Apple takes home an engineering Emmy for its ubiquitous ProRes video tech

Epic Games also won for its work on Mandalorian's innovative projected sets.

The Emmys

Apple took home an engineering Emmy award for its ProRes video codec first developed in 2007 that has become widely used in digital television and film production (via 9to5Mac). As Apple’s team accepting the prize noted, it gained popularity because it can keep video file sizes down while preserving high levels of detail and allowing for fast encoding and decoding.

The codec really exploded in popularity with the release of Arri’s Alexa digital camera in 2010. Apple’s ProRes QuickTime formats allowed filmmakers to directly edit the footage with no transcoding and little loss in quality, saving huge amounts of time and hassle. It’s particularly useful for television work that requires a quick turnaround between shooting and editing. Apple has now won several engineering Emmys, including for Final Cut Pro, iPad development and Firewire tech.

Epic Games also won an engineering Emmy for its Unreal Engine software, used in Disney’s The Mandalorian. As we detailed earlier this year, the tech allowed the producers to render 3D sets in real time and project them live on the production sound stage. Actors can then work with realistic backgrounds rather than green screens, and it can speed up post-production, as well. It’s Epic’s second Emmy, with the first coming in 2018 for the mixed reality tech used to create those zany weather forecasts.