ProRes vs H.265 for editing

[macman4789]

Hi,

A few questions for someone who is more experienced in video editing and codecs. I know recent Apple silicon Macs have media engines for ProRes and HEVC/H.264 to accelerate and enhance performance and playback etc.

Is there a discernible difference when editing in either of these codecs due to the respective media engines? I know detail/colour will be better in ProRes but I mean in actual performance? Timeline performance/scrubbing etc/exporting?

Thanks

 

[PaulD-UK]

Since you give no indication of what generation of AS Mac, the software you will be using, and where the video you will be editing originates from, and how complex your editing will be, then any answer will be as simplistic as it gets.

No there won't be a discernible difference (as long as you aren't using an M1 Mac, which doesn't have a ProRes engine, and is constrained in internal bandwidth).

Detail/colour will be indistinguishable (not better) unless you have a source-to-end workflow that preserves higher quality material, and timeline performance is likely to be indistinguishably good or bad depending the realisticness of your expectations...

i.e: It is likely to be fine, unless you have an untypical workflow, or your source material is in some oddball codec, in which case transferring to ProRes is easy.

 

[R S K]

Simple: unless you're editing 5+ camera full-rez multi-cams or using a smattering of effects, then in terms of performance, you should not notice a significant difference, if any at all. And yes, even on an M1. Which btw, most certainly has Media (not ProRes) Engines in Pro, Max, and Ultra. The Ultra even has two. I also have no idea what these "internal bandwidth constraints" are supposed to be. 🤨

That said, there are certainly quality differences, but those are not going to be relevant unless you're in a high-end production pipeline, which I'm just going to assume you're not. 😉

 

[PaulD-UK]

@R S K "I also have no idea what these "internal bandwidth constraints" are supposed to be. 🤨"

The most obvious one is that running software like Safari, the M1 mini 16/512 can't handle displaying 5K/60 when video is played full-screen. If you watch video from YouTube, and change from the PIP video in the webpage to running it full screen you can see during the resizing that the 5K screen is only being refreshed at about 30fps.

If you do this with any later Mac (M1Pro/Max/Ultra or later) you get the reframing of the interface at the full 60fps.

The M1 mini coped with editing fairly complex long form projects in FCP, but was on the edge of 'falling over' most of the time. The first thing that would fail to keep up was the display of embedded audio waveforms (from H.264 source video) on the timeline.
Every timeline cut or move could cause a pause while the waveforms were redrawn. This was better if the project source footage is on the internal SSD, but with long form projects that isn't practicable, and even using the fastest TB3 external SSDs the problem persisted.

This is all past history nowadays now we are up to M4 Macs.

 

[macman4789]

Since you give no indication of what generation of AS Mac, the software you will be using, and where the video you will be editing originates from, and how complex your editing will be, then any answer will be as simplistic as it gets.

No there won't be a discernible difference (as long as you aren't using an M1 Mac, which doesn't have a ProRes engine, and is constrained in internal bandwidth).

Detail/colour will be indistinguishable (not better) unless you have a source-to-end workflow that preserves higher quality material, and timeline performance is likely to be indistinguishably good or bad depending the realisticness of your expectations...

i.e: It is likely to be fine, unless you have an untypical workflow, or your source material is in some oddball codec, in which case transferring to ProRes is easy.

I’m sorry, I was probably too generic but I was just wondering how performance of an Apple based codec (ProRes) vs a non-Apple codec such as h.264/265 was generally speaking now that modern macs have the required acceleration hardware. I wondered whether ProRes from a compatible camera such as an iPhone 16 Pro Max or a recent Nikon mirrorless which records ProRes internally performs better than say a Sony mirrorless recording h.265.

 

[macman4789]

Simple: unless you're editing 5+ camera full-rez multi-cams or using a smattering of effects, then in terms of performance, you should not notice a significant difference, if any at all. And yes, even on an M1. Which btw, most certainly has Media (not ProRes) Engines in Pro, Max, and Ultra. The Ultra even has two. I also have no idea what these "internal bandwidth constraints" are supposed to be. 🤨

That said, there are certainly quality differences, but those are not going to be relevant unless you're in a high-end production pipeline, which I'm just going to assume you're not. 😉

Thank you for your valuable input, generally speaking there shouldn’t be a major difference unless as you say there are certain cases.

 

[R S K]

The most obvious one is that running software like Safari…

Which is irrelevant to the question.

I for one have edited 12K RAW on an M1 MacBook Air without a hitch. So no (relevant) "bandwidth constants" there.

I wondered whether ProRes from a compatible camera such as an iPhone 16 Pro Max or a recent Nikon mirrorless which records ProRes internally performs better than say a Sony mirrorless recording h.265.

Exact same answer. Unless you are working in a professional high-end production pipeline, there is little to no reason to shoot in PreRes. No matter the camera.

 

[StoneJack]

just use H.265, mp4, etc
you are not in Hollywood anyway