want to move all the proxies to a separate drive so the client can work on the road

[Michael Grenadier]

So I've been wrangling a complicated project for a client for the last year and a half.  over 40 TB of media including many 2 camera interviews and 3 or 4 camera music performances most of it shot in 4k.  There's also extensive archival footage much of it low resolution screeners... etc. The clients going to LA later this summer to meet with graphics and archival people and wants to be able to take a drive with just the proxies so he can continue editing...  I've always generated the proxies from within Premiere and had them stored in a proxy folder next to the camera original...  We had a lot of problems with generating the proxies (mostly shot on sony cameras) til we figured out how to override the color space to rec 709 and the audio issues are complicated (thanks Sony which seems to record with 8 channels of audio whether you want to or not... although it's possible there's a way to override this - but seems to be beyond the capabilities of most camerapeople) and in many of the shoots, the primary audio was recorded to a dedicated digital audio recorder (usually a zoom) and even there the track structure was not always simple...  So I've needed to modify the audio tracks in most of the footage and dealing with this in the multicam sequence creation is complicated.  

Any hints on how to make this process simple (I can dream can't I)?  All the media is on a pegasus raid at this point (and backed up to a second pegasus raid).  I think we've used the medium resolution prores proxy preset and I checked a clip yesterday and the camera original for this 4k clip was aobut 40 gigs and the proxy was about 4 gigs, so we should be able to fit all the proxies, and audio files on a relatively portable usb3 drive...

I'll post back with my workflow and any problems we experience.  I'm hoping I can wrangle this in a day (again, I can dream can't I).    Thanks as always to everyone who contributes here (and of course to the adobe team).  This is an incredible resource...

[Ann Bens]

I would not move, but rather copy/paste

[Michael Grenadier]

I mis-spoke.  Of course, I meant copy.  and we're on the mac, which doesn't make "moving" simple anyway.   thanks for the heads-up

[Michael Grenadier]

and just to make things more complicated, because I've stored the proxies in a folder next to the camera original files, Sony has a complex folder structure for the mxf files with something called "packages" on the mac, so recreating the folder structure may be difficult...  A friend suggested using a program called "beyond compare" to do the copying of the proxies maintaining the folder structure.   https://www.scootersoftware.com/home.  Does anyone have any experience with it?  Thinking it might make sense to  "move" (actually move) the proxies to a higher place in the folder structure to avoid any issues with the "packages" and then obviously need to "reattach" the proxies.   And wondering if any of the process can be implemented with the Premiere project manager?   The more I think about this, the more complicated it seems.  I know I can make this happen, but probably not gonna be simple.  Probably a mistake to locate the proxies with the camera original, but never even thought about this possibility...

[Warren Heaton]

This should work:  Use File > Save As to save a version of the Premiere Pro project to the same folder that the proxies are in, appending the director's initials to the tail of the project filename to differenciate it from the Project file that you're working with (or any naming convention that easily differenciates it from the project file that you're working in).  Close that Project (or quit Premiere Pro entirely) and then copy the folder with the proxies and the Save As project to the mobile drive.  When the Save As project (or the director's project) is opened later, the Full Resolution clips will be offline (unlinked) but the Proxies should be online (linked).  Make sure that you're not using Premeire Pro 23.4 as there's a known issue where the source footage slips to the Media Start when opened on another computer.  When the director returns, copy just director's project back to the same folder that the proxies are in.  If any footage was added, copy that to where you would like it to be on your workstation.  When the director's project is opened, Full Resolution media and Proxy media should link as expected.  Any new footage will need to be re-linked.

Another option is to have the director connect remotely to your workstation via Jump Desktop, Parallels Access, LogMeIn, etc.  

This project may be too far along to migrate it to LucidLink, but if it was stored on a LucidLink volume then the footage can be accessed from anywhere there's fast internet.

[Warren Heaton]

In re-reading your original post, are the proxies all in the same folder or in separate folders?  If they're in separate folders, manually recreate the folder structore on the mobile drive to match the folder structure on the Promise RAID.  You could even name the mobile drive with the same name as Promise RAID with "_mobile" appended.  Then copy just the proxies to their corresponding location.  Then do the Save As to the Promise RAID and then copy the Save As project to the "_mobile" drive.

[Michael Grenadier]

Thanks Warren,   the proxies are in folders inside the each folder tjat contains the camera original...  so that makes it more complicated and the folder/package structure that sony uses for the camera original doesn't make it any easier.  Will be doing tests before I commit to a specific workflow, but thinking the smartest thing to do may be to move all the proxies to a single folder but maintain each proxy folder renaming it to the folder that reflects where the camera original resides...  never simple is it?

[R Neil Haugen]

Michael,

Anytime I see you asking for help, I know it's an issue that will have interesting puzzlement value! And this is certainly a great puzzler, especially as well, massive project and Sony are involved.

And Warren ... oh my GOSH ... what a help you are to the rest of us!

Neil

[Michael Grenadier]

and everytime I'm about to try and be the voice of reason to some body whining about how horrible premiere is, you beat me to the punch...    At least the client appreciates my help...  unlike the crazed avantgarde filmmaker who never stops whining  about how much I'm charging (not enuf).   

[R Neil Haugen]

Hey, Premiere has issues ... it's to be expected it seems with these massive, complex and complicated video post apps. Resolve certainly has issues, even if supposedly it is so perfect.

As someone who uses it, and works with/for/teaches others based in it, I spend a lot of time on LGG and BM forums. Where Resolve and Baselight are the two main apps talked about. Including all the features Resolve still doesn't have that are in Premiere and Avid, and all the buggy behavior in Resolve and BM gear that occur.

Not because BM puts out bad stuff, but because ... hey, this stuff if incredibly complex these days!

Baselight now ... that's incredibly stable. But let's look at using Baselight.

1) You buy the computer from them ... three models, your choice, roughly $14,00, $17,000, or $19,000 I think it is.

2) That computer comes setup ready to go with Baselight as THE ONLY app installed.

3) You never ever EVER even dream of adding any other app to the machine and finally

4) You pay an annual user fee on top of the above that's several hundred USD.

I think if Adobe or BlackMagic copied that, we'd all ... um ... well, those that could afford it! ... would have totally stable working machines.

Neil

[Michael Grenadier]

and that was the original business model for Avid...  which I bought back in the day... (and which they've abandoned) and there were still problems with updates...   

[R Neil Haugen]

I think it was also the original model for DaVinci ... until that was bought out by BlackMagic, turned into Resolve, and ... used as a loss-leader to sell hardware.

Tis an interesting industry if you try & track who did what with what when where why how ... 😉

Neil

[Warren Heaton]

The busy work can be reconnecting the proxies after moving them or manually recreating the folder structure. 

As far as the file path is concerned, a package should just be a folder for Premiere Pro.  So, you could reveal an MTS file from within the Premiere Pro project, select the corresponding Proxy folder, copy the file path (command option c), paste it to a text document (command option v), use that to recreate that folder structure on the mobile drive (don't worry about the package part), and then copy the corresponding proxies file over.

Or... it's been forever since I've used Retrospect for backups (switched over to Carbon Copy Cloner), but it allows us to exclude folders and files from what is being copied from the source drive to the backup destination.  If it still functions as it did when I used it, you'd be able to exclude the STREAM folders or the contents of the STREAM folder (or whatever folder has the larger source files) and include the Poxies folders.  It would also verify the copy.

Whether you do it manually or use something like Retrospect, if the proxies are in the STREAM folder next to the MTS like the following:

• Media_001/documentary_project/Assets/Footage/061219/PRIVATE/AVCHD/BDMV/STREAM/00000_proxy.mov

Then the following would be the file path on the mobile drive:

• Media_001_mobile/documentary_project/Assets/Footage/061219/PRIVATE/AVCHD/BDMV/STREAM/00000_proxy.mov

Even though "AVCHD" and "BDMV" are each a package as far as the Finder is concerned, to Premiere Pro they should just be folders in a file path.

As long as the Save As project is in the "documentary_project" folder, it should all link.

I'd do a test with one or two folder paths.  I'm pretty sure it'll work.

[Michael Grenadier]

Thanks Warren, The proxies are all in a folder named I'm thinking of spending a day moving the proxy folders to a a folder and adding the name of the "source" to the each individual proxy folder.  And then attaching the proxies for each "source."  Then just moving that folder to the portable drive where it will be simple to match the folder structure of the path to the proxies on the raid...   Feels a little more foolproof (me being the fool)...  I've attached a couple of screen grabs to illustrate the current situation (although this is on a project I'm cutting, not the big doc

So I'll simply rename the "proxies".  folder to "LG 6_23_12 camera B card proxies" (copying the folder name to avoid "operator error" and then move the renamed folder to a new folder at the root level of the drive named something like "All Proxies."    Then launch the project in Premiere and relink the proxies, which should be a pain but not too difficult.  Make sense?   And then copy the ALL Proxies folder along with all the audio and archival folders...  and just realized the audio's gonna be a pain as the audio files live in the folder containing the camera original...  always good to think these things out...

Wondering how carbon copy cloner handles "packages?"   I remember retrospect being a huge pain...