Taking Advantage of New Proxy Workflows in Premiere Pro CC
New Media Management features in both Premiere Pro and Media Encoder give you much greater control over the handling of your files during the ingest process, and allow for more flexibility when working with very large media. You can set Premiere Pro to copy media to a specific location on your machine as it imports, and even begin editing immediately while your media copies in the background. If your workflow requires a transcode, you can easily set Premiere Pro or Media Encoder to handle that step for you too.
This release of Premiere Pro also brings support for more native formats than ever including 6K and 8K files from the RED Weapon camera. For times when the media you need to work with is heavier than your system can manage – for example, when you want to work on a lightweight portable device – you can now generate proxies on ingest, automatically associating them with the native full-resolution media. A single click lets you toggle between full-res and proxy.
Ingest: Ingest Settings & Media Browser
The Premiere Pro Media Browser panel allows you to ingest media automatically in the background while you begin editing.
An ingest check box in the Media Browser panel toggles on/off the automatic ingest behavior. A settings button next to it opens the Project Settings dialog, where you can adjust the ingest settings. A similar ingest checkbox in the Project Settings dialog is kept in sync with the Media Browser panel’s setting. When toggled on, users can choose one of 4 following operations to kick off automatically when files get imported into the project. You can continue to edit while the ingest process completes in the background.
a) Copy
Copy – You can copy the media as it is to a new location. For example, this is typically used to transfer camera footage from removable media onto your local hard drive. The transfer path is specified by the Primary Destination option available in Settings. After the media has finished copying, the clips in the project will point to these copies of the files.
b) Transcode
Transcode – You can transcode the media to a new format in a new location. For example, this can be used to transcode original camera footage to a specific format used within a post-production facility. The file path is specified by the Primary Destination option in Settings, and the format is specified by the chosen preset. After the media has been transcoded, the clips in the project point to these transcoded copies of the files.
c) Create Proxies
Create Proxy – Use this option to create and attach proxies to the media. For example, this is typically used to create lower-resolution clips for increased performance during editing, which can be switched back to the original full resolution files for final output. The file path where the proxies are generated is specified by the Proxy Destination option in the settings, and the format is specified by the chosen preset. After proxies have been generated, they are automatically attached to the clips in the project.
d) Copy and Create Proxies
Copy and Create Proxy – This option copies media and creates proxies for them as well, as specified above.
Import preset support
All 4 options come with a set of default presets, which have the file destinations set to ‘Same as Project”. Alternatively, you can also choose a custom destination or your Creative Cloud Files folder, which syncs the files automatically to the cloud. You can also create your own ‘Ingest’ presets using Adobe Media Encoder.
Summary info
The summary gives detailed information on destination path, preset used and preset details.
Specific tips & workflow:
- The supplied proxy presets are compatible with sources of certain standard frames sizes. Refer to the summary section of the Ingest Settings dialog to see the compatible source frame sizes. For sources with other frame sizes you will have to create your own ingest preset that has evenly divisible frame dimensions. Example: With 4K 3840×2160 source clips you would have to create an ingest preset that renders to a 960×540 frame size in Adobe Media Encoder, then import that ingest preset into the Premiere Ingest Settings Dialog. Please see the section below that describes how to create your own ingest preset.
- When creating an ingest preset in Adobe Media Encoder, marking the frame size and frame rate as “Match Source” will categorize this as a “Transcode” preset. If either the frame size or the frame rate is not marked as “Match Source” then the preset is categorized as a “Proxy” preset for generating proxies.
- Make sure that source camera folder structures are placed inside a uniquely named parent folder when copying these sources using ingest settings. If ingesting (copying) directly form a camera card that does not permit having a uniquely named parent folder, make sure to designate a unique destination folder for each camera card. Failing to follow these guidelines may result in conflicts while copying camera folder structure media to the destination thereby causing ingest failures or overwriting files (resulting in data loss).
- During a Copy and Create Proxies operation, the proxy files are generated from the source high-res media (not the copied media) therefore make sure to monitor the progress panel for completion of both the copy and the proxy jobs before disconnecting the source media from the system.
- All ingest operations are paused during playing back
Contributing authors: Trent Happel, Matt Stegner, Mike Hogan, Gerry Miller, Vivek Neelamegam, and Ken James