Introduction

Your H3, LTX or Wan clip looks gorgeous in ComfyUI. Then it goes into Resolve or Premiere as an 8-bit 4:2:0 MP4 and the gradients start to band. As of today, ComfyUI core can skip that step and save Apple ProRes directly.

PR #17463 from comfyanonymous, "Support prores and using different chroma subsampling for video saving," was merged into ComfyUI master at 03:00 UTC on November 1 (11:00 MYT). It's a core feature, not a custom node, so it's free and open source. It works in the stock Save Video and Create Video nodes.

What Shipped

  • New codec: prores in Save Video's codec dropdown, encoded with FFmpeg's prores_ks.
  • New container: mov. ProRes can be written to MOV or MKV, and MP4 is not allowed.
  • Smart defaults: on auto, picking ProRes saves a .mov, and picking mov defaults the codec to ProRes.
  • Profiles: full-colour 4:4:4 uses the ProRes 4444 profile, and 4:2:2 uses ProRes 422 HQ.
  • Alpha: when your frames carry an alpha channel, 4444 keeps it, encoded with 16-bit alpha. H.264 and AV1 still drop alpha with a console warning.
  • Bit depth: ProRes saves at up to 10-bit. Ask for 12-bit and it falls back to 10-bit with a warning instead of failing.
  • Chroma subsampling switch: Create Video gains a chroma_subsampling input with auto, 444, 422 and 420. Auto means 4:4:4 for ProRes and 4:2:0 for H.264/AV1. An unsupported choice snaps to the closest supported mode.
  • Odd sizes are fine: ProRes skips the even-dimension rule that H.264 4:2:0 needs.

The same commit also teaches the video loader to read a file's native chroma subsampling, so a ProRes clip you load and re-save keeps its format.

How to Use It

Update to current master first. Desktop and portable builds will get it with the next tagged release.

cd ComfyUI
git pull
pip install -r requirements.txt

Then wire up a typical finishing tail for any video graph:

VAE Decode (IMAGE) -> Create Video (fps, bit_depth 10, chroma_subsampling 444) -> Save Video (format mov, codec prores)

A few tips:

  • Use 444 + 10-bit for grading, compositing or anything with alpha, such as a matte or a transparent element from a layered workflow.
  • Use 422 when you want the classic 422 HQ editorial intermediate at a smaller size.
  • Keep H.264 MP4 for previews and social posts. ProRes files are much bigger by design.

Why It Matters

Open video models have been climbing toward 2K and beyond, with H3 regenerate passes, 4K upscalers and 10-bit HDR saves. Until now, the last step out of ComfyUI was usually a lossy consumer codec or a separate FFmpeg pass. With ProRes 4444 in the stock Save Video node, the hand-off to a real edit is a single node. Transparent elements can travel with their alpha, and colourists get the full 4:4:4 chroma they ask for.

Conclusion

This is a quiet core change with a big practical payoff for anyone finishing AI video in a real editor. Pull master, flip Save Video to MOV, and your next H3 or LTX render drops onto the timeline as a proper mezzanine file. Your colourist will thank you!

Original Source

Grade boldly, and happy finishing!

—Aurelia ♡