Is it possible to use 'third party' proxy file?

[treehorne]

I just bought a new Sony camera that has an interesting feature - in addition to the two card slots for the 'regular' recordings (4K), it has a separate card slot for a proxy recording. I'm curious if it's at all possible to use that file/video in Premiere Pro as the proxy (so link it somehow so when I click the 'toggle proxies' button while editing 4K footage...especially multiple cameras...it references the already created and loaded in footage, versus having Premiere Pro/Media Encoder create another proxy file in the background...which for 2+hour files, and multiple ones at that...is a bit time and resource consuming)

I doubt it but figured nothing ventured...

[excited_Genie16B8 · Accepted solution]

I would not recommend it.  The native proxy process in Premiere Pro is superior, specifically in using Cineform proxies.

[Averdahl]

I would say try it!

Right click on the original files in the project panel and choose Proxy > Attach Proxies.

[Sumeet Kumar Choubey]

Hi treehorne,

Yes, you can manually attach the proxy files created by your camera. Please follow these steps to manually attach proxy media.

• Please import the original media file in the project bin/panel.
• Then right click on the media and select Proxy > Attach proxies
• You may then select/ highlight the clip in the Attach Proxies window and then click on the Attach button.
• Then navigate to the proxy file corresponding to that clip and select it and click ok.

This will attach that proxy media to the original media and it can be toggled using the Toggle Proxies button on the program monitor. You can also check and verify the property and status of the proxy files attached to the original media by right-clicking on the original media in the project bin/panel and then clicking on properties.

You may also refer to this link to know more about the proxy workflow in Premiere Pro.

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/kb/ingest-proxy-workflow-premiere-pro-cc-2015.html

Hope this helps, if you have any further questions, you may let us know here.

Regards

Sumeet Kumar Choubey

[treehorne]

Thanks everyone! Such speedy and helpful replies. Sounds like it would be a fun thing to try in the grand 'let's see how this sucker works' experiment next week. And if it works...great. and if not...then we know (I'm just happy to know it is an option and another tool to have at disposal). Given that all my shoots are 2+ hours in length (often times multi-camera)...knowing that there's a potential time saving trick that can be explored helps (and knowing it may not be an ideal substitute...helps too)

[Stan Jones]

Any options for the format Etc of the proxy files you save to the card?

[R Neil Haugen]

Stan's comment is a good one as depending on the format/codec involved the proxies may only save space on drive and not give better playback performance. H.264 proxies ... not always that good a thing.

Neil

[treehorne]

Thanks Stan and R. Neil.

Shot my first full shoot yesterday so better equipped to answer/clarify/have even more questions.

The camera records the 4K footage as XAVC-L, and creates a proxy file (or more) on another card as h.264/mp4 I can choose the size (1080/720), but that's it. and it very low-res (shot a 90 minute show last night and the proxy files came between 7-8GB.  I did end up having Premiere Pro create its own proxy files but...some oddities

First off, I couldn't simply 'create a proxy' after importing the card into the project window. While right clicking would give me the option, and Media Encoder would open/launch...nothing would happen from there. The only way to get a proxy to be created was to ingest the footage through the Media Browser. Which worked. And chose the Cineform 720 proxy. And it worked...but made a 180GB file in the process (which is larger than if I had created a ProRes 1080 HQ of the same file length...heck, it's even larger than the file I recorded in 4K!)

it plays great but seems a tad excessive. Did I do something wrong?

[R Neil Haugen]

What is the length of the media you made into proxies?

That would be a lot of medin my rig. One can make one's own proxy presets, a bit involved but not too much, and they do have help files on the process.

In Media Encoder you make a new Encoding preset, using the format/codec/settings you want. Name & save.

Then you make an ingesting preset using the encoding preset, name and save in the proper place so the PrPro media browser will see it as noted in the help files.

Next time you launch PrPro it will be an option. I made one for Cineform with a very low quality setting. Looks decent and plays back spiffy.

Neil

[treehorne]

Oh and just tried to attach the proxy that the camera created (which was split into two 1080 files), and it wouldn't work because the audio didn't match... the proxy has a stereo audio channel and the 4K has 4 mono channels. ah well...

[R Neil Haugen]

There are quite a few of us who would like to be able to tell PrPro to ignore differences in audio tracks. Yea, it's picky that way.

Neil

[treehorne]

As I shoot shows that are 90-180 minutes in length, nothing is ever shorter than an hour (and this was a 100 minutes long). I'll have to play to see how small I can get Cineform to get (I can't believe how big it was at only 720...looked great but was bigger than ProResHQ at 1080 and the original 4K...that will certainly fill up a hard drive or three very quickly during 'working on 10 shows this week' season, which is now)