can crete setting for often used formats or settings. It is multithreaded and allows you to do batch processing.

enter image description here

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On Windows, I recommend FootageStudio 4K. It is a commercial converter (not cheap) that supports many professional formats, including ProRes.

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    If you look at their download page, in the licensing info at the bottom they state that they use libavcodec and ffmpeg software in their product. So you're paying for the fancy GUI by the looks of it.
    – stib
    Jan 29, 2015 at 0:31
  • "Libav codecs from FFMPEG project" - I think that this is not the same as another interface for ffmpeg.exe
    – altarvic
    Jan 29, 2015 at 11:27
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    It does seem to look pretty good if you don't / can't use the command line I guess. Still, this grumpy old fart would rather use ffmpeg and spend the money on whisky.
    – stib
    Jan 30, 2015 at 1:51
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This is the command line I have used to encode ProRes 4444. If you do not include -bits_per_mb you will get low res results in Windows 10. Many posts do not mention this little aspect.

ffmpeg -y -f mov -i input-file.mov -vcodec prores_ks -pix_fmt yuva444p10le -profile:v 4444 -bits_per_mb 8000 -s 1920x1080 output-file.mov

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  • This is not necessary anymore.
    – slhck
    Dec 20, 2018 at 15:00
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You can try ffmbc - a customized version of FFmpeg. Unfortunately there are no builds for linux or windows at the moment so you have compile it yourself.

Related: What is the difference between ffmpeg and ffmbc now?

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  • What advantage does ffmbc have over the regular ffmpeg in the current scenario?
    – Saaru Lindestøkke
    Jan 28, 2015 at 12:57
  • @BartArondson In this case it is irrelevant, but if you are working for Broadcast you can integrate all the other features of ffmbc to your pipeline. See this: code.google.com/p/ffmbc
    – p2or
    Jan 28, 2015 at 14:23
  • I used to use ffmbc before ffmpeg had proRes support, but I can't see any difference between ffmpeg and ffmbc now.
    – stib
    Jan 29, 2015 at 0:27

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