KeyFlow Pro 2.3 switching between Proxy & Original Media

[Joe Marler]

[Tony Sarafoski] “there seems to be no way I can switch the original media over to the proxy media that KeyFlow has generated inside KeyFlow.

I would like to take my edits on the road from time to time, and so far I haven’t been find a way where I can switch between Proxy or Original Media files, similar to what is possible within FCPX.”

I don’t use KeyFlow Pro, but it’s not possible to relink proxies in FCPX, nor to attach externally-generated proxies as proxies within FCPX.

Examination of the internal SQL tables within the library indicates they are not storing full metadata for each proxy file, but adding a few rows for each proxy file which “piggyback” via FK<->PK relational links to the corresponding orig. file metadata. FCPX proxies and the underlying database methods and schema were originally designed for in-library use only. It’s possible that when user-specified external storage locations were added in 10.1.2 (which enabled external proxies), the database methods and schema were not adequately updated.

However it is possible to manually relink to the proxies as original media. If the proxy files exist on any disk volume, FCPX can often relink to these as original media — not proxies — despite lower resolution or differing codec. Then when final export is required, relink to the full-res originals is possible. In this scenario proxies are used but the FCPX viewer is set to “original media”. The proxies can be FCPX-generated or camera-generated.

I don’t know if that method might be applicable to KeyFlow Pro.

Relink constraints:

– Files must have the same audio config (same number of channels), but sample rate can differ.
– Pixel aspect ratio should be the same, but it may relink even if different.
– Clip duration must be the same.
– File suffix must be the same.
– Codec need not be the same, e.g. you can create 720p H264 proxies and relink to those as original media. However for normal FCPX-generated proxies of 4k material, the codec will be ProRes 422 at 1080p.
– Camera-generated proxies are all different cases and relink to those and back to full res media should be tested for each situation.
– After relink to lower-res material, the viewer may show a windowboxed frame. This is usually a cache issue. To fix this shut down FCPX, manually delete cache and start it again. Cache will be located in a folder or the library, as shown in the library inspector. The cache is a single file bundle named LibraryName.fcpcache. It seems harmless to delete, but do so at your own risk.