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Apple ProRes v CinemaDNG v H265/264

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At £1000 for the CinemaDNG license and £550 for the Apple ProRes license (if purchased separately) what are the key difference between the two options and would CinemaDNG really be worth the extra?

Would I really need both, or indeed either of the licenses?

Whilst I would like to get the best out of the X5S camera I am confident that none of my existing customers will request either codec nor will they know the difference.

Am I correct in thinking that ProRes will offer an easier work flow and make less demands on PC performance in comparison to CinemaDNG?

Your opinions would be much appreciated.
 
CinemaDNG is a beast to deal with; you need unbelievable amounts of storage, and very few editing systems can keep up with it. You are almost forced to generate proxy footage and edit that, adding yet more time and effort to your work flow.

ProRes will indeed be easier to edit, and will require less storage. This is what I am looking forward to the most; I have had enough of CinemaDNG on my X5R, and I don't plan to use it when I get my Inspire 2.

I am also curious as to whether the improved H.264 bit rate and the addition of the H.265 codec will obviate the need for ProRes. The Inspire 1's anemic H.264 made that an easy call: the pain of CinemaDNG was worth it, because that was the only way to get excellent-quality footage from the camera. But with the improved options on the Inspire 2, I think raw/CinemaDNG will only be of interest to a handful of professional filmmakers.
 
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CinemaDNG is a beast to deal with; you need unbelievable amounts of storage, and very few editing systems can keep up with it. You are almost forced to generate proxy footage and edit that, adding yet more time and effort to your work flow.

ProRes will indeed be easier to edit, and will require less storage. This is what I am looking forward to the most; I have had enough of CinemaDNG on my X5R, and I don't plan to use it when I get my Inspire 2.

I am also curious as to whether the improved H.264 bit rate and the addition of the H.265 codec will obviate the need for ProRes. The Inspire 1's anemic H.264 made that an easy call: the pain of CinemaDNG was worth it, because that was the only way to get excellent-quality footage from the camera. But with the improved options on the Inspire 2, I think raw/CinemaDNG will only be of interest to a handful of professional filmmakers.

Thanks InterMurph, you have confirmed my thoughts that the CinemaDNG license would be an expensive, unwieldy and unnecessary option.

Still thinking about the ProRes option.
 
I am definitely planning on ProRes for my Inspire 2.

If you think of raw/CinemaDNG as the absolute best possible image quality, with huge storage and workflow requirements, and H.264 as the absolute worst possible image quality, with small storage and workflow requirements, don't think of ProRes as the halfway point between the two of them. ProRes is much closer to CinemaDNG in quality, but with two main benefits: 1) less storage required, and 2) very little burden on your editing system/software.

I think these might be the responses you get from a hypothetical commercial customer who inquires about footage delivery:
  • H.264: "Oh, OK... Well, what's the bit rate?"
  • ProRes: "Sweet!" Here is a portable hard drive to put it on!"
  • Raw/CinemaDNG: "Oh, OK... Can you transcode it to ProRes for me, or do I have to do that myself?"
 
Nope; I'm a PC guy all the way.

I'm also an Adobe guy all the way, and Premiere Pro supports ProRes flawlessly.
 
Adobe Premiere Pro.

I don't ever have a need to encode to ProRes. Nor would "all you guys wanting ProRes"; we want the drone to produce ProRes, which the Inspire 2 will.
 
Adobe Premiere Pro.

I don't ever have a need to encode to ProRes. Nor would "all you guys wanting ProRes"; we want the drone to produce ProRes, which the Inspire 2 will.

Yeah, I hear ya. But I'm not going to be buying an I2 anytime soon, maybe sometime next year if I have a good enough business reason. I was only asking because of customers wanting ProRes. There are third party tools that will do it but I thought you might have a trick up your sleeve no one else knew about ;) I guess not. Time for me to start saving up :)
 

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