Data & backup planner

How much space does ProRes 422 HQ take?

ProRes 422 HQ stores a constant amount per frame (3.69 MB at UHD), so the rate scales exactly with pixels and frame rate. UHD at 25 fps: 332 GB per hour.

ProRes 422 HQ in ProRes 422 HQ, 25 fps, 3 h a day for 4 days: 3.98 TB of footage, 11.9 TB with three copies. Change cameras, hours and days below.
Copies of every card
Copies run in parallel; the slowest drive sets the pace.
CameraCodecResolutionfpsh/dayRate
    Footage per day
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    Footage, whole shoot
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    Incl. all copies
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    Drives needed
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    Offload per day
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    Left after wrap
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    ProRes 422 HQ: GB per hour

    Rates as in Apple’s ProRes white paper (April 2022). Real files land slightly below: ProRes only spends bits where the picture needs them, so a static interview comes in under the target, a handheld night street close to it.

    ProRes 422 HQ: GB per hour by resolution and frame rate
    Resolution24 fps25 fps30 fps50 fps60 fps
    HD 1920 × 108079.6 GB82.9 GB99.5 GB166 GB199 GB
    UHD 3840 × 2160318 GB332 GB398 GB663 GB796 GB
    4K DCI 4096 × 2160340 GB354 GB425 GB708 GB849 GB

    How long a card lasts

    Minutes of recording per card (UHD 25 fps). The last column is the time a DIT needs to copy that card once to an NVMe SSD at a sustained 850 MB/s, plus a verification pass.

    ProRes 422 HQ: recording time per card
    CardRecording timeOffload + verify
    256 GB46 min10 min
    512 GB1 h 33 min20 min
    1 TB3 h 1 min39 min
    2 TB6 h 2 min1 h 18 min

    ProRes 422 HQ next to its siblings

    The same hour of footage in every variant of the family (UHD, 25 fps). The step to the next quality level is usually the cheaper decision than it looks: drives cost less than a reshoot, but every step also lengthens the offload.

    ProRes 422 HQ compared with related codecs
    CodecGB per hourvs. ProRes 422 HQOffload of 1 h at 850 MB/s
    ProRes 422 Proxy68.0 GB−80 %1 min
    ProRes 422 LT154 GB−54 %3 min
    ProRes 422221 GB−33 %4 min
    ProRes 422 HQ332 GB—7 min
    ProRes 4444498 GB+50 %10 min
    ProRes 4444 XQ747 GB+125 %15 min

    Cameras that record ProRes 422 HQ

    In our camera list: ARRI Alexa 35, ARRI Alexa Mini LF, ARRI Alexa Mini, ARRI Amira, Sony Venice 2 (8.6K), Sony Venice (6K), RED Komodo 6K, RED Komodo-X, RED V-Raptor 8K VV, Blackmagic Pocket Cinema 6K Pro, Blackmagic Pocket Cinema 4K, Panasonic Lumix S1H, Panasonic Lumix GH6, DJI Ronin 4D 6K, DJI Mavic 3 Pro (Drohne), DJI Inspire 3 (Drohne). The tool above has each of them as a preset, with the codecs and frame rates the body actually offers.

    Frequently asked

    How much storage does one hour of ProRes 422 HQ need?

    In UHD at 25 fps: 332 GB. At 50 fps exactly double.

    Why does my card show less space than its label?

    Cards are labelled in decimal units (1 TB = 1,000,000,000,000 bytes); some operating systems count in binary units and show about 931 GB for a 1 TB card. The numbers on this page are decimal, like the label.