Best Video Codec for Client Review: ProRes, H.264 or HEVC Uploads

The codec on every review copy leaving my agency used to be a lottery, right, because each editor had their own export habit and nobody had ever written down a rule. One person would push a ProRes 422 HQ master straight out of the timeline into a shared folder, another would crush an H.264 until the skin tones went blotchy, and the client would sit in front of a download bar for twenty minutes before telling us the logo was the old one. So basically the best video codec for client review, for us, was whatever preset the last person had left selected.

Now it runs very very differently, and what changed it was one boring rule we wrote down. The review copy is a light H.264 at a sensible bitrate, the master stays on our drives unless there is a real reason to send it, and everything lands in one PlayPause link where the client presses play in a browser and leaves notes on the exact frame. Uploads take a couple of minutes instead of a lunch break, and to be very honest the arguments about whether the banding was in the file or in the client's laptop have mostly gone away.

So this post is that rule laid out properly, and it holds whether you cut in Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut or Avid, right, because everything here happens after you hit export.

What the best video codec for client review has to balance

The first thing I tell new editors is that a review copy and a delivery file are two completely different jobs, right, and most codec confusion comes from asking one export to do both. The delivery file goes to broadcast, an ad account, an archive and so on, so it has to be perfect. The review copy only has to be accurate enough for the client to decide on the cut and the grade, and light enough to reach them the same day.

Two exports, two jobs

The delivery master has to be perfect, while the review copy only has to be accurate enough for notes and quick to upload.

So when I say best, I am balancing picture accuracy against upload time, and then checking both against how the client actually watches. Blocky skies in a review copy will get you a note about a problem that is not in your master, and a slow upload hurts most when you are pushing MV3 at eleven at night for a client who will watch it on a phone in a cab.

The catch here is that these pull in opposite directions, right, because the most accurate file is the heaviest one and the lightest file is the first to fall apart on a gradient. The whole job is finding the point where the client stops seeing a difference on the screen they actually use, and I covered the theory behind that in the video compression fundamentals for review post.

ProRes vs H.264 for review, and where HEVC fits

Apple ProRes is an editing codec, right, built so every frame is stored on its own and your timeline scrubs smoothly, and that is exactly why the files are huge. ProRes 422 HQ at 1080p and around 30 frames per second runs at roughly 220 Mbps, which is about 1.6 GB for every minute, and 4K is several times that. As a review file it is basically overkill, because nobody deciding whether an interview answer should come earlier needs 10-bit 4:2:2 color for that call.

H.264 makes the opposite trade, since it compresses across frames, so the files are small and they play on almost anything a client owns. That is why the guides ranking for this topic land on H.264 in an MP4 as the default review format, and I agree with them. For instance, a three minute 1080p film as H.264 at 12 Mbps comes out around 270 MB, against roughly 5 GB for the same three minutes in ProRes 422 HQ.

Then the HEVC standard, also called H.265, sits in between, because it gets a similar picture at something like half the bitrate of H.264 and in practice it carries 10-bit and HDR far more reliably. So HEVC for review copies makes real sense when the project is 4K or HDR and a good H.264 would get big again. The catch here used to be decoding, because older Windows machines and some browsers struggle to open an HEVC file directly, and that kept me away from it for years.

Old way

a ProRes master on a download link, a long wait, then the client fighting a media player on an office laptop

With PlayPause

a light H.264 review copy up in minutes, played in the browser from a streaming copy, with notes on the frame

So my default is H.264 for almost everything, HEVC when the job is 4K or HDR and I want the file smaller, and ProRes only in the handful of cases I cover further down.

Review copy bitrate and resolution that are enough for notes

People overthink bitrate, right, when most export guides already put H.264 or HEVC at 8 to 15 Mbps as enough to judge color on a phone or laptop, and for 1080p I agree, I just sit near the top of that range because skin tones and dark scenes show a low bitrate first. My review copy bitrate for a 1080p cut is 12 to 16 Mbps in H.264 with AAC audio at 320 kbps, and at those numbers I cannot remember a client note in my agency that turned out to be a compression artifact.

Resolution is the bigger lever, to be very honest. Even when the delivery is 4K, I review at 1080p for the early rounds, because the client is deciding the story at that stage and a 1080p file is a quarter of the pixels. When detail genuinely matters, say packaging texture or small text on a product film, I export a 4K review copy at roughly 35 to 45 Mbps in H.264 or 20 to 30 Mbps in HEVC.

Take a 90 second 4K HDR product film as a worked example. As 10-bit HEVC at 25 Mbps it comes out around 280 MB, while an H.264 that holds the same highlights needs something like 40 Mbps, so around 450 MB, and most H.264 presets would still drop it to 8-bit, which is why HEVC wins that job.

The sanity check behind all of this is simple math, right, because bitrate in megabits per second, times the duration in seconds, divided by eight, gives you megabytes. So 12 Mbps for a ten minute video is around 900 MB, and if your file is way bigger than that, the export settings are not doing what you think.

1Export 1080p H.264 at 12 to 16 Mbps

2Match the master frame rate and aspect ratio exactly

3Use AAC stereo audio at 320 kbps

4Skip burned-in timecode since comments land on the frame

5Upload to the same card so it stacks as the next version

Keep the frame rate and aspect ratio identical to the master, because a 25 fps cut exported at 30 fps makes the client's comments land on frames that do not line up with your timeline. The other quiet trap is color tagging, since players and browsers read a Rec.709 file's gamma slightly differently, and I'm pretty sure plenty of washed out complaints come from a mismatched tag rather than the codec. So export with standard Rec.709 tags and keep the final grade call on a calibrated display, and if you cut in Premiere, my sibling post on Premiere Pro export settings for review has the exact preset.

How browser streaming copies change the codec decision

This is the part that changed my thinking the most, right. When the client opens a PlayPause link, the browser plays a streaming copy with no account and no install while your original file sits there untouched, which is what our proxy and transcoding setup is for. That means the old worry about whether the client's laptop can decode HEVC or open a ProRes file stops being your problem.

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The client watches the streaming copy either way, so the codec you upload mostly decides how long you wait and how fast your storage fills.

So the real trade-off moves, you see what I mean here. Picture accuracy still matters, since a badly compressed upload stays badly compressed, but playback compatibility mostly drops off the list, and what is left is how long you sit waiting on each upload and how quickly the files eat into your storage. That is why a clean H.264 is still the right default.

When I upload MV2 to the same card it stacks on top of MV1 whatever codec I used, and on Agency and up we put MV1 and MV2 side by side to check every note got addressed. The guide on how to get a shareable review link walks through that flow, and if your team still attaches files to emails, the page on how to stop sending videos by email makes that case well.

Review_Cut_v4.mp4In Review

212160p · ProRes

00:34 / 02:18

SR

Sarah 0:34

Frame-accurate note, everyone sees the exact same thing.

When uploading the master file is worth the time

The upload master or proxy decision comes up on almost every job in my agency, right, and for pure notes my answer is the light review copy, because the master mostly buys you a longer upload. I wrote a whole piece on why you should never send a raw ProRes master for notes on a Resolve project, and that logic holds on every NLE.

There are still a few honest cases where I upload the master on purpose. One is the final round, where the review link doubles as the handoff and the client's team needs the actual file, so approval and delivery live on one card. Another is when an in-house team will recut social versions from it, or when I want the approved master sitting next to its notes, which gets easier on Agency because viewers can save straight to Google Drive and we keep a Drive backup too.

• The review link doubles as the final handoff
• The client team will recut from the file
• The approved master should sit next to its notes
• Your upload line and your plan both have room

Even then, I send the master as the last version, so MV1 to MV3 go up as H.264 and MV4 is the master that gets the final sign-off. For anything enormous outside a review tool, the guide on sending large video files to clients covers the options, and the post on reviewing cuts outside Resolve helps if you are moving off Resolve's own sharing.

Storage and upload limits to plan around

Since PlayPause is priced flat per workspace rather than per member, the only numbers I plan codecs around are storage and the largest single file a plan accepts, right. Creator holds 100 GB with a 10 GB cap on any one upload, Agency holds 250 GB with no upload cap, and Enterprise goes up to 1 TB.

100 GB

storage on Creator

250 GB

storage on Agency

1 TB

storage on Enterprise

10 GB

max upload on Creator

Run the three minute film through those numbers as illustrative math. Four rounds of ProRes 422 HQ at roughly 5 GB each is about 20 GB, a fifth of a Creator workspace on one project, while four rounds of a 270 MB H.264 come to just over 1 GB. The upload cap bites first on longer pieces, because ten minutes of ProRes 422 HQ at 1080p is around 16 GB and over the Creator limit, and on a 50 Mbps upload line even the 5 GB file is roughly thirteen minutes of waiting where the 270 MB copy is under a minute.

So Creator works perfectly well if you upload review copies and keep masters on your own drives, and since Creator links run 30 days before the files expire, it was never meant to be your archive. Once masters become your final version, Agency makes more sense for the uncapped uploads and the extra room, and the media storage in PlayPause page has the details. Downgrading never deletes content, so a busy month does not lock you in.

Frequently asked questions

Is H.264 good enough for clients to judge color?

For most review rounds it really really is, as long as the bitrate is sensible, right. At 12 to 16 Mbps for 1080p, gradients and skin tones hold up fine on a phone or a laptop, which is where clients actually watch. For a final grade sign-off on a high end job, I would still have the colorist and the client look at the master on a proper display, because no browser review replaces a calibrated monitor.

Should I use HEVC for review copies?

HEVC for review copies makes the most sense on 4K or HDR projects, where an H.264 at a good bitrate gets heavy, because HEVC gets similar quality at roughly half the bitrate. For a normal 1080p cut I still default to H.264, since it exports quickly on every machine and the size saving at 1080p is small enough that it rarely changes how long the upload takes.

Do I still need burned-in timecode on a review copy?

Not if the review happens inside PlayPause, because every comment is timestamped to the exact frame and the client can draw on that frame, so the note already tells the editor where to go. In Premiere, the PlayPause panel goes a step further and clicking a comment jumps the playhead there. I only burn in timecode when a file is going somewhere outside the review link, like a broadcaster's technical check on a downloaded copy.

Upload master or proxy for the final approval round?

If the approval round is also the handoff, upload the master as the last version so sign-off and delivery sit on the same card, and make sure your plan allows the file size, since Creator caps uploads at 10 GB while Agency and Enterprise have no cap. If the final round is only about notes, send the light review copy and deliver the master separately once it is approved.

Picking a review codec for your next cut

At the end of the day, the best video codec for client review is the one that gets an accurate picture in front of the client fastest, and for nearly every job in my agency that is H.264 at 1080p, with HEVC for 4K or HDR and the master saved for the handoff. Trust me on any level, writing that down as a team rule saves more time than any preset tweak. If you want to run the whole loop on your next cut, compare the PlayPause plans and start the 7-day free trial on whichever one fits your storage.

So yeah. That's my way of saying it.