Reference

ProRes (Apple)

ProRes is Apple’s professional video codec, designed for editing rather than small file sizes. It uses light compression to keep near-original quality and easy scrubbing in editors, which makes ProRes recordings far larger than the H.264 or HEVC clips phones normally save.

Files & formatsGeneral

ProRes (Apple)

Also known as: Apple ProRes, prores video, ProRes 422, ProRes RAW

Apple’s pro editing codec, not a delivery format
Light compression keeps near-original quality
Very high bitrate; files are large

A codec built for editing

ProRes is an intermediate video codec: instead of squeezing video as small as possible, it keeps each frame lightly compressed so editors can scrub, cut, and color-grade smoothly without re-decoding heavy interframe data. Supported iPhones can record video directly in ProRes.

That edit-friendly design is the opposite goal of delivery codecs like H.264 or HEVC, which prioritize tiny files for streaming and storage. ProRes prioritizes quality and editing performance.

Why ProRes eats storage

Light compression means very high bitrates, so ProRes footage is large — a few minutes of ProRes can use as much space as a much longer HEVC clip. On iPhone, ProRes recording is the reason a short clip can fill many gigabytes fast.

Shoot in ProRes while you are editing, then export the finished video to MP4 (H.264/HEVC) for sharing and long-term storage. Transcoding to a delivery codec dramatically shrinks the file once you no longer need to edit.

Related terms

Keep reading the reference.

Storage conceptsVideo codec (H.264 vs H.265/HEVC)A video codec is the method used to compress and decompress video. H.265 (HEVC) is the newer successor to H.264 (AVC) and encodes the same quality in noticeably less space, which is why modern phones record in HEVC to keep video files smaller.General Storage conceptsBitrateBitrate is the amount of data used per second of audio or video, usually measured in megabits per second (Mbps). A higher bitrate carries more detail and produces a sharper result, but it also makes the file proportionally larger.General Photos & videoTranscodingTranscoding is decoding a video and re-encoding it into a different codec, bitrate, resolution, or container. It is how a compressor shrinks a file or makes it playable on another device — and because re-encoding is lossy, each pass can lower quality slightly.General Files & formatsMP4MP4 (MPEG-4 Part 14) is the most common video container format. The .mp4 file holds video, audio, and subtitle streams together, but does not itself define quality — the codec inside (usually H.264 or HEVC) decides how large and how compressed the video is.General

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