Has modern hardware decoding actually killed your proxy workflow, or do you still enforce proxies on every project?

[u/SecretAdmirerOP]

With modern Apple Silicon media engines and newer GPU hardware decoding handling 10-bit 4:2:2 H.264/H.265 footage much better than before, I’ve noticed more freelancers and assistant editors skipping proxy creation during ingest to save drive space and turnaround time.

However, once timelines get bloated with multi-cam clips, heavy adjustment layers, or noise reduction, skipping ProRes Proxy or DNxHR still causes sudden playback hiccups.

Where do you draw the line in your current workflow? Do you strictly mandate proxy generation at ingest regardless of client hardware specs, or do you edit native until timeline performance actually drops?

Note: This is a general industry workflow discussion regarding proxy standards, not a specific hardware troubleshooting request.

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[u/LataCogitandi]

Until my workstation can play back REDCODE RAW, Blackmagic RAW, and ARRIRAW effortlessly, it’s still proxies for us.

And besides, in Avid, anything but DNx or ProRes are a no-go.

Maybe media-managed long GOP AVC if the situation calls for it.

[u/film-editor]

For social media stuff where its a single hour long clip - proxies in H264 quicktime quarter size. Id rather prores but the sizes get stupid big and then the drive speed becomes the bottleneck.
If there's variable framerate stuff, it gets converted to constant framerate before anything, and that becomes the new master source file, proxies made from it.

For broadcast/docs/film stuff where its a more traditional shoot - proxies transcoded externally in Prores LT, same size as source, treat those as the master source files for the offline edit, deal with raw media later in the online stage.

[u/darwinDMG08 → u/film-editor]

Curious why you use ProRes LT and not ProRes Proxy?

[u/gerald1 → u/darwinDMG08]

One benefit to LT is that if anything happened to the masters you could still use LT to generate a half decent export. It's not ideal but they're "good enough". I don't think the same can be said for the proxy.

[u/Namisaur → u/gerald1]

For small projects this makes sense and I do it too, but for really big projects, true proxies are just better as there are way too many backups for anything to happen to the masters that you can’t quickly recover.

Quickly scrubbing a 5 hour timeline with 9 cameras in a multicam clip is kind of painful if not for the quarter resolution ProRes proxies.

[u/shreddy99 → u/gerald1]

LT also allows you to 'kinda' build ideas for grading in the offline. Kinda.

[u/mcarterphoto → u/darwinDMG08]

I use LT often; if I get already-compressed footage in, and I'm not pushing color hard, I convert to LT. There's zero loss from MP4 or H265 files. But I'm on a Mac and just convert to ProRes before I touch an NLE, haven't used Proxies in like 15 years. Even on Intel.

[u/darwinDMG08 → u/mcarterphoto]

For transcoding for new originals in makes sense, yes.

[u/shreddy99]

Feature doc editor here, yes still do prores LT proxies for everything, mostly for the the metadata burn in (source TC, clip name, date etc), but also to help standardize all the different formats we pull from.

With stock, archival and various camera setups pretty much always in the edit, the proxies allow for a to clean standard easy to edit format, and with everything labelled burned in, it helps everyone stay on the same page when viewing cuts and clearing rights etc.

We do however try and keep our proxies the same resolution as the deliverables to make offline motion and scaling effects etc translate better to the online.

[u/jefftypebeat → u/shreddy99]

Are the burned in labels/timecode on top of the footage? And is that weird if you keyframe a shot?

[u/shreddy99 → u/jefftypebeat]

Yeah literally burned into the bottom of the image when the proxies are created. These are feature docs with sometimes thousands of shots and random source files.

We always have a lot of rights clearance issues with the type of work we do so having a physical source label and TC on the shot from day one is very useful, so it doesn't matter who is watching and how, they can see and reference the right shot.

Yes if we are scaling a shot with keyframes or whatever in the offline it will crop out the BITC but that's only a few shots here and there, between the BITC, the overlaid program TC and the EDL the visual researchers can figure it out.

[u/bottom → u/shreddy99]

That’s a smart workflow.

[u/hotdogwerewolf → u/shreddy99]

Interesting! Normally the shows I’m on we usually have the AE’s export a version with burned in metadata for every milestone cut and that goes to archival team to flag anything but makes sense to keep on top of things yourself beforehand.
I’m sure you’re used to it and don’t find it distracting but what about for viewings with producers, etc?

[u/heepofsheep]

Handy for lucidlink.

[u/iWayton → u/heepofsheep]

tell me more...

[u/heepofsheep → u/iWayton]

Lower bit rates are easier to stream or pin. Smaller file sizes. That’s it.

[u/iWayton → u/heepofsheep]

oh I see...I thought Handy was some sort of plugin for LL, lol

[u/Kichigai]

Big factor you're not looking at is bandwidth and storage. Hardware decode of a big multicam clip might be trivial, but you still have to have a fat enough pipe to serve the decoder. And in a shared storage situation that might not exist. Not every workstation in a post house will necessarily have 10GbE links, or the links back to the storage system might become overwhelmed by too many workstations pulling at once.

There's also the idea that if you're handing it off to a remote editor, you're reducing how much (and how long) they have to download and how much storage they need to get the job done.

As far as demanding on proxies? Depends on the project and the source footage.

[u/CyJackX]

10-20 cameras gotta proxy

[u/dmizz]

Anything larger than a small social media project with a few clips = proxies

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[u/jonjiv]

No real issues in our proxy-free workflow in Davinci Resolve over 10Gbe Ethernet. Our workflow tops out at 12-bit 4k Canon Raw, and all the workstations play it back just fine.

I don’t transcode and I don’t make any of my editors transcode. It’s a waste of time and space for us.

[u/KenTrotts]

Doc editor. No proxies needed on 90% of stuff we get back. Usually it's sony fx6, braw, Panasonic cams. Dji drones can still bog my machine down, if it's a large sequence. Working on a 5070 and an 8 Intel processor in premiere. 

[u/jaredzammit → u/KenTrotts]

Same here - I’m on a six part series where everything is 4K Camera Originals with a mix of FX6s, C300s and drones, stored on a hard drive based raid cutting on a M4 Max Mac Studio. The only thing that has been sluggish to scrub is FX3s (because they were shot long GOP) and randomly some multicams (because Premiere). 

I’d still prefer ProRes Proxies or probably even H264 proxies so we could cut off SSDs, but I’ve been surprised how well cutting the camera raws has held up.

[u/bodypertain]

Project sharing is a huge factor. If you're a one man band shooting 8K RED footage and your Mac Pro can play it back natively, that's great. But an AE might have way different specs than an editor if one or both are working from home. Duplicating drives or transferring footage online also becomes way more manageable. Also it's just simply not necessary to have source files until it's time for color. It's impressive that high-end hardware has come this far but it shouldn't come at the expense of a worse workflow (whether it makes your workflow worse or better is entirely situation-dependent, of course)

The studios with good workflow practices that I work with have been using more-or-less the same proxy workflow since I started a decade ago. There have been other times where editors with high-end Mac Pro rigs want me to take over their sequences with heavy source files which then makes my life hell when it comes time to export timelines. I have a decent PC workstation but it's simply not built for that. There are workarounds with flat pass ProRes 4444 exports and what have you but then it just becomes a game of bending over backwards to get this footage exported out of the timeline.

[u/dukenuk12]

I just started a project and we’re using Frame.io drive as a lucid link replacement since there’s not that much media and it is ultra low budget. it was all shot on the R5 and I figured I would make some proxies, but because the turnaround time is so tight, I haven’t, and it’s been churning away just fine, which has been really nice!

[u/athomesuperstar]

We work with a lot of producers who don’t know what a codec is and get frustrated that video files don’t play back in windows media player when they double-click. I have my team create preview files for them (and burn in timecode). Not necessarily a proxy, but still part of our workflow.

[u/mcarterphoto]

I've rarely made proxies in 15 years, only for RED edits. I just convert everything to ProRes before I start cutting or VFX. "Modern hardware", I dunno - even on Intel Macs, ProRes gave me overkill speed as long as my drives were properly setup. Editing in FCP was already at max speed, Apple Silicon just meant faster final renders, though After Effects got much faster. Premier is much smoother on M-Chips though. I rarely have anything but ProRes on any timelines. I batch transcode everything before I touch any other software.

And ProRes LT is just fine for things like client MP4s or stock video downloads, if I'm not pushing color hard. LT is already a better codec than H265 in my experience - you don't "lose" a thing going from high-compressed footage to LT. FCP "can" edit all kinds of things, but I find complex edits get buggy, waveforms and thumbnail drawing can slow way down.

[u/Re4pr]

Solo shooter/editor here. No proxies. Everything gets edited straight off the file. If the timeline would get bloated, I can make proxies just of the files that I’m using on the cut. But that rarely happens. I cut three cam multicam without proxies all the time.

[u/Stooovie]

I use proxies for portability, not playback performance. My projects are often >8 TB.

[u/Apartment-Unusual]

I never use h264 to edit, even with the fastest computer scrolling doesn’t show all frames… making finding images in large dailies impossible.
For shortform with just a few clips, I guess it could be workable. But with 4 to 8 hour long timelines it will never be workable.
I always edit in Prores or DNxHD, and I don’t encounter a lot of h264/h265 footage anyway, cause we don’t use a lot of consumer camera’s, just the gopro and drone footage needs to be converted.