UHD / 4K Proxy Workflow

[arodon7]

I have a few TBs of UHD footage shot at 60p with a Sony FS7 + created 23.98 / 1920 x 1080 ProRes Proxy files using this very useful tutorial : Premiere Pro Proxy Workflow with Interpreted Footage - YouTube

Even though my proxy file is 1920 x 1080 + the proxy button is toggled on, when I create a sequence from the clip, the sequence is still 3840 x 2160. I guess Premiere is always referencing the original media? I plan to put all of my original media on a separate drive and just edit with the proxy footage until I'm ready to finish and can just connect back to the original media. We plan to either finish in 2k or 4k but haven't decided and this is a longform doc, so might take a few years.

Also, my playback is still choppy using the 4k sequence. I made another 1920 x 1080 sequence with previews set to prores proxy, dropped the clip into the timeline and I have to resize the clip + timeline render is red. I have to view the clip with the proxy toggled at about 1/4 the resolution. Shouldn't the proxy files playback fairly smooth?

[R Neil Haugen · Accepted solution]

Trying to guess your exact steps here, not sure I'm landing that one.

First ... the new proxy feature does always reference the original media. So yes, making a sequence from that it will make the sequence at the original media setting.

Next ... it sounds like you really want to work with essentially a lower size copy of your media for perhaps an extended time, then replace with the original media? For that, an older style manual proxy process might work better ... essentially, you create transcodes at the smaller file size but exact name duplicating for all media, and store in similar folder structures. Then you remove one set of media, and when you get the 'media offline, search?' process, navigate to and select the same-named media of the other size.

I've forgotten the exact steps used ... maybe someone else will pop in.

Neil

[arodon7]

Yes that is how I would normally do an offline / online workflow but I was hoping to utilize Premiere's new feature. I chose 1080 because I thought that would be easier on my computer but the proxy frame sizes need to match the original footage? But yes, essentially I want to work with only the proxy footage for most of my edit. I would normally link back to the original footage in Resolve but so much of our film was shot in 60p and it would be easier to link back within premiere.

[R Neil Haugen]

Yea, you pretty much need the old offline media process for proxy working. The new proxy process is setup to get the long-GOP 4/6k media usable on most machines I think. Which in reality is a very different need.

Neil

[arodon7]

Thanks Neil, I did a test with the old method...transcoded a .MXF 4 channel mono clip in AME to a 4 channel .MOV proxy clip. When I created a timeline with the proxy file, manually made the clip offline and reconnected to the original 4k clip, some of the audio channels were missing. Posted about it here: Adobe Media Encoder Audio Settings / Premiere Audio Sequence settings

tried to mess with various settings but none of them seemed to make a difference. Not sure if I'm missing something here...I suppose I could relink back to just the picture on a timeline and use the audio from my proxy files from another timeline since they are *seemingly* the same?

[R Neil Haugen]

I think yea ... I've done a little bit of the older online/offline/replace media but it was what, five years ago or so? Memory isn't particularly great.

But I know that "we" would create & send proxies off to Resolve and round-trip them, then "offline" and "locate" the original media back in PrPro.

And ... I'm pretty sure ... all stripped of audio channels, as they weren't needed "over there".

Neil