How To Create Proxies for RED 4K Edit in Premiere Pro 6

[Angelo Lorenzo]

If you’ve synced audio in Premiere, there is really no turning back without redoing the work. Since you’re using R3D files, it’s hard to slip in intermediates without doing some heavy lifting or relying on a tool like https://www.retooled.net/?page_id=784

With that said, I’m almost positive your issue is the external drive. WD Passport drives are slow bus-powered hard drives really not suitable for the task at hand. Move a few clips over to a internal drive or a more suitable full sized firewire drive (like a G-Drive) and I think you’ll find playback more acceptable. If your cache for the project is also on this external drive, it’s only aggravating the issue as well.

Without a Red Rocket card, I wouldn’t expect real time playback above 1/4 quality so you will have to stick with that or lower to make things workable in your source/program monitor.

What does your activity monitor app look like when you’re taxing your system with playback? Anything pegging? Could be another clue to performance bottlenecks.

——————–
Angelo Lorenzo

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[Michael Scarn]

FIXED**

Okay, SO!

I just wanted to come back here and post my ridiculous workflow that corrected my mistakes.

So originally, my problem was that 1) my machine was not powerful enough to edit in full 4K, and 2) I went ahead and synced 4K footage to audio manually in full 4K, and THEN used the “merge clips” tool. The problem with this is that, because I synced by merging clips in 4K, I could not come back from and replace the footage in a merged clip — not an available feature in premiere yet (it’s grayed out). I didn’t want to spend another 20 hours re-syncing all 500 clips I had. That would be insane.

So here is the stupid, yet semi-genius, fix for this mistake:

1) Transcode/ Proxy— Unfortunately I could not figure out the inherent proxy files RED ONE creates, so I went ahead and transcoded all of my footage to ProRes 422 in Redcine X Pro. By doing this, I then had smaller, more useable files with which I can edit, using the same file name (minus the 001 at the end of the R3D file name) in the same folder as the other formats of that clip. To be certain, I transcoded to 1920×1013 so as to accurately match the dimensions of the RAW file.

2) Set Up New Sequences in Premiere— Depending on what you shot in, create three new sequences. I shot in 4K 2:1, so we will be using that as an example. The sequences: 1) Name one “Edit 1920” and use the DSLR 1080p preset, but change the aspect ratio to 1920×960 (to get rid of any letter boxing). 2) Name the second “Edit 4K” and use the RED 4K 2:1 preset. 3) Name one “Overwrite4K” and also use the RED 4K 2:1 preset.

3) Drag and Drop— Now take a merged clip (your silly synced audio and video in 4K that you created for some silly reason) and drop it in the Overwrite4K sequence. In Finder, drag and drop the newly transcoded clip that matches your merged clip ABOVE the 4K footage.

4) Nest— Highlight all of this (the audio, the 4K clip, and the 1920 clip), right-click and click “Nest.” Now look in your project bin and find that newly nested sequence — it should be at the bottom. Rename it to whatever your merged clips name was (for instance my merged clips were 13A_1 as in shot thirteen A take 1).

5) Edit— Now you can drag your newly nested sequence and drag and drop into your “Edit 1920” sequence. It may ask if you want to change the sequence settings… No! We set it up for a reason, remember? You may notice your clip lagging (if your machine is as slow as mine). If that’s the case, you haven’t yet deactivated your 4K video line. Double-click your nested sequence and it will open. In your monitor you will see a 4K version and a 1920 version. Click the eyeball next to whatever track is 4K and it will leave your 1920 track alone in the center of the frame. Go BACK to “Edit 1920” and it should be playing normally.

6) Copy Your Timeline— Once you’re finished editing (and I mean locked picture and sound, ready to move onto color and export finished), select all items in your “Edit 1920” sequence, right-click “Copy.” Head over to your “Edit 4K” sequence, right-click, and paste. You now will have all your little 1920-sized timeline in your 4K sequence. That won’t do… Double click every single clip/ edit in your timeline and it will bring you back to each nested sequence. Deactivate the 1920 track and then activate the 4K track using the eyeball. Once you’ve done this for every nested sequence, your edit will be ready in 4K in your Edit 4K sequence.

FINISHED!

Now, I am sure to get flak for this process. There are always better methods, but my initial problem was that I merged clips using 4K to sync. Unfortunately, Premiere cannot replace the footage in newly merged clips. I have found that my method works, and though I have not exported my Edit 4K sequence yet, it looks fine and should export normally.

Thanks for the help all, and hopefully my complicated method will help someone else down the line.

[Lucy Moon]

Oh well done for finding that work around! FYI I have a hackintosh not dissimilar to your Mac – I have just edited RED 4k successfully, as long as it’s on an internal drive, at I think 1/16 th res.

For sure USB is not fast enough for this.

Cheers
Lucy

MacBookPro 2.2 GHz intel core duo/ 6 GB RAM / GeForce 8600M GT
Hackintosh 3.41 i7 / AMD Radeon HD 6870 /16 GB 1 / OSX 10.7