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by tverbeure 11 days ago
> you use a different format and suffer quality loss by transcending.

Compressing to AV1/h264/265 etc is really only done for the final version, but that doesn't mean that videos are stored in RAW format during editing, where it is very common to store frames locally in Apple ProRes, Avid DNxHD, or some other compressed format that's targeted towards professional editing.

Contrary to AV1 or whatever similar format which offer compression ratios of 1000x and more, these formats have a compression ratio of around 10x. They are very simple, and the quality loss is low enough that it doesn't matter. They also tend to store images with 30 bits per pixel instead of the 24 bpp that's normally used for streaming.

1 comments

You’re not wrong but I do think it’s worth clarifying that any professional production with a budget, even a modest one, is generally being shot with a raw codec -> edited/colored with proxies -> rendered with the original raw codec where they compress for the final cut.

ProRes and the like are used for proxies or quick and dirty productions that are mostly shooting their look in camera because of a fast turnaround time. This is usually event work on a budget or something for social media.