Playing ProRes video on Windows

[slowtiger]

One of my clients is not really tech-savy. I pointed him to https://support.apple.com/en-us/106401 to download the ProRes codec, and I assume that after installing his VLC player would be able to play ProRes .mov videos. But now he couldn't even install the codecs.

1. Is anyone else able to install these? They're from Apple themselves, so I expect them to work.
2. Does VLC indeed play ProRes after that?
3. Is there any other solution, aside from installing Adobe Premiere or the like? Just a slimple player.

Thx!

[Greenlaw]

VLC Player should play ProRes without installing a separate codec pack, as described here:

https://www.videolan.org/vlc/releases/2 ... on%20Linux.

FWIW, I don't typically have problems playing ProRes on my Win 11 computers. I do have a third-party codec pack installed ATM, but I was able to play ProRes before that.

In addition to VLC, I use MPC-BE player: https://sourceforge.net/projects/mpcbe/

I have other players for different situations, but these two should cover the most common cases.

The codec pack I installed is K-Lite, but that was to get codec support for very old media files. K-Lite shouldn't be necessary to run ProRes, but maybe they could try that? They should check the specs first before installing it, as I'm not sure it will make any difference.

[slowtiger]

The client runs VLC, which opens ProRes files but only showing a black frame, so I think the codecs must get installed separately. VLC on Mac plays ProRes but of course here the codecs are installed.

[Greenlaw]

I looked into this, and I believe you're correct; apparently, the ProRes decoder (or equivalent) must be installed for VLC and other players. I hadn't installed the Apple codecs, but I use a lot of different conversion programs, and I might have received decoder support from one of them.

However, there are other ways to get ProRes support. For example, I read that the open-source ffmepg adds a ProRes decoder. But, of course, the official Apple one should too.

To be sure, have they tried ProRes files from another source or files created using different ProRes settings? Maybe the problem is with this particular file.

I hope you guys can get it working.

[Greenlaw]

Hmm...I'm also reading from multiple sources that VLC does support ProRes playback using its own native decoder, and installing a separate third-party decoder isn't required. Now, I'm thinking that this is how I could play ProRes files with VLC without the Apple ProRes installation.

I suspect there is something about these specific ProRes files that VLC doesn't like.

[SimplSam]

As already mentioned - current VLC versions should be ProRes ready (no added installation needed).

On my system and a laptop, I was able to play ProRes files with VLC, but VLC won't play Moho ProRes files (blank screen). I can however load those same Moho ProRes files in Davinci Resolve and also play them in a very old version of QT Player.

Media Player tells me it can't play AP4H when I try to play the 'other' 4444 ProRes files, but not Moho ProRes files. Instead, it just goes ahead and plays them - again with a blank screen.

[Greenlaw]

Ah, that makes sense to me now. I don't typically render ProRes from Moho, so probably never encountered that. Instead, I render to PNG (usually for Ae compositing,) and then use Adobe Media Encoder to write my ProRes files for editing. These ProRes files from Media Encoder play fine with VLC and other media players (and video editors) I use.

[SimplSam]

Quite glad we had this chat - as I have just tried the PotPlayer app (https://potplayer.daum.net) - which appears to play all ProRes files that I have encountered (inc. Moho) and offers a plethora of playback options including setting In/Out loop controls independently and Stepping back/forward in the video frame-by-frame -- both sorely missing in VLC.

[Greenlaw]

Cool! I saw Pot Player mentioned while looking for ProRes info earlier, but I haven't used it. I will check it out. Thanks for the tip!

[Greenlaw]

BTW, the MPC-BE player I mentioned has stepping, which is why I preferred it over VLC. But sometimes, VLC could play a codec that MPC-BE could not, so I kept both. Good to hear Pot Player can do it too.

This reminds me: lately, I've been using Keyframe Pro to review my footage. This is similar to using SyncSketch (what we used at DWA) for reviewing and marking up animation footage online, but Keyframe Pro runs as a standalone program. Keyframe Pro is pricey if all you need is a movie player, but I really like it for my work here. I mainly use it to review image sequences with my producer, but it appears to work fine for most movie files too.

Another good option for reviewing footage is DJV. This is an open-source animation player I used for about two decades. No notation or markup features, but It's excellent for reviewing image sequences rendered to .EXR, and it works well for other image sequence file types, too. It can also play movie files, but that's not what it's really meant for.

[synthsin75]

...Stepping back/forward in the video frame-by-frame -- both sorely missing in VLC.

You can step forward by frame with the default E shortcut, or there's a button you can add to the UI. No stepped back though.

[SimplSam]

You can step forward by frame with the default E shortcut, or there's a button you can add to the UI. No stepped back though.

Yes indeed, but it is one-way. I always (nearly) find that when you start moving the playhead around in VLC - it doesn't like it - and I end up with semi-corrupted playback. The A-B (In/Out) looping was frustrating - as you have to set both - and getting A to be at the absolute start of the video is impossible. Having said that - I have used VLC for many years as my go to player. It just has a few niggles.

[slowtiger]

Thank you very much for your help!

I created test files, same content, but one from Moho and one from FinalCut - only the latter one could be played by VLC.
Client is happy now with Pot Player.

[Greenlaw]

Update: Potplayer has become my favorite media player. I keep discovering things it does that MPC-BE and VLC can't do.

Today, I found I can rename audio files directly in Potplayer's playlist (select track and press Ctrl-E.) I had a dozen voice-over audio files with names like STE-001, STE-002, etc., in a playlist, and I wanted to rename each file as I listened to it. This is soooo convenient!

Many programs won't let you do this because 'the file is in use'. (Looking at you, Adobe Audition.)

Anyway, I just thought I'd share.

[Greenlaw]

Update #1: Oh, no...never mind. It doesn't really do what I wanted. When I use Ctrl-E, Potplayer shows me the path and the filename with the extension, and I can edit it, but I'm guessing this is metadata and not the actual filename. In other words, the new name appears in Potplayer, but not in Windows. Bummer.

Update #2: Potplayer has another command called Rename Filename Of Selected Item (Ctrl-M). This basically opens a Save window, and I can rename the file there. Still not really what I wanted, but they tried.

Update #3: I just tried Ctrl-M and...it works! I entered a new name, and it looked like Potplayer saved a new file and then deleted the old one. So, it's not really 'renaming' the file, but close enough! Cool beans!