- We've all been there at one point or another,
you're in the middle of an edit in Premiere Pro
and your computer starts getting laggy
and it's having trouble scrubbing through footage
and you're dropping frames on playback
and you just wish it could work
so that you could finish your edit.
What if I told you that there was a way
to improve the speed and stability of Premiere Pro
while you're editing?
Oh yes, I will tell you that.
(upbeat music)
(camera shutter clicking)
What is up, people?
Dunna here, and today, we're gonna talk
about something in Premiere Pro called proxies.
Now, this is gonna be super handy
for people with older computers
that can't handle things like 4K video files,
or even if you have a newer computer but it's a Mac
and it's not quite as optimized
to run really nice with Premiere Pro,
this is gonna be helpful for you too.
For example, I have the 2017 MacBook Pro
and it's pretty specced out.
It has the separate GPU and everything
but it still just doesn't work as smoothly with Premiere Pro
as I would like it to.
When I'm working with my 4K footage from my Sony cameras,
it can start to get really sluggish in the edit
and I can't scrub through very well.
It doesn't playback smoothly
and sometimes it even can kind of freeze up on me.
In a nutshell, a proxy is a version of your video file
that's easier for Premiere Pro to read.
The compressed files that come out of our DSLR
and mirrorless cameras have to be uncompressed
in order for Premiere Pro to use them in the timeline
and it's trying to do all that work on the fly
which makes it really hard on your computer.
So, what you could do is you could convert that file
into a different type of file and just use those files.
That's called transcoding,
but those files can be really, really large
and take up a lot of space on your hard drives.
Alternatively, proxies are typically smaller files.
For example, if you're using 4K footage,
you can make 720p proxies
and you use those just in the editing process.
And if you do it right,
those proxies also can be the same type of file
that Premiere Pro can read easier.
So for example, I've got a couple of 4K clips on my timeline
that came out of my Sony a7 III
and when I try and scrub through,
you can see Premiere isn't keeping up with me.
It's a little laggy, and if I try and play it,
you can see all the dropped frames that are happening there.
It looks all choppy and laggy.
Sometimes turning down that playback resolution
will help you to get smoother playback, but I found lately
that even if I'm down to a quarter or an eighth,
sometimes that footage can still be choppy.
This is when I wanna make proxies.
Now, they've made it super easy
to make proxies in Premiere Pro
and I'm gonna show you how to do that now.
So the first thing we wanna do is go up to our footage
in our project and highlight all of the footage
that we wanna make proxies for.
In this case, that's all of it.
We're gonna right click
and go down to Proxy, Create Proxies.
This is gonna bring up a window that we can then choose
what proxy file type we want to make.
In this case, our files are already H.264 files
and we wanna use QuickTime because those are the files
that are easier for Premiere Pro to read.
Now, under QuickTime,
we've got all these options that we can choose from.
Personally, I like to use Apple ProRes
but there's also the GoPro CineForm.
And then what I've done here at the top
is I've made my own preset,
and I'll show you how to do that in a minute,
but if we wanted to keep it simple,
we could choose the 720p Apple ProRes 422 Proxy.
We're gonna choose to put the files
next to the original media in a proxy folder
and then we hit OK.
And what's gonna happen is it's gonna open up Media Encoder
and it's gonna start making those files in the background,
but I wanna show you how to make your own preset
for your own proxy types.
So, what I'm gonna do on my timeline,
I'm going to go up to File, Export, Media.
This is gonna bring up the Export settings.
I'm gonna go under Format, I'm gonna go down to QuickTime,
and I'm gonna choose Apple ProRes 422 Proxy.
I'm not gonna worry about the name or anything.
Now under here, you can see that it's checked,
so it's currently matching the file size
that my original file is, I'm gonna uncheck that.
And as long as this is linked,
I should be able to change the height to 720.
Now we've got our 720 by 1280.
Everything else, we can pretty much just leave as is.
Now this is the part
that I really like to do with my proxies
just so I can remember
when I'm working with proxies and when I'm not.
I'm gonna click over to Effects.
I'm gonna scroll down until I get to Name Overlay.
Under Prefix, I'm going to type PROXY.
I'm gonna change it to Prefix and Suffix Only.
So now it says PROXY there, turn opacity all the way down
so there's no little background thing.
I'm gonna put it in the bottom left.
Now, instead of hitting Export,
'cause we don't actually wanna export our media right now,
we're going to save this preset
and we're just gonna call it 720 PRORES
PROXY EXPORT.
And then we're gonna cancel
'cause we don't actually need to do anything there,
and we're gonna open up Media Encoder.
Now this is where we're gonna make the actual Ingest Preset.
So, there's a difference
between an Export Preset and an Ingest Preset.
So, what we just made was an Export Preset.
So if we were going to make an actual 720 proxy file
that we exported off of our timeline,
maybe we were gonna send that to somebody
to let them check it out or something
before we make the final high quality version,
we could use that, but what we need to do
is make a new Ingest Preset
and this will show up when we go to make proxies.
So, what we're gonna do in Media Encoder,
we're gonna go to Create New preset here,
Create Ingest Preset,
we're gonna name it 720 PRORES
PROXY INGEST.
Under here, you wanna make sure
Transcode Files to Destination is selected.
We're gonna choose QuickTime.
And then under here,
we should actually get the export that we just made.
And now when we hit OK,
it just made us a new Ingest Preset.
So now, when we go back to Premiere Pro,
we go to our footage, we right click Proxy, Create Proxies,
we're gonna add an Ingest Preset.
I'm gonna do a quick search for 720 PRORES PROXY INGEST.
And if you wanna go find this manually
instead of searching for it,
on a Mac, it's gonna be under your main thing,
Documents, Adobe, Adobe Media Encoder,
the version, Presets, and that's where it is.
As of 2019, searching it is just way easier.
We're gonna hit Open.
And now, under our QuickTime with all these other options,
we've got 720 PRORES PROXY INGEST.
As you can see, I already had one up here.
We're gonna hit OK
and it's gonna create proxy jobs in Media Encoder
and it's gonna do it in the background.
Now you can see that it's currently creating the proxies
and when it's done this,
it will automatically attach them back in Premiere Pro.
They have this kind of smart communication.
Now, the biggest problem with proxies
is that it takes some time to make,
so the best time to do this
is when you're first setting up the project,
put all your footage in there, go to create proxies,
and then go do something else for a little while
and let it do its thing.
Luckily, like this was a cooking show,
I already had some proxies made,
so all I have to do is reattach them.
And if you happen to already have proxies made,
you can reattach them like this.
Go to Proxy, Attach Proxies,
and then you can search for them.
If you choose Relink others automatically,
it should find them for you.
There they are, now they're all attached.
So now, when I'm looking at my program monitor,
I can turn on proxies using this here.
And if you don't see this,
you can go to the little Button Editor
and you can choose it from in here.
So you grab that and put it down right there.
Now that we've got that button out, we can choose it,
and you can see right away,
it put proxy in the bottom corner
and that's how I know that I'm looking at the proxy file.
Now, when I scrub through, you can see how responsive it is.
It plays back smoothly.
You can even crank it up to full resolution
and it still plays back smoothly.
It takes a little bit of time at the start of your project
but if you can just let go, have lunch or something
while it's making the proxies,
it makes a huge difference and saves you so much time
when you're in the edit.
But as always, I wanna hear from you guys.
Do you use proxies?
Do you have a different method to get there?
Or do you use a cool Ingest Preset?
Leave a comment below and let me know what you think.
Thanks so much for watching.
I'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)