User Manual

6
Apple ProRes 422
and Apple ProRes
422 HQ
(SD or HD)
Data rate: Approximately 18 MB/second ProRes 422, Approximately 31 MB/second ProRes 422
HQ— supported by internal system drive or attached storage
Quality: Excellent, broadcast quality
Captured media is virtually indistinguishable from pristine uncompressed sources. Better yet,
ProRes m aintains the quality during editing, surviving multiple encoding/decoding
generations without degradation. It was designed by Apple for editing, rather than as a
transmission/distribution codec as are most popular codecs. Some of the advantages include:
• Full-size 1920-by-1080 and 1280-by-720 HD resolutions.
• Full-size 720-by-486 and 720-by-576 SD resolutions.
• 4:2:2 chroma sampling. Provides precise compositing and blending at sharp saturated-
color boundaries.
• 10-bit sample depth. Preserves subtle gradients of 10-bit sources (perfect for green-
screen compositing, graphics or color correction) with no visible banding artifacts.
• I frame-only encoding. Ensures consistent quality in every frame and no artifacts from
complex motion.
• Variable bit-rate (VBR) encoding. “Smart” encoding analyzes the image and allocates
more bits to complex frames.
• Low data rate requirements make for more storage options and require less drive space
to store high quality video.
Uncompressed
8-bit
Data rate: 21 MB/second standard definition, or 100-124 MB/second high definition (see later
“Storage Capacity” chart in Chapter 1 for the various transfer rates per format)—requires SCSI,
Fibre Channel, or ATA drive array
Quality: Excellent
The native storage format for KONA LHe Plus is uncompressed media which offers the highest
quality available. Capturing in uncompressed results in no compression artifacts, and video is
sampled over the full raster at a 4:2:2 rate.
Using uncompressed maintains a higher quality in your project from capture all the way
through effects rendering. KONA LHe Plus supports capture of uncompressed through any of
its inputs, and uncompressed projects are output to all of its outputs simultaneously.
Uncompressed
10-bit
Data rate: 28 MB/second standard definition, or 133-166 MB/second high definition—
uncompressed 10-bit requires SCSI, Fibre Channel or SATA drive arrays.
Quality: Excellent, very high quality
Offering all the benefits noted previously for 8-bit uncompressed, 10-bit additionally offers
the very highest quality available. With 10-bit media video quality is second to none. For more
information on this subject, please see the topic at the end of Chapter 4: Installation and
Configuration, titled “Using 8-bit Versus 10-bit Video.'
System Requirements
AJA Video recommends that your system meet minimum hardware and software
requirements to achieve a satisfactory level of performance when operating it. System
requirements are subject to change as new versions of operating systems, QuickTime, and
workstations become available. For the m ost up-to-date Minimum System Requirements see
“Installation Overview” on page 11.