Proxy Editing

Report · Jun 23, 2011

Is there any way to set up a proxy file automatically like you can in FCP7 or Edius? I know you can change the playback to 1/4 resolution, but that's just not as nice as playing back a fast, non-high bit rate file... not to mention it's easier to hand off to a long distance editor.

Report · Mar 06, 2013

Not if it get's the job done quickly and keeps the work coming in.

Report · Mar 07, 2013

"It'd be foolish to upgrade from DV to AVCHD and expect your older Core 2 processor to keep up"

Well of course. But if you've spent a few grand on a new computer, and then almost a grand on Adobe software, and a few grand on Autocad software... then the boss can quite rightly say Make It Work! We are NOT spending any more on upgrades, extra hardware, not even a new chair for a couple of years.

So when a client has a multicam project, or a promotional animation, and theres some sticky point that pushes your computer to the limit, a workaround is the sensible and only solution.

I wish we all had unlimited funds to just throw money at every problem.

Report · Mar 07, 2013

a workaround is the sensible and only solution.

Agreed. I'm only advocating that for those occasionally difficult projects that exceed your new hardware's capabilities, you find that work around yourself, instead of asking Adobe to do it for you by investing limited resources on developing an integrated proxy work flow.

I think it would serve the majority of editors better if Adobe spent their time on making native files easier to edit on any given hardware. Plenty of folks have complemented how smooth Edius is by comparrison with the same media on the same computer, so at first glance, it does look like there's room for Adobe to improve here. That would be the better path, I think.

Report · Mar 07, 2013

And finding an answer ourselves is exactly what we do - by asking around in forums.

Also you'll probably find Adobe is quite capable of answering queries for themselves without relying on fans.

And anybody who accepts money from Joe Public becomes accountable for their products and promises.

If adobe wants to leave proxies out of premiere - note their other products make use of proxies - then premiere better work as well as the competition.

With the advent of new film media all the time, proxies are inevitable.

Report · Mar 07, 2013

then premiere better work as well as the competition.

Preferably better.

Report · Mar 07, 2013

With the advent of new film media all the time, proxies are inevitable.

I don't know about that. PP has been around a while now, with a myriad of new formats since production went HD, and Adobe has always worked very hard to not need proxies for most editors working on 'competent' equipment. I think that's a good design philosophy, and I hope they keep it up.

Report · Aug 24, 2013

Well Adobe After Effects has a proxy system that works fine, export your proxies (I sometimes make half-HD proxies of HD media), comp and preview at half res until near finishing and then use full HD. Why do you need full HD if your only looking at a preview window less than a quarter of a 17" (at most) laptop monitor? . Also isn't the whole CC edit anywhere concept based around essentially a proxy workflow? Surely it would be possible to create a non-internet version of that? So this is not something Adobe can't do or hasn't done.

As for "Competent" equipment, if the same equipment can edit without hiccups on other software then the problem is not the hardware.

An editor may buy a new desktop but not update their laptop for another year or two and they should have a way of still putting that machine to use. Only working on the latest and greatest hardware is fine for finishing tools but somewhat absurd for offline tools.

Report · Aug 27, 2013

Only working on the latest and greatest hardware is fine for finishing tools but somewhat absurd for offline tools.

What I'm saying is that Premiere Pro has always been designed around an online work flow.

Report · Mar 06, 2013

There are other reasons to want proxy editing in a distributed workflow (such as the ability to cut with dailies issued by another department, which happens all the time in CGI). Multicam in Premiere is a particular issue that I acknowledge the MPE cannot cope with as well as customers expect it should - even on the machines that currently top the PPBM tables you won't be multicamming 8 shots of 4K RAW.

Going back a couple of years I would agree with your proposition that a 'pro' user will have the funds to invest in both the software and the hardware, but you have to remember that the customer landscape has changed completely with CC. We now have a vast community of users whose total outlay for CS6 is a few dollars for a monthly subscription, and the capital investment in an editing workstation and RAID array is often beyond their means. Some CC customers might only use Premiere a few times a year, and even with budgets available there's no commercial justification for them to buy Harm's Monster.

Does that imply that for some people, Adobe's decision to include 'pro' applications in a 'prosumer' rental service was a road to nowhere? Yes. Does it mean that those customers who would like to use CC on high-end but consumer-spec machines should be told they're wishing for the impossible? No - so this thread needs to steer away from any implications that customers are second-class. I'm not saying we will get proxies in the next release, but asking for them is perfectly OK and sensible.

joe bloe premiere wrote:
Proxy editing is a practice only required if an editing system is
incapable of a fluid editing experience with demanding media types.
As a long time professional doing 'real work', one thing I accept
is that I will need to constantly upgrade hardware... including the
expectation of completely replacing my primary editing system
every 24 to 36 months.
Saying "buy a better computer' is the reality of professional work if
one intends to maintain pace with constantly advancing capabilities.

Report · Mar 06, 2013

I'm not saying we will get proxies in the next release, but asking for them is perfectly OK and sensible.

I second that. Recently I tested a 4 camera GoPro multicam project on my 'Monster' and it was jerky and choppy like hell. OK, this is a typical CS6 problem, so maybe in the future this will be solved, but in a number of cases and especially with systems that are not as extravagant as my own system, it makes a lot of sense to use proxy editing. Edius has a nice workflow for that and I think Adobe does well to copy that functionality in their suite as well.

Report · Mar 05, 2013

you obviously dont do any *real* work!

I'm kind of curious...what's the *fake* work?

Report · Aug 27, 2013

ExactImage wrote:
The only way to work on this (within reasonable time and keeping my sanity) was to take the footage offline, rename the assets folder (to something that signified offline) then reconnet to the media in the proxy folder.
Once the edit was complete enough to go back to the original media, take all footage offline again, rename the proxy folder to proxy_offline (so premiere pro can't reconnect there automatically), raname the assets folder back to the original name (instead of offline) and reconnect.
Without renaming the folders, Premiere Pro attempts to reconnect to the orriginal footage even though it was pointed to a different folder for the first file.

Hi Exactimage,

Your workflow is great for proxy editing. Thanks for writing that up.

Since this post, Premiere Pro CC used in combination with Prelude CC, might offer you even more advantages.

You could use Prelude CC to create lightweight proxy files before starting to edit.
After editing, you can use Link and Locate to relink to original media automatically and all at once.

Thanks,

Kevin

Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community & Engagement Strategist – Pro Video and Audio

Report · Jul 19, 2011

the better solution (I think) is to use hardware sufficient to the task.

I think you're missing my point. I have 5 edit bays that are running 6-core machines with MPE cards and 16-24 GB ram. We have plenty of horse power for editing. But there are times, like the other post, where we also edit multicam 5Dm2 and 7D clips and Premiere can't keep up natively, even on the fastest machine.

Also it would be nice to send a sequence offline to a low power laptop for field editing or distance editing and bring it all back to the big machine for the final render. It's a one-click opperation in Edius for 1 source clip or 1,000. The only way to have a distance editor work on our 30-minute shows right now is to mail out a physical harddrive since there's about 1TB of footage.

A proxy setup in Edius would take that 1TB and turn it in to about 1GB... an easy download from FTP.

This and 4-camera limited multicam keep me on the fence with a full switch to Edius.... if it only had dynamic linking.

Report · Jul 19, 2011

While I agree that some sort of proxy editing system would be great, I think it's highly unlikely that we'll ever see it built into PPro. Adobe has gone too far down the road with native editing to back up the truck now. This would have to be sort of a "roll-yer-own" endeavor.

I've done this in the past similar to the way ExactImage is describing. Transcode a batch of files from one format to another, edit with the "proxies," and then change the folder name at the OS level and relaunch. So long as the file parameters (e.g. dimensions) match, and the file extensions are the same, relinking should be a one-click or even no-click operation.

The challenge comes with dealing with stuff like H.264 DSLR clips, though. You're already dealing with relatively "small" files, due to the H.264 compression. You could transcode to something like DVCPRO HD to make editing easier (even my 3-year-old laptop will handle about 3 streams of DVCPRO HD fine), but you'll really be bloating the files. I just converted a Canon 1080/30p clip to DVCPRO HD 1080/30p, and the file size went from 176MB to 426MB--the reverse of what you're after. You could experiment with some other codecs--PhotoJPEG or MJPEG come to mind--but it'll be a delicate balance between being able to see clearly enough to edit, small file sizes, and not taxing the system with as much or more decoding than you were already. This was easier back in the days of SD, because DV was always a decent offline codec; I'm not aware of a similar codec that will work for HD, though. Technically, you could transcode to DV (widescreen, probably), but it gets a bit messy when you're trying to conform frame rates, frame sizes, etc.

There's no easy solution to this, and again, I wouldn't hold my breath for proxy editing to be a part of any future version of Premiere Pro. I reserve the right to be completely wrong about that, but I think the current state of the application speaks to the likelihood of that ever happening. Make a feature request, though, and see what happens. In the meantime, do some experimentation with various codecs and see what works most efficiently in PPro from a size-to-decoding-power ratio perspective.

Report · Jul 19, 2011

Colin Brougham wrote:
While I agree that some sort of proxy editing system would be great, I think it's highly unlikely that we'll ever see it built into PPro. Adobe has gone too far down the road with native editing to back up the truck now.

I don't agree that it would be a "back up the truck" feature. I think it's like adding another gear forward. That's what's nice about Edius. (Have I mentioned that before anywhere in this post?)

I really want to stay away from rendering out every clip to a lower rez. In the other program I can't seem to stop mentioning (which I don't like nearly as much as Premiere, by the way), you can export just your sequence files. So if you have 50 sequences in your project, you're not exporting the associated files for all 50 sequences, just the ones tied into the sequence you're exporting.

One or 2 TBs worth of footage is a wee bit much to send to AME to batch export. I'd be done editing two whole projects by the time it finished my offline files.

Oh well... I'll send another feature request, but I think Adobe has my name blacklisted because I never get the features I request. (Just kidding, Todd).

Report · Jul 19, 2011

I don't agree that it would be a "back up the truck" feature. I think it's like adding another gear forward.

You're missing my point. I understand this feature would be useful, but it would involve (I suspect--I'm not a software engineer) a massive overhaul of the program to enable such functionality. Given the shorter durations between releases, that would mean a lot of other things that would benefit far more users would have to be left on the table.

Again: I'm not saying this is a bad idea or that it isn't useful or that it won't or can't be implemented. It would just seem that the cost-benefit of such a feature would shove this way down the list of priorities. The amount of effort that has gone into editing native source files would suggest that that is going to be continued to be improved and accelerated, in lieu of a built-in proxy editing system. I AM prepared to eat my words, however. If Premiere Pro goes more in the direction of being able to pperate collaboratively in a network situation or other shared/distributed way, there is the possibility (perhaps necessity) of developing some sort of proxy codec, etc.

What proxy codec is Edius using? What codec would you suggest for Premiere Pro? I've yet to find in my experiments any codec that meets the lightweight requirements--both from a file size and a processor standpoint--to facilitate a decent proxy workflow.

One or 2 TBs worth of footage is a wee bit much to send to AME to batch export. I'd be done editing two whole projects by the time it finished my offline files.

Ain't no free lunch, my friend

Report · Jul 19, 2011

I'm not a coder either so everythign looks easy to me. But it doesn't seem like it would be a huge deal to implement. They've already got a solid encoder, so "all" (blissfully speaking) they would have to do is:

use the collect feature for that sequence
instead of moving the actual clips, AME proxifies them
then PR exports the sequence with the new associations. This is what Edius referrs to as "Check out"

When you're all done, you do the inverse of that and "Check in" the project back to the master project. They already have everything to do it. It will just take 8 lines of additional code... at least the way I see it.

What proxy codec is Edius using? What codec would you suggest for Premiere Pro? I've yet to find in my experiments any codec that meets the lightweight requirements--both from a file size and a processor standpoint--to facilitate a decent proxy workflow.

Not sure. I'll have to dust off the product again and check it out. I think it exports to mp4s, but who knows what inside that container. It's been a while since I looked at that.

Ain't no free lunch, my friend

There you go again, the first to burst my bubble.

Report · Jul 19, 2011

It will just take 8 lines of additional code... at least the way I see it.

Ah ha ha ha! And I've got some land south of the Can-Am border to sell you

Seriously though, I think it's a major undertaking. You're talking about being able to version a project file, track changes in it or them, generate and then manage proxies, and then be able to successfully relink proxies to the originals, which are presumably full-length and not trimmed. This isn't just an aftermarket bolt-on spoiler, here--you're talking about tearing out the engine and rebuilding it.

I think it exports to mp4s, but who knows what inside that container.

I'd be curious to see how this works. MP4 seems like an odd choice, but then again, some cameras actually generate low-res MP4 proxies while shooting, so it's conceivable.

There you go again, the first to burst my bubble.

As always, my pleasure

Report · Mar 06, 2013

You can export the files in Adobe Media Encoder, and then relink to the original files when your're finished editing. Here you go: http://adobe.ly/XqxSWB

Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community & Engagement Strategist – Pro Video and Audio