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“Freaks” director Liao Mingyi shares his experience with ProRes on the iPhone 13 Pro (Photo by reporter Huang Jingchun)
Following last year’s Apple ProRAW and Dolby Vision HDR recording, Apple added the “ProRes” recording format to the iPhone 13 Pro series this year and officially released it in the new version of iOS 15.1. “Free News 3C” also experienced this feature a few days ago, and at the same time interviewed professional director Liao Mingyi to sort out the experience evaluation of this feature.
Picture features and advantages and disadvantages
“Apple ProRes” is a video format introduced by Apple in 2007. It retains the image quality as much as possible, but has the fastest encoding and decoding rate format. Over the past ten years, ProRes has become an extremely mainstream specification in the field of professional photography, with excellent efficiency in editing and transcoding.
As Apple began to use it on mobile phones, the iPhone 13 Pro has also become the first mobile phone capable of one-stop shooting and editing in ProRes format, which greatly expands the practicality of iPhone video recording in the professional field.
Since this new feature is relatively uncommon, the camera will not be turned on by default. To use this feature, the user must go to Settings → Camera → Format and turn on “ProRes” in the same position as “ProRAW”.
After that, when you open the Camera App to record videos, there will be a ProRes option (it will still be closed by default). Just click on it to record in ProRes format. Afterwards, in the Photo App, videos shot with ProRes will also be marked with the word “ProRes” , It is convenient for users to view.
According to Apple, with ProRes recording, the video will have a more visually lossless experience, and at the same time, the shadows, colors, and screens will have better details when they move.
The reporter actually measured that the same scene was shot in the ProRes format and the iPhone’s original HEVC. The overall experience is that ProRes can indeed provide better picture quality details, including when the picture is flowing, or in low light. The details can also be presented better, but when viewed on a mobile phone or computer screen, the difference from HEVC is not as large as expected. It is necessary to compare the two images at the same time to see it more clearly.
On the whole, if you need more space for post-production, conversion, color adjustment, or want to capture more complete details in low light, it is more suitable to open ProRes.
For the average user, 10 seconds of 4K video in ProRes format will take up 1GB of space, which is equivalent to 450GB of space and can only be shot for about 48 minutes. In contrast, the default HEVC 10-second film length is only 25MB. Considering that the video quality of the two is not much different in most cases, only the details are upgraded. It may be more for ordinary users to continue using HEVC. There is practicality.
In addition, users should also note that iCloud will not skip ProRes videos, and will upload them to the cloud. For some users who only subscribe to 50GB or 200GB iCloud space, there may be a problem that the space is quickly occupied.
Director Liu Mingyi commented on “ProRes” and “Movie Mode”
Director Liao Mingyi, who used the iPhone to shoot and produce the movie “Freaks” throughout the process, believes that compared to another important feature on the iPhone 13, “Movie Mode”, ProRes is a key step to truly change the industry and is of great help to professional work. Quite practical. Liao Mingyi also admitted that at first I heard that the iPhone 13 Pro supports ProRes. I thought it was a “fake format” and would only release one specification, but in actual use, I found that it was indeed a complete and fully functional ProRes.
During the interview, Liao Mingyi also praised ProRes on the iPhone 13 Pro several times, thinking that the mobile phone can shoot such images “too riddled”, which is almost the same as the results of the video recorder. The current competitive products are also beyond the mobile phone level and can directly hit the camera. . For example, Liao Mingyi, the night sky shot with HEVC will have obvious color gradation, but the ProRes format is quite natural, and it can also have excellent recording effects in extremely dark environments.
(Photo/Provided by Liao Mingyi)
(Photo/Provided by Liao Mingyi)
(Photo/Provided by Liao Mingyi)
(Photo/Provided by Liao Mingyi)
(Photo/Provided by Liao Mingyi)
(Photo/Provided by Liao Mingyi)
Taking the actor’s face again, ProRes can also directly capture the “trace of makeup”, instead of being the same as in the filming of “Freaks”, the actor’s face has a layer of image quality that is not delicate enough to appear smeared, and it needs to be Add a layer of effects to hide image quality problems during post-production.
However, Liao Mingyi also frankly said that in relatively complex scenes, such as a row of tall buildings in the dark, there is little difference between ProRes and HEVC, but for professionals, a simple scene (such as a piece of sky) can actually be the best way to see the picture quality. , And with ProRes, it can also solve the problem of viewing on large-scale movie screens that need to be processed for various image details.
As for filming with iPhone ProRes, Liao Mingyi believes that the benefits are not only simple tools, one mobile phone can handle it, but also a lot of cost savings in many links, such as only solving the file output, storage and conversion time, in a movie During the shooting period, it is possible to save hundreds of thousands to one million Taiwan dollars for the producer.
Liao Mingyi also pointed out that if ProRes becomes more mature in the future, with more mature computer editing and screens, you may not even need to go to the dimming room, further reducing the production process and costs.
However, shooting videos with the iPhone is still not without its shortcomings. Liao Mingyi believes that if the aperture is larger in the future, and the telephoto lens and ultra-wide-angle lens sensors other than the main lens can be upgraded to the same level as the main lens, iPhone video recording will be “invincible.” . In addition, despite the excellent picture quality of ProRes, the disadvantage is that the file space is huge. Therefore, Mingyi Liao also believes that Apple should change the iPhone’s port to USB Type-C as soon as possible to improve creators’ file transfer efficiency.
Liao Mingyi also commented on Apple’s launch of the “movie-level” function in the iPhone 13 series. However, compared to the high praise of ProRes, the evaluation is not high. He believes that the “movie-level” is still immature and cannot be used as a professional tool or for general users. As a “toy”, the reasons include only calculating the depth of field with an algorithm, resulting in an excessively high proportion of “piercing errors”, and if someone appears in the background from time to time during shooting, it will cause the depth of field and focus point to switch automatically, which is unfavorable for shooting.
In addition, the “movie mode” also has the problem of high error frequency when focusing on objects.
However, Liao Mingyi still believes that “movie mode” represents a beginning, just like “portrait mode” was first introduced a few years ago, and overall if people are the main body, the stability of focus tracking will be much better. If Apple can successfully create the effect A better depth of field recording effect will be a revolutionary function. Liao Mingyi also suggested that Apple should try to include the data of the LiDAR sensor on the iPhone in the “movie mode” in the future to better interpret the distance of objects and improve the accuracy of the depth of field.
Liao Mingyi also pointed out that the current Taiwanese industry using mobile phones to shoot movies is no longer limited to students. Creators have also started to use mobile phones to shoot small movies and submit entries for competitions. The overall trend has slowly emerged, showing that mobile phones are no longer used as creative tools. It’s a choice made only by amateur users.
Director Liao Mingyi also shot a ProRes video on the spot to demonstrate the shooting effect directly (photograph/photographed by reporter Huang Jingchun)
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