Error: “Proxy media and full resolution media must have matching audio channels”

[Jon Doughtie]

You most likely need to generate your proxies via the Adobe software as opposed to using the camera-generated proxies.

System:
Dell Precision T7600 (x2)
Win 7 64-bit
32GB RAM
Adobe CC 2017.1 (as of 8/2017)
256GB SSD system drive
4 internal media drives RAID 5
Typically cutting short form from UHD MP4, HD MP4, and HD P2 MXF.

[Greg Janza]

You can generate proxies with any program you’d like but the one requirement is that proxies match the full res with the exact same audio channels. If your full res is four channel audio then your proxies must be four channel audio. There’s no work around for this.

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[Nina Lucia]

Wow! That’s pretty stupid. Why does it do that? Who cares about that when you’re most likely going to have external audio anyway? The proxies are used only for picture!

I just made proxies in a project where the R3D files had 2 channels of empty audio tracks. I did it in Premiere. Can I assume that’s fine? I didn’t alter the tracks on the full res files but do need to sync them to the sound now. I found that I can sync without using the camera audio, by checking ‘Remove Audio From AV Clip’ and that made a synced clip with only the mic’d audio. Is that the proper way to do it so that I won’t have problems with the picture conform and sound editing?

EDIT TO ADD: I just watched a couple videos and on one it said that in order to toggle between camera originals and proxies you can’t have synced to external audio. So was it a mistake to have made proxies with the camera clips with the empty audio tracks? Should I somehow get rid of the audio tracks and then make the proxies? As I’m typing this I’m thinking that won’t change anything. So is there no way to toggle camera and proxies if you sync to external audio? Does this have any effect on picture conforming in future?

[Stewart Shevin]

A PARTIAL WORKAROUND for some situations…

I had this problem. The proxies were made on set and Premiere gave me the audio mismatch error. The shoot was MOS so I didn’t care about sound anyway. The RAW files were recorded without any sound, but DIT made proxies with a stereo sound setting (which was actually blank on the file, but the file metadata shows it). Hence the mismatch error.

I’m on a MAC. I opened the proxies in Quicktime Pro (not version 10, rather old version 7 that allows editing of properties) and in menu chose WINDOW>SHOW MOVIE PROPERTIES (command+J). In the properties window I selected SOUND TRACK and clicked DELETE. I then saved the file and closed it.

Then in Premiere I control-clicked on the RAW file and chose ATTACH PROXIES. When asked, I selected the proxy I had removed the audio from and it attached properly. SUCCESS!

Of course I had 70 proxies and extracting the audio the audio from each one was a drag, but not nearly as much hassel as remaking the proxies from within Premiere.
I’m sure there is a macro that could be written to automate the process, but that was beyond my ability.

I guess if there was sound involved I might have been able to post sync the RAW / proxies with discreet wav files, assuming they were recorded on set. But for this job it wasn’t an issue. I surely would not change the RAW to adapt to anything unless they were backed up.

Good luck!

[Greg Janza]

[Nina Lucia] “So is there no way to toggle camera and proxies if you sync to external audio?”

External audio has nothing to do with proxy creation. I’d recommend that you create proxies before you add your secondary audio to the clips but it also doesn’t matter if you make the proxies after you create multicam clips from secondary audio.

Proxy creation is only for the video track. Your original audio tracks never change.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tmprods
tallmanproductions.net