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CC268
CC268
Inspiring
September 23, 2018
Question

Transcode or Proxies?

  • September 23, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 6381 views

Hey guys,

I am a hobbyist who enjoys shooting some drone footage and family video (vacations, etc) - so please keep in mind I don't do this for a living.

I've been trying to determine the best workflow for me and whether or not I should transcode my raw footage to Cineform/DNxHD or just use a Proxy workflow. The problem with transcoding all my raw footage is that the file sizes are massive. I transcoded 63GB of 2K/4K footage to Cineform from my Hawaii family vacation and it was 690GB! That is massive.

It seems to me that for a hobbyist, the proxy workflow might be much more reasonable and certainly more archivable as I am paying for my own external storage and I don't have a customer to simply charge for an external drive for all that footage. My thoughts are that archiving the final render and the raw compressed video (h.264/h.265) is so much more practical than storing 690GB of transcoded footage.

What are your guys' thoughts?

Thanks!

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    Kevin-Monahan
    Community Manager
    Kevin-MonahanCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    June 21, 2019

    HI,

    I've been trying to determine the best workflow for me and whether or not I should transcode my raw footage to Cineform/DNxHD or just use a Proxy workflow.

    SInce you are keeping the cost down for the drives you're planning on installing, the Proxy workflow will work just fine.

    That said, you can instead use a hybrid "smart rendering" workflow by changing Sequence Settings' Preview File format for playing back clips with effects better and getting faster exports. In this workflow, you don't need proxies, you just are rendering more files to create files intermediate codecs. Of course, the preview files take time to render and take up a lot of room too!

    Here's a video that explains that hybrid smart rendering workflow I was talking about:

    Let us know if you have any questions.

    Thanks,
    Kevin

    Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community and Engagement Strategist – Adobe Pro Video and Audio
    E
    excited_Genie16B8
    Legend
    September 23, 2018

    I find the Proxy workflow to be ideal for tough to edit footage.  You get easier to edit footage at more manageable sizes.

    Just be sure to use Cineform proxies, not H.264 proxies.

      CC268
      CC268Author
      Inspiring
      September 23, 2018

      Thanks for the feedback. Yes I have been using Cineform proxies! One reason I ask this question is I am doing a big storage upgrade to optimize my system and I am deciding between 500GB or 1TB SSD/NVMe SSD. Going with 500GB drives will save me several hundred dollars. If I use the proxy workflow I can go with the smaller drives no problem.

      E
      excited_Genie16B8
      Legend
      September 23, 2018

      500 GB is a pretty small Media drive.  You might consider looking at a multi-Terabyte spinner.  The speeds are plenty fast enough for media, and you'll get a LOT more storage for the same money.

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