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NwProPr
Known Participant
February 14, 2023
Question

Proxy workflow within Premiere Productions (8 channel audio / 4K UHD)

  • February 14, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 2188 views

Hello,

There's been a lot of discussion about proxy workflows while maintaining multichannel audio, even on this forum. However, I didn't really find a one-way solution to my specific question. It seems that Premiere treats a transcoded proxy, created from the internal ingest section, as a non multichannel audio track, regardless of the number of audio channels in the source file. (when dragging the 'proxy attached' media file from the Project bin into a sequence, it now only drags one audio track)

As an alternative, I've created proxy presets in Media Encoder that preserve all eight audio channels when imported back into Premiere. However, when using these presets to create ingest presets to build proxies within Premiere itself, the resulting proxies, after toggling the proxy button, don't have any multichannel audio tracks, making it difficult to edit each track on their own.

Question 1: Workflow creating multichannel proxies
My first question is whether creating all proxies at once in Media Encoder, importing them into Premiere, and then reconnecting them to the original source files is the optimal way to manage a proxy workflow for multichannel audio. I am concerned that this workflow may cause problems during the final export, as Premiere typically looks through a proxy conversion and only uses the high-resolution source material. I wonder if all 8 audio tracks from the proxy file will be read from the source file as well.


Question 2: Different resolution

My second question relates to footage shot at two different resolutions (4096x2160 and 3840x2160). I plan to create 1920x1080 proxies and import them into a 3840x2160 sequence, scaling the footage to fit the frame size. The idea is to crop the 4096x2160 footage to remove black borders. However, I am worried that exporting the final product may result in some clips looking distorted, such as the 4096x2160 footage being stretched vertically.

 

How does Premiere deal with all of this, knowing that I'm using a manual proxy workflow? Creating 1080p proxies from a 4096x2160 file means it will add black borders by itself that aren't there in the source file.

 

I hope this all makes sense and appreciate any advice or experience with these issues.

Thanks!

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

R Neil Haugen
R Neil Haugen
Legend
March 2, 2023

I'm not the person to answer all of your questions. But I've got a couple.

 

Are you using proxies to create sequences and editing from them? Or creating the sequences from the original media, then toggling to view proxies while working?

 

As ... if the sequence has the original media as the start point, it should then have all the audio, right? And you'd be just toggling the view of the proxy for playback ... ?

 

Premiere's proxy process kinda assumes that the sequences are made from the original media. And proxies are used for playback purposes.

 

Now, if you're doing the "older" offline proxy process, where you work from the proxy files, and only relink to originals at the end for best Q of export, that's ... got some things to think about in setup. Certainly.

 

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...
N
NwProPrAuthor
Known Participant
March 3, 2023

Thank you for your reply.

I tried several ways of creating proxies. Both inside and outside of Premiere. All having to do with maintaining 8 separate mono tracks.

Like you said, what you would like to do is create a project, using the source files. In my case MXF files coming from a Sony PXW-FX6 or FX9. Next, from the project bin, you would wanna create proxies which will automatically be converted using Media Encoder.

The outcome is basically that Premiere doesn't like MXF files with an AVC-I codec that much. Not in terms of playback, not in terms of creating proxies while maintaining the all audio tracks. Therefore, for our next project, we decided to transcode ALL MXF files to ProRes HQ (with 8 mono tracks). The MXF files will be completely ignored from there on.

 

The outcome is that while importing these ProRes HQ files and trying to creating proxies from those (within Premiere), it all works fine. The transcoding is happening in Media Encoder, and after that, the files are toggable within Premiere (maintaining all audio tracks).

When I try this with MXF files, all 8 separate tracks will be squeezed into one single 8 channel audio track (like what happens with 5.1 audio). From there it seems impossible to split them back into 8 separate mono tracks that are actually separate. There is one way (using Modify, Audio Channels), but what happens, is that Premiere only recognizes the first track. The result is that you end up with 8 separate mono tracks, but they're all duplicates of the first tracks (which you can't adjust through the Audio Channels setup menu).

Therefore, with our previous project (what this post was all about), we went the 'old way' (as you describe it). First create working proxies using Media Encoder, import those in Premiere and immediately reconnect them with the Full Resolution Media. From there these 'toggable' files in the Project bin are dragged onto fitting sequences and editing is done from there.

One would assume this workflow wouldn't give any problems, as this is a standard workflow for many fiction editors (movies and tv shows). In other words: basically setting up their projects, only using proxies, to reconnect everything back together afterwards in the end.

I might be wrong, but this current project hasn't gotten us in any trouble so far. I did some extended testing on the front to make sure all steps that we might be facing (moving sequences between Production projects, exporting in different ways etc.) would actually work.

Or is there anything specific that might scr*w things up using this workflow?

Thanks again! 🙂

    R Neil Haugen
    R Neil Haugen
    Legend
    March 3, 2023

    Sorting out these types of things just makes your day more fun, right?  😉

     

    @Warren Heaton10841144 typically has good comments about this sort of thing. Maybe he can post something here too.

     

    Neil

    Everyone's mileage always varies ...
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