Native exporting (encoding and muxing)

In 12.1 we integrated Apple’s official ProRes export libraries to allow frames to be encoded to any of the ProRes profiles like ProRes 422 LT, ProRes 4444, etc. We also integrated the FFmpeg muxer to take these encoded frames and write them out in the MOV container format.

With regards to ProRes, we later added support for ProRes RAW although this is only for macOS at the current time as it's through Apple's VideoToolbox framework.

When Apple released their Apple Silicon chips they instructed us to use VideoToolbox for ProRes decode/encode as they wouldn't be sending us the ProRes libs for arm64. So the Intel x86_64 version uses their original ProRes libs but the Apple Silicon arm64 version uses VideoToolbox.

Any of the native players (see earlier, including the FFmpeg, RED, QuickTime, Image Sequence, and New Sequence players) can therefore transcode their input to one or more of the following “intermediate” formats:

· JPEG image sequence

· WAV audio files

· YUV raw video

· Apple ProRes MOV file

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In 14.1, we also integrated Avid's official DNx SDK to allow frames to be encoded to any of their profiles, such as HQX, SQ, HQ, etc. We also changed the FFmpeg muxer so it could take these encoded frames and write them out in the MOV container format, very similar to its ProRes path.

Avid's SDK also has a component that can write out said encoded frames to the MXF container format and so we created a separate exporter, specifically for use with DNxHR that can write out OP1a or OpAtom MXF files.

By leveraging BBC's bmxtranswrap (and extending it to support Avid's newer profiles, in addition to upgrading the exporter on the Java side) we were able to produce MXF files that can be used with Avid's Media Composer.

The segment exporter combines these (and other elements) into the final output file, as described earlier.

As of CatDV 13 the native player is now 64-bit only, which means that QuickTime is no longer available for either playback or exporting.

The segment-based exporter was renamed to ‘Advanced Exporter’ and is now the default exporter.

The sequence player was renamed to ‘Advanced Player’ and is now the default player.