Proxy editing with ProRes - is it necessary?

S

stevedocmaker

Well-known member
I am setting up a workflow for a project that will be using h.264 footage from a Canon 5d. I know I must convert these files to a more FCP-friendly format for editing. I've read that there is little or no quality loss when converting to ProRes422, and that this is an FCP-friendly format, so this seems like a good choice. The way I see it have have two options.

I can edit straight from these files, color grade, render and export to delivery. Pretty simple, but the ProRes422 are rather large files (let's assume disc space is not an issue).

I can also add another step of creating proxy files (PrRes422proxy), edit and color grade with these, then reconnect to the standard ProRes422 files, render and deliver. More time consuming but the proxy files are quite a bit smaller.

I do not have much experience working with ProRes files in FCP. Will the larger, standard files bog my system down? Is there any advantage to working with proxy files other than file size (I don't anticipate needing to work on a laptop)?
 
I think it depends how fast your system is. I'm shooting with a HMC150 in AVCHD at 1080x24p. I converted them into Prores 422 and they look great, but I'm working on a 1.5 year old Macbook Pro. I found them very slow to render when I added filters, etc, and experience a lot of dropped frames in a sequence I slowed down, which made it essentially unusable. Then I transcoded into Prores Proxy and have had no problems thus far. Renders a lot faster, too, and the file sizes are, obviously, a lot smaller.

That said, I don't yet have a workflow for how to sub in the full Prores 422 files after I'm done editing with the proxies. If someone has a good workflow, I would REALLY LOVE to hear it.
 
Here's what I've come up with to use proxy files. It seems to work fine, but the process of reconnecting clips on a large project could be arduous. This workflow is based on using an external device (Zoom H4N or other) to record audio.

Folders:
Originals
Proxies
PR422(S)
Edit

1. New project (FCP):
Import H.264 file.
Import corresponding audio file.
Synch audio & remove in-camera tracks.
Export QT MOV (PR422(S) format, NOT self-contained, in (PR422(S) Folder).

2. Conform this file in Cinema Tools to 29.97fps.

3. New project (FCP):
Import all conformed files.
Convert all to proxy files in Media Manager.

4. New project (FCP)
Settings = PR422proxy.
Import proxy files and edit.
Color grade.
Change settings to PR422(S).
Reconnect PR422(S) files.
Render & export final.

I read an idea on Cinema 5D that makes an alias folder to store your proxy clips in (before you import). Then, in theory when you are ready to reconnect all you have to do is re-point the alias to the folder with your originals, and restart FCP. As long as your originals have the same name as the proxies, this SHOULD work in theory. But I have tried it and can't seem to get FCP to use the originals. I'm going to fuss with it some more, I could be doing something wrong.

As for the workflow above, if you use Neoscene to do the conversion, you can eliminate the conforming step, as it does this automatically in the conversion process. My guess is that it is easier to batch process with Neoscene than Media Manager, too. But I have not used this yet, and there may be other issues that come up. It's inexpensive and has a 15-day free trial, so I will give it a run shortly.
 
Interesting stuff. I hadn't even tried to use media manager to do it. My question would be, if you're using media manager to go from PR Proxy to PR 422 (S), would it be just upconverting those proxy files (which would be bad), or is it going back to the original source material and making a new copy (which would be great)? Anyone know the answer to that?

I came up with a seemingly functional workflow today, but I'm wondering if there may be a simpler way to achieve the same thing.

My workflow:

1. Copy the entire directory structure of my card to my harddrive.

2. Open FCP and go into Long and Transfer. Select my files (from my newly created directory on the harddrive), and convert transfer/encode them as Prores Proxy.

3. Edit my project (using the proxy files).

4. When done, go into Finder and delete the proxy files I created (or moving them into another directory would probably work). All clips in your timeline will now show as disconnected.

5. Go back into Log and Transfer, and using the same original (AVCHD, in my case) files, transfer/transcode them again, BUT this time, transcode them into Prores 422 standard.

6. In FCP, right-click on one of the disconnected files in your files window, and select Reconnect. It didn't find mine through searching, so you have to manually locate the file. Go into the scratch directory you set, where your new Prores 422 files have just been created, and select the file that matches the clip. **NOTE: you will have to UNcheck "Matched Name and Reel Only" or you won't be able to select it. Hit Reconnect. You'll probably get an error message saying that the settings of the clip don't match. Just ignore that (at least, that's what I did, and it worked perfectly).

7. Your clips should now be reconnected, but with the full Prores 422 (standard) files now. You'll have to rerender your sequence, but then you should be done.

That's what worked for me. Anybody else out there?
 
P.S. Yeah, like I thought. I just did a test where I used FCP's Media Manager to recompress from prores 422 Proxy into prores 422 standard and there was a HUGE amount of quality lost. That leads me to believe that Media Manager doesn't use the original file source (the AVCHD files, in my case) as their source for the recompression, but rather just takes the already compressed file. Maybe I did something wrong, but I wouldn't recommend doing that if you want your end product to look good.

I might consider incorporating Media Manager into my workflow, though, if only to use it to delete the unused media files, so I don't bother making another version of them in Prores 422 (which would just eat space and time). I'll have to play around with that first, though, as I've never tried it.
 
b-rose said:
P.S. Yeah, like I thought. I just did a test where I used FCP's Media Manager to recompress from prores 422 Proxy into prores 422 standard and there was a HUGE amount of quality lost. That leads me to believe that Media Manager doesn't use the original file source (the AVCHD files, in my case) as their source for the recompression, but rather just takes the already compressed file. Maybe I did something wrong, but I wouldn't recommend doing that if you want your end product to look good.
Click to expand...

I think you're misinterpreting this workflow. I'm converting first to ProRes standard, but this is smoke and mirrors. Because the QT mov is NOT self-contained, the video in this file is really the original h.264 file. It has not been recompressed. Then, in step 3, I am recompressing with media manager (for the first time) to make self-contained proxy files. Using this method, when you reconnect you will be reconnecting your sequence with the original source video.

I'm using Media Manager because in tests I've seen it does the best job in terms of Image Quality. I don't want to be color grading on Proxy files that have a gamma shift (Mpeg Streamclip). I've read that Neoscene may be quicker though, with no loss of quality.

I like your method of reconnecting, thanks for the tip!
 
Ahh, gotcha. I see the difference, I think. My camera shoots in AVCHD, which FCP doesn't edit natively, so I have to start with a transcode to ProRes, but it sounds like you may not have to. So yeah, I can see Media Manager working well for that.

Cheers,
BR
 
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