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Final cut pro millions of colours + bit depth question

Hello


I am working in final cut pro 7 and I wanted to know what is the maximum bit depth I can export using the Prores codec? All I see in compression settings for rendering my timeline when wanting to render with Prores 4444 is the option for 'millions of colors' and 'millions of colors +' I was under the impression that millions of colors refered to 8 bit... does the alpha channel mean I can get 10 bit? can the alpha channel hold 2 more bits per channel or something? Or is there no way I can export a 10bit file using the Prores codec within fcp7..? is it all just 8bit. -and when I select 422HQ there is no advanced options for millions of colors..what does this mean? is the only way to get 10bit out of fcp7 to render with the 10bit uncompressed codec? and if so can I render the timeline in prores while im working with it then delete all the renders and change the render codec to 10bit uncompressed, will this now be properly giving me 10bit from the original 4444 12 bit files i imported in the beginning..?


Any help is much appreciated 🙂

Final Cut Pro 7, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Apr 23, 2015 3:01 AM

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Posted on Apr 23, 2015 7:32 AM

ProRes is 10-bit. Every ProRes codec is 10-bit...LT, 422, HQ. Not one of them is 8-bit. Except for ProRes 444...that's 12 bit.

2 replies

May 27, 2015 9:00 PM in response to Shane Ross

You can have any bit depth under 10bits within prores codecs expect for 4444 which is anything up to 12 bit. so you can have 8bit material in a 4444 codec if you wish. With this in mind I am wondering why it says fcp 7 renders at millions of colours + as this means it would turn 12bit material in to 8 bit as soon as it renders. I am wondering is this the case, and why have apple made a 12bit codec to be edited in a program that can only render 8bits if u choose any of the flavours of prores. So yeh basically wondering is it dithering the colour depth of my footage when I render, as like I said you can have any depth up to 12bit within the 444 codec but the render settings in fcp7 say it will end up as millions of colours (8bit), so are they sneakily rendering everything to 8 bits per channel, is it just misleading terminology...? does millions of colours+ constitute as 8 bit with an alpha channel that can hold an extra 2 bits per channel i.e making it 10bit in total..? do I need to move to premiere...?

Final cut pro millions of colours + bit depth question

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