The latest version of the core Baselight software, version 5.2, and Daylight now support native access to the ProRes RAW format. This is one of the first full implementations of the ProRes RAW format from a world-leading professional colour grading application. The high-quality ProRes RAW image format is now available on cameras from a wide range of vendors, including Canon, Panasonic and Nikon via Atomos recorders, and directly on the DJI Inspire 2 with a Zenmuse X7 camera.
“Our philosophy has always been to provide the tools that our users need,” said Wolfgang Lempp, CEO at FilmLight. “Apple ProRes RAW is a powerful, very high quality, standardised way of handling raw camera outputs that is ideal for high-dynamic-range (HDR) content creation, and controlling the colour from set to post is extremely important to production and post pipelines. We naturally wanted to provide native support as soon as possible.”
ProRes RAW was introduced at NAB last year and uses the same rich underlying technology as existing ProRes codecs, offering powerful performance with all the benefits of pristine image quality along with the ease of use that ProRes has brought to conventional video. Since ProRes RAW directly encodes the Bayer pattern image from the camera sensor, the format provides access to the full high dynamic range imagery in our software. That means greater control of the contrast and colour but within a compact and manageable file size. FilmLight has licensed ProRes for many years and supporting ProRes RAW was the natural next step.
“ProRes RAW is designed for uncompromised top-end projects,” said Phil Barrett, Senior Software Engineer at FilmLight. “It does not compromise image quality to meet a target data rate: so if the detail in an image needs more data, then it gets it. ProRes RAW was designed so that every frame maintains constant and immaculate image quality. That is why ProRes RAW is going to be a really important format for very high-quality acquisition, particularly for HDR projects.”
From set to finishing, FilmLight creates the most sophisticated and professional post-production tools. And because support for ProRes RAW is implemented in the core 5.2 software, it is available at every stage of the pipeline. Customers will ingest media using FilmLight’s Daylight dailies system, which also produces viewing copies for editorial from the ProRes RAW files, and then continue to work with ProRes RAW in their project on the Baselight colour grading system.
ProRes RAW support will be available as a free upgrade to FilmLight’s supported customers, and will be available April 8th 2019. It will form part of the FilmLight demonstration at NAB (8–11 April, Las Vegas Convention Center): the company can be found on booth SL4105.
