Proxies should obey source clip interpolation

Question

I'm having TREMENDOUS deviation from my timeline in Premiere vs Resolve and my XML export.

But I figured out what was going on.

We invested HEAVILY into a NAS system to centralize the media and to allow our colourist to use the ORIGINAL footage files (rather than a flattened, recompressed version of the file) . With this workflow we have to use proxies to edit with (original 4K and 8K footage is too heavy a task for most systems) . This means we cannot adjust the primary frame rate of the clip because Premiere's software doesn't apply the same frame rate interpolation to the proxies. (Why? I do not know.) So, as many editors suggested, we simply batch changed the speed of the source clips inside the bin. All the clips will now play at the intended slow but smooth frame rate. It's basically the same thing as a frame rate interpolation.

Except it isn't.

Because ... while the XML can tell the NLE what the adjusted frame-rate of the source clip should be, it doesn't have a clue you adjusted the speed of the source clip has been changed to. The XML doesn't forward that intel.

This means for every future project rather than batch processing all my clips to play back at a different speed, I have to add the clip to my timeline first and then adjust the speed. Or...give up exporting an XML that related back to the original footage, strip out all the LUTS, flatten the video, and then scene-detect the whole timeline either in Premiere or Resolve. (We prefer doing this in Premiere so we can break out the clips different cameras so the colourists know which clips came from which cameras)

I have to say, both options suck

and all this is very avoidable if Premiere simply tweaked the code to tell the proxies to match the adjusted frame rate of the original footage. I think that would solve our XML headaches.

Thanks for listening....

R Neil Haugen · Answer

I work for/with/teach pro colorists, mostly based in Resolve though some work in Baselight.

They work with projects from FCP, Premiere, and Avid.

None of which have processes that Resolve can always (or even mostly) correctly see time changes from. It's a major part of conform processes.

As are size changes.

And it doesn't matter which app's project is going where. Speed changes, speed ramps, and size changes all require matching to a "flattened" exported file.

Yea, it's a pain. And yea, all colorists would love a system that actually works all the way through the process, and across all apps, as conform is often a pain in the tushie.

Within Premiere, proxies can typically be made and work as expected, if the Speed/Duration process was used first as the speed change process for the original clip changes.

Not always, but quite often.

And only within Premiere.

The "Interpret Footage" dialog process doesn't work for this at all.

Neil

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