Make Proxies Premiere

[Cinema Físico]

Hello,

I have some material in 4K and 6k from Alexa and Red. What I use to do, I transcode this material to Apple Pro Res Proxy and preserve the original frame size. I use this workflow because I don’t want to resize my material when I link to the original file. If the proxy is the same frame size of the original camera file, any scale intervention will be the same in both files. Am I right? Or can I transcode the file changing the frame size (example: 6k to 720p) and when I scale a proxy file image (720p) it will be the same when I relink to the original 6k câmera file? What is the right way to transcode a file? Preserve the original frame size or reduce it?
I love Apple Pro Res Proxy. I can edit fast and the image quality is good, but the files are too large.Want to know others codecs that I can use. A codec similar to Pro Res Proxy( good image quality and fast to edit), but smaller files size. I have tried H264, but didn’t like it. Yes it is smaller, but it doesn’t play as smooth as Pro Res.

Thanks a lot.

[Phillip Harvey]

You're going to want to continue to use an intraframe codec like ProRes Proxy for your proxies and not an interframe/Long-GOP format like h264. I personally use ProRes Proxy as well, and I don't know if you're going to find a lower bitrate option (and lower file size). The thing that will help you is that yes you can use smaller resolutions when you're making/using your proxies if you've created or attached them via Premiere. I usually work with 720p proxies with my 1080p or 4k media and I haven't had any issues when it comes to toggling the proxies on and off and the use of any effects. Before Premiere provided the proxy toggle option, the frame size may have been an issue when you go to relink the original media.

If you're interested you can look at some other intermediate codecs here: https://blog.frame.io/2017/02/13/50-intermediate-codecs-compared/ but I can already tell you there's nothing smaller than ProRes Proxy on that list (besides h264, which is a no go.)

[Cinema Físico]

Hi Phillip,

Ok. Nice one. So, when I ingest the original camera files by Premiere and transcode it I can resize those files to make proxies files (6k to 720p). By the way, do you know a solid tutorial about it? Have seen some tutorials in youtube, but each one tells me different things. Is there a Adobe protocol in how to make proxies in "the right way"?

What often happen is that I receive the proxies from the DIT. So I can not ingest the camera files by Premiere, since the DIT has done this job in DaVinci. Can I ask for the DIT to make smaller resolution files? 6k to 720p? If this job is done outside Adobe environment, am I going to have any problem with scale? In this case, how should I proceed?

Thanks a lot.

[ah_photo]

Is there a Adobe protocol in how to make proxies in "the right way"?

Typically "the right way" (or at least reccommended) would be to do it within Premiere. Either with Ingest through Premiere (with Ingest settings set to create proxies on import), or just by manually creating proxies.

Doing it in one of these two ways automatically will utilize Media Encoder to create proxies in the background for you, and will automatically attatch the proxies to the source media when they are available, so you can keep editing in the meantime with originals if you like.

When using either of these methods, Premiere will offer some proxy presets for you. If none of these work or you want to create your own specifically, you can use Media Encoder to create an Encoding Preset and/or Ingest Preset with the specifications you want. If you're creating custom proxies in one go through ingest, you'll want to make both an encoding preset + an ingest preset. The former would be the transcode format, and latter would be the ingest instruction set. If you're creating proxies after the fact manually, you just need the encoding preset so you can tell Premiere how to transcode the clips.

All of that said you still can create proxies externally if you want and attatch them via Attatch Proxies, although you'd want to make sure that everything was identicial (timecode, aspect ratio, frame rate, etc.). If not you may run into issues when you try to export with the originals.

[Cinema Físico]

Hi awh11,

Thanks! I dig it! And Phillip thank you! I think you guys solved my doubts. Going to work on this tomorrow. If another doubt came to surface, I'll make another reply.

Thanks a lot, guys.

[Phillip Harvey]

Just wanted to add that you can attach a separately created proxy file to your footage that is in a different resolution and it should still work (other than that as awh11 said everything else needs to match). Your DIT is doing a solid by creating all these files for you ahead of time but if they are matching resolution then you're still getting some pretty high bitrate files on your 4k and 6k.

[Richard M Knight]

I've not had any experience using proxies but a few post here have mentioned that the audio track format and numbers of tracks has to be the same between the origional and the proxies.

[Cinema Físico]

And can I add a LUT when I transcode in Adobe environment? 

[Phillip Harvey]

If you create your own custom ingest preset to make a proxy you can add a lut to it, yes.

[Cinema Físico]

Was reading the "Ingest and Proxy Workflow in Adobe Premiere Pro". At this website: https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/ingest-proxy-workflow.html#IngestSettingsMediaBrowser

And find this:

"Specific tips & workflow

The supplied proxy presets are compatible with sources of certain standard frames sizes. Refer to the summary section of the Ingest Settings dialog box to see the compatible source frame sizes.  For sources with other frame sizes, create your own ingest preset that has evenly divisible frame dimensions. For example, with 4K 3840x2160 source clips you would have to create an ingest preset that renders to a 960x540 frame size in Adobe Media Encoder, then import that ingest preset into the Premiere Pro Ingest Settings dialog box. See the section below that describes how to create your own ingest preset. "

So should we match the frame sizes? Like 4k 3840x 2160 divide by 4 is 960x540. If a take a 4k and tanscode it for 1280×720 it will not match the frame. I am Right? 

[Phillip Harvey]

If you're creating proxies you'd typically want to match the Aspect Ratio.

The ratio is really the important part.

16:9 = 16/9 = 1.77

3840/2160 = 1.77

1280/720 = 1.77

So 1280x720 footage would still fit your 3840x2160 media. It's worth noting that there is no harm in having your aspect ratio be slightly off. I've even heard of people preferring that so that they know that proxies are toggled on, although you could equally create a watermark on your footage, but either way - whether your media is watermarked, the aspect ratio is off, or it looks indistiguishable from the original media, only your original media will be exported - so it's dealer's choice in that sense.

[Cinema Físico]

How should I behave when I get a footage with a aspcet ratio different than 1.77? I noticed that some footages has bars on top and on bottom.  If I make a 720p transcode from a source footage with a aspect ratio different aspect ratio than 1.77 will the proxy have a bars om top and bottow? If yes, should I scale it to fill the screen and then when I toogle back to original camera file, it will remain filling the screen?

Thanks.

[Phillip Harvey]

720p would have an aspect ratio of 1.77.

But if your proxies do have a different aspect ratio and you have black bars, do not try to adjust the scale of the video to fix the black bars. That adjustment will transfer to the original media.

You can either choose to cope with the aspect ratio difference, or you can create new proxies.