an adobe doc says not to use proxies if you're using modify: interpret footage

I'm having EXACTLY the same question. 

The super-helpful "Best Practices & Workflow Guide For Long Form and Episodic Post Production" says, on p.55:

Modifying Clips (Audio Channels, Interpret Footage, etc.)

If your workflow relies on modifying the source clips using any of the following commands, do not use proxies in Premiere Pro. Doing so will result in unexpected behavior:

Modify > Audio Channels

This post and another respected Community Expert are saying that Modify > Audio Channels will not cause problems connecting to proxies.

Does it matter if I created the proxies when the audio channels on the source clips were set as 1-channel stereo, then I Modified them to 2-channel mono to create multicam sequences?

I'm an Assistant Editor at a company where the editors are either on a different computer than me or not in the office at all, and we do not have shared storage, so the editors do all their work off of SSD's that do not have the raw footage. I've had problems where an editor could not relink to proxies for 2-channel mono RED footage. Various methods of creating proxies for this footage (right click / Create Proxies; creating an Ingest preset and ingesting through Media Browser; using Media Encoder; using DaVinci) made proxies that connected to the source clips on my Mac, but when we put them on an SSD and tried to relink on another Mac, the Mac would see these proxies as 1-channel stereo and would not relink - making it impossible for the editor to use the clips. The only way I found to make 2-channel mono proxies for this footage was to export them one at a time out of Premiere. So I'm a little shell-shocked about going against what's written in the "Best Practices" PDF, especially since I may not be the Assistant Editor at this company when this project gets turned over to their sound vendor.

The "Interpret Footage" is meant for changing cadences of video tracks ... from 29.97 to 24, that sort of thing. It's an interpretation of the media, not a speed change.

But of course with a large project especially a long-form doc with tons of different media from the slower 16mm cameras to various digital capture rates ... there's often a ton of interpretation needed. Why one wouldn't want proxies for that is a puzzlement to me.

But to the engineers, it's one of those self-obvious things that doesn't merit an explanation. Of course you don't want proxies on interpreted video media! ( .... ? ....)

"Well, if you do think you need them, just transcode after interpretation. Problem solved ... (with a mumbled 'not that there ever was a problem mind you ... ')".

Somehow engineers and users don't always see the same vision ... and Yairb's comment shows the weirdness of it all.

Works perfectly to "interpret" audio channels to set for different track types/numbers. And make proxies after doing so.

Um ... so why not with video tracks?

When talking with the engineers, go back to my comments above. Talking with engineers can be a very circular discussion at times.  😉

Neil

I can testify that at least for Modify > Audio Channels I do use it on multicam footage regularly:

1. Modify AVCHD FHD stereo clips to dual mono in the project panel

2. Create DNxHD FHD proxies

3. Create multicam sequence.

No problems so far.

I think the article forgot to say: dont use proxies when using variable framerate.

Even phones are considered cameras these days.

In my experience I can also say that it only applies to the framerate. You'll break the proxy workflow as well as if you need to put out XML's for a colorist. Best to do all framerate changes in the timeline.

I'm pretty sure that is only meant to apply to interpreting footage framerates. But @Bruce Bullis would know for sure ...

Neil