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Hi all,
My original footage is in H.264, 1920 x 1080, 60fps. I use alot of time remapping, warp stabilizer and basic color correction. All has been fine untill I applied some heavy color grading to a one minute long portion of the video to give it dramatic, almost unrealistic look. This is when Previews started taking really long time to render... One slight change to that color grading layer - another 20 minutes to render....
So I created proxy files in Ceneform codec with 1/4 or original resolution, original framerate. I activated proxy with that blue button. But nothing changed - Preview still takes forever to render!
So a big question here: do previews always apply to original files, regardless of proxy??? Then what's the point of using proxy? What's wrong here? Is my only choice to transcode to DNxHD without proxies?
For Proxy, functionality like Preview, Export and some effects apply to the Original/Full Res clips. Once you make Previews, it will display the Full Res clips. The only exception is if your Full Res are Offline and the Proxies are Online.
There are a number of other things to be aware of when working with Proxies. You can find more information on how Proxies work at: Adobe Premiere Pro Help | Ingest and Proxy Workflow in Adobe Premiere Pro CC
An excerpt from the Help doc regarding Preview with P
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Do you need the previews? Even the Cineform proxies aren't playing in real time?
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Without previews all is red and plays very choppy or doesn't play at all. Same with proxies. No improvement whatsoever, same red line asking me to render previews, which takes very long time.
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It is possible your pushing the effects past your system's real time capabilities, even with proxies. The effects you listed are intense.
Previews or new hardware might well be your only recourse.
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It was a preset from Lumetri Color. I'm not by the computer now, will list exact settings when I get home. But how is it possible that there's no difference in time required to generate Previews for a 480 x 270 Cineform versus a heavily compressed H.264 1920 x 1080 ?
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After I added that preset things went bad. Previews for time remapping and warp stabilizer generated quickly on per clip basis but the Lumetri applied to 1 min long sequence takes forever and does not get any better with Proxy files...
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When you are creating a Preview, you are creating a new (temporary and impermanent) piece of media for Premiere Pro to work with during the playback process. Premiere always makes the Preview from the original source material at the full resolution. It then uses that newly created media clip for playback when called for. It does not make a proxy of this newly made clip.
spiritonline wrote
what's the point of using proxy? What's wrong here? Is my only choice to transcode to DNxHD without proxies?
As Jim_Simon points out, you would normally not need to use Preview files at all, as the lightweight proxies should allow Premiere to work in near real time.
MtD
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But nothing changed after I created proxy files and activated proxy with the little button turning it blue. Are there any other steps needed to make Premiere switch to proxy files? Right now in the source media window it shows proxy info next to each file (I activated displaying of proxy info there) and says "online".
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It might be hard to see the difference between the proxy and the original depending how you have your editing workspace configured - if you are editing on a laptop, for example. It should be easier to see the difference the larger the Program Monitor is displayed, (or if, for example, the program monitor is feeding a client monitor).
When working with proxies, I add a tiny burn in of the clip name and clip timecode to the proxies in the ingest/create proxy preset so there is never any doubt which source we are seeing.
MtD
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Next time I will burn the image to proxy files, but currently when I open the window full screen I can see the difference between original and proxy. Proxy engages but does not speed up workflow anyhow, still requires generating Previews ...
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System specs?
MtD
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My PC is quite old:
i7 3770K, 32gb RAM, GTX 750 Ti, SSD, WD Caviar Black HDDs.
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I must add that there are correction clips with Lumetri color applied to each video clip and they seem to be very light on my system, almost unnoticeable. But when I applied that Lumetri Color across many clips on top of the individual color correction clips (total about one minute long) with some preset (I think it's called "Blue" something) it started taking 5 - 10 min to generate Previews and won't play without Previews..
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Have you tried adding the lumetri color effects to an adjustment layer, or nesting the clips and then adding lumetri?
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It's added to an adjustment layer, which is over clips and nested sequences.
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Ok, I got some updates... So just to be sure, I re-created one of the proxy clips with watermark this time. Watermark is there when proxy button is blue. But the timeline became red after proxy file re-created. I hit Enter to render Preview, as soon as timeline became green, the proxy watermark disappeared, even though Proxy button is still blue! Does that mean Premiere replaces proxy with original files one Preview is generated?? This is so confusing!
When proxy is engaged, video still play choppy until I generate Preview, which takes very long time to render.
The effect that seems to cause the massive slow-down for me is Lumetri Color with Temperature set to -78 and in Creative tab, Look is set to "SD BLUE COLD". Are these particularly heavy effects or something? Please help me getting thorough this nightmare.
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Does that mean Premiere replaces proxy with original files one Preview is generated?
Yes.
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Please help me getting thorough this nightmare.
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For Proxy, functionality like Preview, Export and some effects apply to the Original/Full Res clips. Once you make Previews, it will display the Full Res clips. The only exception is if your Full Res are Offline and the Proxies are Online.
There are a number of other things to be aware of when working with Proxies. You can find more information on how Proxies work at: Adobe Premiere Pro Help | Ingest and Proxy Workflow in Adobe Premiere Pro CC
An excerpt from the Help doc regarding Preview with Proxy:
When you render Previews, Export Media or use certain Analysis effects (Warp Stabilizer, Rolling Shutter Repair, Morph Cut), Premiere Pro always uses and displays Full Res, regardless of the Toggle/Enable Proxies setting. The only exception is when you have Offline Full Res, but Proxy is Online, then Proxy is used.
Hope this helps.
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Ok, many thanks! Many good advices here, what a community!
So I didn't see any difference with proxy because all effects were applied to original footage. I will try to set it Offline and see it that helps working with proxies and thus speeding up preview generation or avoiding it.
My sequence settings match source with exception of framerate. Source is 60fps, sequence is 23.976 due to lots of slow motion stuff.
Aside from upgrading hardware, will I get any improvement in speeding up previews by transcoding my original H.264 to DNxHD ? I've heard that it's not a good idea to edit and apply affects (especially color correction) to h.264 and transcoding is recommended. Your thoughts on that, please?
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You might see faster previews with Cineform or DNx transcodes.
Test it out.
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As Jim mentioned, it is best to run some tests on your configuration to see what works best for you. YMMV, but some editors have had good performance with Apple ProRes, GoPro CineForm or DNxHR/HD.
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Okay, I can appreciate why this is the case from a historical standpoint, but from a user experience standpoint, I am using proxies exclusively to get speed benefits and real-time effects like lumetri color shouldn't require going back to the original footage to generate a preview when it can be done far more efficiently using the proxies.
For me, I would consider this a bug and politely request it be addressed. Is this the proper place to report it? Or is there a separate step I should take?
Thank you kindly for all of your work on an excellent product.
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Feature requests & bug filings both go to their data input portal, their UserVoice site. Once over there, you can search for similar requests & upvote them, or file a new one.
And of course, coming back here to post a link is a way to get others to go upvote something.
All submissions there are manually logged in by at least one engineer, and also collated and sent to the upper managers who determine budgets.
Neil
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Anyone, please ?