DISCUSS: HDR Proxies in Premiere Pro

[Smit-Shah]

We are rolling out Color managed proxies for HDR clips. With this, proxies will now be created in the color space of the original media (for Rec. 709, Rec. 2100 HLG & PQ). For Log clips, Premiere will create Rec. 709 proxies without any color conversion. This way, users will get the same color correction and LUTs effect on the media as on the proxy.

Proxies can be created in Premiere Pro in 2 ways.

1. By right clicking on media in Project Panel and choosing Proxy > Create Proxy
2. During Ingest. File > Project Setting > Ingest settings

In the recent versions of Premiere pro when users would import HDR footage (Rec. 2100 HLG/ PQ or Log clips) and create proxies they would see color difference between the original media and proxies. This was because proxies did not respect the color space of the media and were not color managed themselves.

With the new update in Beta, this is fixed. H264 & QT Prores proxies are color managed and are created in the same color space as their original media. Keen users will also notice that when making proxies for HDR clips (Rec. 2100 HLG & PQ) the Low Resolution Proxy options are disabled as those formats don’t support HDR media.

Low-res Proxies are disabled for HDR media

Note: During proxy creation at ingest, if user choses Low Resolution proxy, clips in HDR color space (Rec. 2100 HLG & PQ) will still create Medium Resolution proxy to support HDR content.

For users opening projects created in older versions, they will continue seeing the mismatch of colors between original media and proxies, and they will have to rebuild their proxies to have the latest changes reflect.

[R Neil Haugen]

Thanks for getting this out at least to the public beta, Smit. Badly needed.

Neil

[ah.photo]

Great to hear!

[FlyingFourFun]

What's the target release date?

[R Neil Haugen]

Never ever given due to the lawyer's for the company.

That said, there's NAB coming up in a couple weeks. They do tend to like to have a new update or version for that. So ... maybe?

We'll all know for sure when it drops. Not before.

Neil

[Smit-Shah]

This feature is already released!

[Todd Boekelheide]

OK I started working in the current beta this morning. Here's what I'm experiencing:

- For our current project, shot in Log on a Sony fx9 and begun in 2020, the update to the 2022 version of PPro at first seemed to break the look we had (we were/are using LUTS to achieve our look). Through a highly circuitous process and a lot of luck, I learned that there was a way to override the new, unexplained Interpretation of the footage as being in its color space.

- I then discovered that making proxies using the medium quality QuickTime preset didn't work correctly and the proxies couldn't be made in that version. So I created dummy projects in the 2021 version to create proxies, which then looked correct.

- Now, those proxies don't look right in this Beta. They don't look "double-LUTted" - they just look quite dark.

- Is that expected behavior? Again, note: color saturation is about the same, but it looks like the gamma has been cranked up a lot.

Todd

I had to go back to the 2021 version to create proxies and have them look as similar as possible. For context: 

[Todd Boekelheide]

Sorry, the beginning of the line after my signoff was some abandoned text that I didn't delete.

[R Neil Haugen]

They've made enough changes in the newer builds to the color handling that the "old" stuff from two builds ago is ... ancient history.

I'll be glad when all the new stuff is fully implemented and we're back to being able to just work without the constant testing & such. But, we're in a transitory period so this is to be expected.

Neil