Working with On Demand Proxies

On Demand Proxies

Flame 2016 Extension 1 brings major enhancements to the proxy workflow. Proxy generation is now much more granular, in that they can be enabled and disabled for individual clips, regardless of whether default proxy generation was enabled at project creation.

Flame 2016 Extension 1 also introduced the Proxy Quality workflow, in which you can reduce the amount of data being calculated in complex setups, without the need to have proxies stored on disk, by simply changing the quality.

However, as overall interactivity and performance is defined by the slowest link in the chain, if reading the source media is what is causing the performance loss for large setups, users can now optionally generate proxies on disk.

Creating Projects

The Project Creation options have changed in order to reflect the new workflow. Under the Proxy Settings tab, aside from the proxy size, quality setting and conditional setting, you can now enable the Generate Proxies By Default button. Because all projects are proxy-capable, what this button does is enable a sub-set of preferences, in relevant parts of the application, causing proxies to be generated on disc, by default. This includes importing media from the MediaHub and rendering media from Batch, the Timeline, the Modules, etc.

Import Options

When you import media from the MediaHub, you now have a Generate Proxies button. If you enabled the Generate Proxies By Default option when creating your project, the button will also be enabled by default in the MediaHub and proxy media will be generated on import. You are free to disable and re-enable it, at any point, to change the proxy generation behavior for specific media.

Rendering Options

Previously, when you rendered in a proxy-enabled project, Flame systematically rendered proxy media. Now that proxy media is optional, there are new preferences to define whether or not to write proxy media during rendering. These preferences affect the Timeline, Batch, Generators and the Modules.

In the General tab of the Preferences, under Default Rendering Options, there is now a Proxy Rendering drop-down menu, from which you can select one of three options:

• Full Resolution and Proxy: The application renders at both full resolution and proxy resolution. This is the same behavior as a proxy-enabled project in Flame 2016.
• Full Resolution: The application renders only at full resolution. This is the same behavior as a non-proxy project in Flame 2016.
• Proxy: This sets the Timeline Rendering options to “Proxy Only”.
  Note: The Proxy option only applies to the Timeline. When selected, Batch, Generators and the Modules are set to “Full Resolution and Proxy”, as they do not support Proxy Only rendering. They instead have an “Include Proxies” option in the drop-down of their respective Rendering button, which is enabled or disabled, based on this preference setting.

Generating Proxies On Demand

The purpose of the changes outlined above is to support on demand proxy generation. This is achieved through the contextual menu, under the Media header, which gives you two self-explanatory options, relative to proxy generation:

• Generate Proxies
• Flush Proxies

You can do this at any point, regardless of whether or not you enabled proxy generation by default when you created your project.

This can be done to an individual clip, to a Reel or a Library.

Visual Indication

In order to get a quick snapshot of which clips have proxy media, as well as their current status, you can:

• Enable List View in the Media Panel and look in the Proxy Resolution column, which will display a hyphen if no proxies exist on disc for that media, the resolution of the proxies if they exist on disc and “pending…” if proxies are in the midst of being generated.
• Alt + Click (Flame profile) a clip in the Media Panel.