Proxies and varied-resolution multicam editing?

[ashleyc59689744]

I am an editing student just starting to work in the industry and I am finding myself in a difficult position on one of my first assistant jobs.

The footage is documentary 2-camera interview footage. One camera is 4096x2160, and one is 1920x1080. I am supposed to sync the footage and put it in multicam. The camera audio isn't good enough to auto-multicam and sometimes one of the cameras cuts out so there aren't common edit points, so I'm doing it manually by syncing and creating a new sequence. Since they are two different resolutions, I found out how to adjust the settings so that the editor can work with it and scale the larger angle as he wishes.

But the playback at even 1/8 quality is really bad since one the files are so big, which would definitely put the editor at a disadvantage. Is it possible to work with proxies in varied-resolution multicam sequences? How do I go about creating that? How would it affect the editor's use of the multicam scaling? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Carlos Ziade]

Okay, you can create proxies of your files and choose to save them in the same filename as originals

and next to them and work on a 1920 x 1080 sequence since it is better later to scale down your

4k footage than scale up your HD so that you do not loose quality for the HD footage. Proxies

will still hold the original dimensions, but premiere will be actually reading from the proxy files which

were encoded but not the original high res files, so when you right click on a file and reveal the

properties, it will show you both the original and the proxy properties.

01. Select all your footage in the project panel, right click on the first and choose create proxies

02. Choose any H.264 from the drop down, and if you would like to ingest your own proxy settings

       see here : Adobe Premiere Pro Help | Ingest and Proxy Workflow in Premiere Pro CC 2015.3

03. Choose destination next to original media and click okay, it will start creating the proxies

04. After that Premiere will automatically start reading the proxies and you can notice from file

      properties that you have both the original and proxy properties.

05. Drag your files to the timeline and scale down your 4K footage to fit.

06. Finish editing and select back all your footage, right click and reconnect full resolution media

07. Render and export

[excited_Genie16B8]

Select all the HD clips in the bin and create the appropriate aspect Cineform proxies.  (Don't use H.264 proxies as suggested by Carlos.)

When those are done, select all the C4K clips and create the appropriate aspect Cineform proxies for those.

You need to do this in two steps because the aspect ratios are different.

[Carlos Ziade]

Jim Simon​

Well Jim's advice to use Cineform works good if you want to save time and machine power during

the encoding process, but you will still be working with a large file even though its a proxy, this might

be better for color grading, warp stabilizer and some other reasons when you would still like to work

with a higher quality proxy than the H.264.

I recommended H.264 because it is faster in editing, you can lower the file as much as you would like to

if you go to manual ingest of an H.264. But it will take more time and power during encoding.

After all, proxies will not affect your original footage, you will be reconnecting your original footage

after done with editing, so it is up to you to choose which proxy setting

[excited_Genie16B8]

I recommended H.264 because it is faster in editing,

It really isn't.

[Carlos Ziade]

I restated that you are right concerning this, so no need to comment it further

[Carlos Ziade]

But as Jim stated, I would also go to Cineform as lot of people experienced even faster editing

with Cineform, it is a larger file, but there are technical considerations on how the CPU

interprets the frames and it seems better, faster and easier with Cineform.

Again, proxies will not affect your the quality of your original footage because you will not forget to relink

your original footage after editing

Test and let us know

[Warren Heaton]

Be sure to follow Jim’s instructions on doing the 1080 material and the 2160 material separately with the correct corresponding proxy presets.

(If you’re on a Mac, use the Apple ProRes 422 (Proxy) option.)

You’ll have to have a discussion with the editor/producer/director about how you want to conform the two different frames aspect ratios as well as two different frame sizes.

Do you know how important it is to finish at 4K?  I’d take a look at using Red Giant Instant 4K (free trial at Buy Red Giant Instant 4K | Download the free trial ) to upconvert the 1080 footage of finishing at 2160.  It works directly in Premiere Pro.  Compare this to the Detail-preservice Upscale effect that’s included with After Effects, but I’ve found Instant 4K to usually have the best results (currently) for software up conversion.

-Warren

[Carlos Ziade]

why go for third party plugins when you can do it with after effects bicubic sampling  :

bicubic sampling for improved scaling and other transformations in After Effects | Creative Cloud bl...

[Warren Heaton]

Hi Carlos:

Back in early 2013, yes, I would have recommended enabling the Bicubic Upsampling switch in After Effects for raster footage scaled above 100%; however, Detail-preserving Upscale replaced that feature in October 2013.

At least in my usage, Red Giant Instant 4K renders a better result than Detail-preserving Upscale which yields a better result than Bicubic Upsampling.  It's defiantly worth rendering some tests (as suggested) with the trial version and I'd even bet 25 cents that all the stakeholders involved in the documentary will prefer the results of Instant 4K.

Also, Instant 4K works directly in Premiere Pro.  Granted, Adobe makes it as easy as it gets to replace footage with an After Effects Comp and I'd certainly go with Detail-preserving Upscale if the producers would not purchase Instant 4K or were happy enough with the AE results.

-Warren

[Carlos Ziade]

Hi Warren

yeah I completely agree with you, will try Red Giant's plug for myself... tx for that

[Carlos Ziade]

and by the way, when your bosses decide which resolution they wanna go for

adjusting the upscaling or downscaling in the source sequence will update in

the multicam sequence, just use the appropriate sequence settings for the

multicam sequence and adjust the source sequences accordingly ...

I don't think it is a good idea to apply any scaling to the multicam sequence