Proxies advantages and disadvantages

[PosadaPhotography]

Hi guys...sorry I didn't get back...sometimes work has to take precident. I haven't had much time to research all you guys have contributed, but here's where I stand. I looked at the performance stats and from what I can see, GPU load never goes above 10%. Memory doesn't get maxed out, and neither does disk. What does get high is CPU usage, but I need to look deeper into this. However, lets say right now I'm not going to address upgrades yet.

BTW...if it matters, when I said 4 cameras...they are GoPro9s. I don't know if they have an influence on PP performance.

HOWEVER...what I am going to look into is using proxies. Never have before... between you and me, I'm only in the video world for about 2 months...10+ years in the stills world)

So...Proxies...what are the down sides? 

[Peru Bob]

Branched and renamed title to the Premiere Pro forum.

[Warren Heaton]

The main reason to use the Premiere Pro Proxy Workflow is if the bandwidth requirements of your full resolution source footage exceed the playback capabilities of your workstation.

How about taking advantage of Smart Rendering in Premiere Pro instead of using the Proxy Workflow by transcoding your GoPro camera originals to Apple ProRes?

Larry Jordan explains it very well in his December 2019 article Premiere Pro: Export Faster with Smart Render:

https://larryjordan.com/articles/premiere-pro-export-faster-with-smart-render/

Here's the official Adobe documentation, Supported formats for smart rendering:

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/smart-rendering.html

You can transcode to ProRes using GoPro Player (https://community.gopro.com/t5/en/GoPro-Player/ta-p/413305), Adobe Media Encoder, or by enabling the Ingest option in Premiere Pro's Project Settings.

If you're creating content for YouTube or social media, I would go with Apple ProRes422 LT.  If you're creating content for broadcast or cable, I would go with Apple ProRes422 HQ.

Smart Rendering supports most of the CODECs that are good for editing.  If you don't go with ProRes, I would pick Avid DNxHD second and GoPro Cineform third.

[R Neil Haugen]

Warren is a very experienced pro, his advice is very good btw. I'll just add a bit more and/or different perspective.

The only downsides to use of proxies is a bit of time with the computer making them while (hopefully) you do something else. And a bit of space in disk storage.

Proxies are a heavily used process in video post. I also came out of a stills background. The image files there are tiny compared to what we deal with in video. So the processes have to be different just from a practical perspective.

For many people, setting the computer to make proxies say overnight for tomorrow's work is slick and all they need do. Finish the project, you dump the proxies as they can be recreated if you ever need to.

I know others that (like in Warren's example) transcode overnight instead of proxies. And work the project from the t-codes, using an intraframe codec like DNxHD/R, Cineform, or ProRes. Much larger files on disk, but they edit better.

And again, they dump the t-codes after the project is over because they can always recreate them from the more heavily compressed original files.

Neil

[Warren Heaton]

Something to know up-front when using the Premiere Pro Proxy Workflow:  Do not import and use Proxy files directly.  Always use the Full Resolution clips with Proxy files attached.  It's okay to take the Full Resolution clips offline, but not okay to use the Proxy files in place of the Full Resolution clips. 

[NilukaSandamali]

Well, things you can proxy are just not as useful now that it's more difficult. You cannot do URL blocks beyond the host resource (without proxying or full browsing, which is not truly a proxy at that point and won't work with a lot of websites) when everything isproxy io, for example.

[Warren Heaton]

@NilukaSandamali 

Are you referring to a proxy server that, as an intermediary server, retrieves data from an Internet source, such as a webpage, on behalf of a user?

[NilukaSandamali]

Well, things you can proxy are just not as useful now that it's more difficult. You cannot do URL blocks beyond the host resource (without proxying or full browsing, which is not truly a proxy at that point and won't work with a lot of websites) when everything is proxy io, for example. Additionally, websites are less independent today. When a person visits a single site, resources are pulled from 10, 15, and maybe 20 separate sites (talking about what the client browser is going to do). Although they aren't as useful as they previously were, I do appreciate proxies.

For some reason, only part of the text was posted.