Creative Cow on Apple ProRes 422

"The Wisdom of the Cow: Apple's ProRes 422 Codec"

This is a good article that summarizes insights on the ProRes 422 codec gleamed from posts on Creative Cow's boards. Nice to get some real user feedback on this new feature of FCP 6.

One thing that has come out is that if you want to transcode HD to ProRes 422, you need an Intel MacPro or an AJA I/O HD. It's too processor intensive to be done while capturing, even by a Quad G5. The AJA IO HD handles the transcoding itself, but with other hardware from AJA and Blackmagic the CPU has to handle the transcoding. However, slower computers can still render HD video to ProRes 422. Nothing definitive on transcoding to SD while capturing, but this should be much less processor-intensive than HD footage.