I’ve googled and researched, but if anyone is available to chat… I just to ask a lot of dumb questions about premiere and proxies…
Your Original video is often in a format that is difficult to edit: Large file size, Codec that doesn’t allow for jumping to an exact frame easily, etc.
trying to edit those files directly your computer will stutter and lag and be unresponsive.
A proxy is a version of your video with a good editing code and a smaller size, but usually lower quality.
You do all of your editing with the small fast proxy videos. Your editing software only records what your edits are by the frame numbers and timelines of what you do, not by the actual pixels of the video.
When you are done if you export (render) your final edited video it would be in the lower quality of the proxy version. Instead you swap out the lower quality proxy video with the original high quality video but with the exact same file names. Your editing software can now perform all of your saved edits on the high quality video (slowly ) and export a high quality finished product.
So there are two main reasons why proxies are useful.
The first reason is that the original files are highly compressed. For example, MP4 or HEVC files. If you make a proxy, the files get bigger and so the data is less compressed. This makes it easier to manipulate in editing software, because the footage doesn’t have to be uncompressed every time you play it, so it’s less taxing for the computer and more responsive when the editor is working with it.
The second reason might be that the original files are too large. For example, uncompressed 8 bit RGB video. These require a fast hard drive (like a RAID or SSD) to play back. So creating lower resolution proxies which have a smaller file size, allows those files to play back on regular hard drives or over a network. This particularly applies if you have an editor working from home, you can send them the smaller proxy files more easily over the internet or via Dropbox etc.
Full version video files very big, very high quality. Video editing is a lot harder on the system than just playing them back so they need more resources to edit them directly.
But the video viewport on your editor (The size you watch the video as your editing it and making changes) is only small because it has to fit the rest of the video editing tools around it on the screen. So instead of trying to cram high resolution video into it, lets just make a small version of the video that is an exact copy, but only the size of the editors viewport and a edit friendly codec. This results in a smaller video the computer has to try and work with, taking a lot less space.
Then when it comes time to export the video, we mirror all the changes we made when exporting the full sized videos, except we scale everything up to match the resolution of the actual video.
ELI5 version:
Imagine your designing a poster for a 40 foot wide by 20 foot tall billboard at the side of a highway. The designer of the poster doesn’t try working with the poster at it’s full size because that would be massively hard work. Instead it gets scaled down on his computer screen. Also, when he wants to show people what the poster will look like, he doesn’t try printing it out at 40x20 foot size and dragging it round in a truck. No he prints a scaled down copy of it on A4 to show people. When people are happy with it, he then sends it to the printers for it to be actually produced in the billboards 40x20 foot size.
This is how proxies work. The proxy video is the scale version of the poster that fits on an A4 piece of paper, whereas the full size video is the billboard sized poster. You only need the proxy size to work with it in the video editor, but the person watching it will get the full 4K size or whatever.
https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/proxy-workflow.html
Ask here. See our wiki too.
It’s pretty simple: you’re creating a 2nd copy of your media that is meant be easier on playback for your system. Everything else is just details
Proxies are literally just low resolution easier to edit copies of your clips that you can switch between while editing for faster workflow. Look up how to create and use them in your respective editing program. For premier you right click and create proxies and media encoder will do the test and you have the ability to switch back and forth at the press of a button. Proxies will reduce lag immensely. So many bad replies in this comment section it’s confusing me and I know exactly what I’m doing!
proxies are unit production buildings placed outside your main base. usually up close to the enemy base. this lets you keep up pressure during an all-out attack, especially early game.
hope that helps!
can proxies be share with other editor?
My understanding is, proxies are lower quality footage to quickly check if the shoot came out ok and other planning purposes.
I have no experience in this area. So take it with a grain of salt.
This gives context, too: offline/online workflows are based around proxies: 5 THINGS: on Offline/Online Film & TV Workflows
Proxies in editing are the compressed version of original footage.
Proxies are created :
- Your system can’t handle higher quality footage like 4k, 8k.
- To get smoother playback.
Cons:
- Timeline quality drops (note : export quality is unchanged)
- Requires free space in your disk.
The files can actually be bigger even though at a lower quality since proxy codecs are uncompressed
I can see this being useful for cutting but if you are doing fix or color grading won’t the proxy quality be to low to get a good idea? How is that done?
This is a great answer! How do I make sure that I render it with high quality video? (I use Resolve if that matters)
Great explanation! Thank you!
This is such a great explanation. Thank you very much!
I’ve been wondering about proxies myself and the billboard analogy explains it perfectly!
No no. That’s all wrong, have you ever sat down to eat a whole chicken and thought, “wow, that’s a lot of chicken, I can’t eat all this chicken”. So you then cut the chicken in half and put the rest of it in the fridge for later. But then the doorbell rings and you get distracted, then come back an hour later and realize you are starving because you never ate the chicken. Then you end up eating the whole thing anyways. That’s how proxies work. The raw video is the whole chicken. When you proxy you cut the chicken in half so it will be easier to digest. Then once you are done with the task, you realize you still want the whole chicken and you eat it (render it).
Hope that helps!
No no no, this is completely wrong and not what OP is asking about.
Proxies are when shareholders can’t be present at a meeting, so they get other people, or organizations to vote for them.
hope that helps!
You can temporarily flip back to the “full” versions for those tasks, and deal with the slowness.