Apple ProRes 422

A new codec developed by Apple for editing SD and HD video at a fraction of uncompressed file sizes and data rates. This codec comes available with the release of Final Cut Studio 2 (Final Cut 6). Apple touts this format as maintaining extremely high quality, "indistinguishable from the original", so it can be used for offline editing or for high quality online mastering. In HD, it supports the full, square pixel 16x9 frame sizes (1920x1080 and 1280x720). In addition, it uses 4:2:2 color sampling (the same professional standard used in most high-end SD and HD video) and 10-bit depth (optionally 8-bit as well). The format uses VBR (variable bit rate encoding) to provide efficient compression and to allow for higher data rates for complex detail. There is support for 2 different target bit rates: 145 Mbit/sec and HQ (high quality) 220 Mbit/sec. These two variations are called ProRes 422 for the 145Mbit/sec version, and ProRes 422 HQ for the higher quality 220 Mbit/sec version. These data rates are lower than uncompressed standard definition video. It uses spatial compression and no temporal compression (referred to as I-frame video). Another main benefit to ProRes 422: optimized support for multiple streams of real time effects.