Vertical Proxy is Stretched

[Cole W.]

Hey everyone! I'm ripping my hair out trying to edit a simply social media edit. It was filmed vertically at 4k 30fps and even at 1/8 playback quality my computer is struggling. I tried creaating a proxy but it was stretched. So I created an ingest preset "ProRes Proxy 720x1280p". I imported the ingest preset to premiere and ran them through the media encoder and the exact same thing is happening. The image is stretched. Ill attatch a screenshot of the stretched video preview and one of the settings right before I saved it as a preset.

Also, I consider myself an advanced video editor but I get super confused with everyones vocabulary. So If you're talking technical terms can you put in parentheses what it means. Haha Thanks guys!

[R Neil Haugen]

What are the sequence settings? Click in the timeline panel so it's got that thin blue "focus" line around it, then go to the main menu system, Sequence, and check the sequence framesize settings. Change if needed.

Neil

[Warren Heaton]

Transcode the 4k 30fps 2160-by-3840 source to ProRes422 LT, maintaining the frame size and frame rate in Adobe Media Encoder.   If using macOS you can right-click the clips in the Finder and choose Encode Selected Video, but the results will be ProRes422 not ProRes422 LT.  Yes, the files will be very large, but that's why they're good for editing with the Premiere Pro Proxy Workflow.

Use the resulting 2160-by-3840 30fps ProRes422 LT as the Full Resolution footage in Premiere Pro (not the camera original footage) for the Proxy Workflow, creating/attaching 720-by-1280 ProRes422 Proxy files.

There should be no distortion when Proxies are enabled.

[João Descalço · Accepted solution]

I found an easy way to create a proxy encoding profile that doesn't stretch/squeeze the frame. Should work for Mac and PC.

Go to Media Enconder, go to Create New Encoding Present, and create a new preset based on the codec you use normally (like Apple ProRes 422 Proxy), leave everything as is but untick the height and width checkmark and insert 1080x1920 (vertical video) and click OK. You have created the encoding preset. Now you need to create the ingest preset.

Go to Create New Ingest Preset, tick the Transcode files to Destination and select Quicktime format and the preset you just created before. Click OK.

Now head to Premiere and on the create proxies dialog, Add Ingest Preset, select the one you just created and select it from the preset list.

I think what causes the problem is that the proxies preset uses 1920x1080 default size and the match frame 'tick' also doesn't work when transcoding. This solution will transcode using basically the same codec but with vertical video dimensions.

[JonahOS]

Im having this same issue, however regardless of the changing the pixel dimensions. If I look at the proxy file, it looks perfect, the properties are correct. Same for the original. They should interchange perfectly, but premiere seems to be making an assumption and trying to correct for it. hmm 

[R Neil Haugen]

I can't tell from your post if you see Pr as trying to correct this on the timeline or in the export ... ?

Neil

[JonahOS]

The proxy the Media Encoder creates look properly if I play it in the finder, and it looks right if I bring it into premiere by itself. Turns out if I take the raw footage and transcode it to a new "original Camera Negative" as ProRes 422 HQ than proxy works fine. I think it has somethign to do with the source which is s1h HEVC 10 bit 422 3840 × 2160.  Thank you for responding! 

[Anthony28779268b00d]

Hi, can you give more details about the workaround you used? I'm also in the same situation where my proxy plays with the right format in the finder, and appears with the right format in première pro, but as soon as I try to play it in première pro, it gets stretched again... What is it exactly that you mean with this sentence here :right_arrow:"Turns out if I take the raw footage and transcode it to a new "original Camera Negative" as ProRes 422 HQ than proxy works fine. "

Thx

[Sydney Kla]

Thanks so much for the tip Joao!! You saved my evening !

One thing I'd like to add though, I had to export the new Ingest preset to my computer before I could select this preset in Premiere when creating proxies.

[R Neil Haugen]

Yes, it's not the easiest thing to do. You have to create that endoding preset, save it ... then make that ingest preset ... export THAT, saving it to the right spot on the computer so PrPro knows it's there ... and available for proxy work.

The fourth time you do it, it's not hard. The first couple, it's kinda awkward to do.

Neil

[walterf44684998]

So typical of Adobe incompetence ... complicate something that should be so easy. You'd think Adobe never heard of vertical video. So they sell you an application that is completely stumped by vertical video. There should be a simple adjustment "switch" right in Premiere "Pro" that flips a horizontal preset to vertical. Or, here's a radical idea: Premiere should come with existing vertical format proxy presets. For all their brilliance in creating apps with incredible capabilities, it still amazes me how they can overlook the needs of their customers to this extent. Hey Adobe, intuitive function ... it really is a thing.

[Warren Heaton]

@walterf44684998 

Vertical video is fairly well supported in Premiere Pro.  As far as I'm aware, there's no NLE that ignores how source footage is recorded in camera and as such it's up to us - the users - to either shoot it in the desired aspect ratio or to override it later.  If you happen to start a Premiere Pro feature request to add a “Rotate 90 or -90 degrees” option in the Interpret Footage dialog box, please share a link back here (I’d vote for it).  However, I see it being challenging for most hardware to play on-the-fly 90-degree rotation smoothly unless intermediate (also called mezzanine formats) are in use (ProRes, DNxHD, Cineform).

Vertical proxies exist via the "Match Source" option of the ingest preset.  Perhaps more importantly, vertical proxies work best when the full resolution source is an intermediate format (so, something like ProRes vertical full resolution source with ProRes vertical proxies).

Something else to consider when planning a vertical post-production workflow:  Since most high end cameras only shoot horizontal, a common workflow for Quibi (while it lasted) was to shoot horizontal 3840-by-2160 ProRes that easily reframes to vertical in a ProRes 1080-by-1920 Timeline and also offered the option of reframing to 1080-by-1080 or 1920-by-1080 if content was to be repurposed later.  This is in keeping with the feature film workflow of shooting “open gate” and deBayering to 2.35, 1.85, 1.78, 1.66, or 1.33 in post.  Premiere Pro even supports automatic reframing of wide content inside of vertical.

[JonahOS]

I didn’t read you’re entire response but I think you may have mist the gist
which is that vertical media doesn’t work with the internal proxy
generation workflow.

Or at least it didn’t, and if it does I’d like to know. I’m quite familiar
with making ingest and transcoding presets etc. no matter what I did the
right click “make proxy” results in incorrect aspect ratios. Work around
was doing it manually by dragging clips etc but I didn’t want to have to
deal with that.

The issue is that the proxy workflow actually adjusts for slightly
different aspect ratios(I think) and pixel sizes(720 vs 1080) but when you
ask it to do something it sees as wrong the result is wrong. Anyway…. I
don’t remember the details at this point. But I have a huge commercial tik
tok job coming up… so I’ll be back!
--
JonahOskow.com <>
914 924 0337

[R Neil Haugen]

The devs are typically so used to using the tools, that I think they would tend to see this as ... the app already has all the tools needed for a user to spend what, ten minutes, to set up probably several presets if they need them.

So they prioritize their work a bit different than many of us users would ... appreciate, perhaps.

But the tools are there, and for now, until they ship vertical presets (which yes, why don't they?) ... it doesn't take long to make them.

And ... to me ... anyone using 2022 and forward, with that ... Export Page ... should take a few minutes one time and go through the entire export Presets list. Doing two things:

• De-star all the ones you will never ever use.
• Create very specific presets, including separate variations as needed, name them carefully, and star them.

This speeds your future working immensely. And makes that Export page mostly usable.

Neil

[JonahOS]

The issue wasn’t that the ingest settings I needed didn’t exist. They don’t
but I made new ones and ended up trying every single premade one and made a
bunch of test versions. This issue is several months old, I’d need to
recreate the issue to even talk about it. --
JonahOskow.com <>
914 924 0337

[R Neil Haugen]

If you could get that information ... please!!!!   ... post it in a new thread on this forum, using the "Bug" option for type of discussion. That is now how we flag things for the devs to catch bugs/problems.

The more detail, the better they are able to replicacte. As ... what they can't replicate, they can't fix.

Neil

[caroline_edits]

Hi all, we made a video tutorial to walk you through the process of making a custom proxy preset for vertical video! This is a two-step process, but after you've done it, your vertical videos should not appear stretched again. 

[JonahOS]

Caroline, thanks for this! Just so we (I) don't feel gaslit, this is exactly what I had been doing with the exception of creating the preset/export in media encoder, not inside the export panel of Premiere. So, either creating the export/preset inside of premiere is somehow different than creating it inside of media encoder (yes I created the ingest preset in media encoder of course) or something has changed in the way premiere looks at vertical video with regards to proxy generation. Because this video isn't technically a solve, this video just shows the standard way to make proxy presets that aren't already available (although by using the export panel rather than creating the export preset in media encoder). All that being said, as long as it works I doesn't really matter why it didn't work in the past, or how I feel about it, haha. 

Also, question: why must making presets involve a two step process (as it has been for a while). It must be for a use case that I'm not totally aware of. It's a pain in the butt for a reason I can't comprehend. Not that that matters, once you wrap your ahead aroudn the fact you have to do create 2 presets.... to make 1 that works. Regardless, thank you for the video! 

[williamk85321936]

Wonderful video.. except for the search for the injest proxy you made part at the end...i'm on a PC.. and i am so agitated right now over the search part since it doesnt work for the PC like it does on the MAC.  Where do the saved proxy files get saved?  this needs to seriously be corrected so this workaround isnt needed..  vertical video is here to stay.  i'm at a 9 out of ten frustration level right now over this.

[Apoph15]

@caroline_edits it's good that you made a tutorial on how to make your own custom proxy preset, but in this case making our own shouldn't be necessary. This should just work how we expect it to right out of the box. If premiere automatically detects that my footage is vertical, then when i tell it to make proxies of that footage it's insane that the proxies come out vertically stretched to all hell and back in a horizontal format with huge black bars on either side.

Fix your programs, don't make us do these work-arounds for something that your programs should just do in the first place.

[Warren Heaton]

@Apoph15 

That's not a workaround.  It's how to use the software.

[Apoph15]

@Warren Heaton when you have to make a tutorial for people to do something that should be basic provided functionality - when we click 'make a proxy' and it completely breaks the footage by default so you have to make your own preset just for it to work correctly - then it's a workaround.

Asking premiere to make a proxy of vertical footage should be no different than asking it to make a proxy of horizontal footage - especially when the default preset is supposed to match the source aspect ratio. But it doesn't because it's broken. So this is a workaround.

[Warren Heaton]

@Apoph15 

The existing presets work great with mezzanine formats.

[Apoph15]

@Warren Heaton ok well they dont work with my footage or the guy who made this post or all the other people commenting having the same issue so what's your point? you just seem to really want to tell me this isn't a problem but like it is? what am i paying adobe every single month for if not to make the software better and easier to use? it's literally their one job.

[Warren Heaton]

@Apoph15 

If you think there's something that can be made easier, definitely put in s feature request; however, it's up to us to know which formats are good for editing and which formats are good for delivery.