Edit Video FAST on a SLOW Computer! - Codecs, Transcoding, and Proxies

Do you have a older, slower computer? Or maybe a brand-new laptop that is a bit lacking in the CPU/GPU department? This video is here to help.
In this video we start by discussing the reason that most DSLR, mirrorless, drone, and smartphone footage is so hard to edit: the codec. These devices (for the most part) all shoot in the H.264 or H.265 codec, which is really good for creating small files that fit nicely onto a memory card, but really bad at being edited.
The reason is that in order to edit the footage, all of the frames need to be rendered and with the H.264 or H.265 codecs only a small fraction of the frames are pre-rendered in the file. You CPU or GPU needs to take up the slack. Even on my very well equipped editing desktop, I still can't get smooth playback on my 4K 60FPS H.264 drone footage.
So, how do we fix it? Two solutions. One is to transcode all of the footage from H.264/265 into something more edit-friendly like Apple ProRes, or DNxHR. Both of these codecs have much larger file sizes, but require much less rendering from the computer. If you want to transcode all of your footage into one of these more friendly codecs, it makes editing easy, but keep in mind that the file size of your transcoded clips will be 3x-5x that of the original.
Another solution is to use proxies. Proxies are smaller, more edit-friendly versions of your clips. As an example, you can create a Apple ProRes 1280x720p version of your original 4K H.264 clip that will be used when you are editing in premiere and will result in much smoother playback. For most people, this is the preferred option and it's also the option we are going to discuss in-depth in this video.
--------------------------
Gear Used for this video:
CAMERA: bhpho.to/2YlWsMK
LENS: bhpho.to/2AjXdy2
MONITOR: bhpho.to/2VUT4Jb
MIC: bhpho.to/39SDC3z
AUDIO RECORDER: bhpho.to/2Gy91vo
ND FILTER: bhpho.to/2UBAuEp
--------------------------
Learn more about our school: rmsp.com/

[@forestchaput]

Transcoding all of your footage, or creating proxies. Which do you prefer?

[@stellarstella99]

The most helpful, comprehensive and clear-explaining tutorial ever. Looking for this knowledge for the whole afternoon yet still confused and now I finally get it.

[@imAgentR]

This is the video I didn't ask for, but the one I desperately needed. A solid Like from me. The QoL for my editing has just improved over 9000! Thanks for sharing this information; such a game changer!

[@joelsunny]

The best video on KZbin on this topic imo. Thank you

[@forestchaput]

Wow, thanks!

[@FroZenL1Qu1d]

Fantastic video! I got a 3090 recently and started recording in 4k 60fps and was shocked to see how laggy editing became in comparison to previous 2k footage. Had no idea what codecs really were about, let alone proxies, but you explained everything so clearly even for a hobbyist editor, got me really hyped up to keep editing!

[@jaybillups2063]

Thanks, very helpful. I was using h.264 for my proxies and not getting the most benefits. I just changed my presets and adjusted my workflow thanks to your info.

[@marykirmo]

I am so glad I found this video. I was riding that struggle bus and just......needed a good thorough walk through like this. THANKS! SO MUCH!!

[@forestchaput]

We hate the struggle bus so we are so glad to help!

[@Mickspad]

Thank you for this, before this video I actually was transcoding all of my media to ProRes Proxies instead of using Proxies because I didn't know how it worked so I wasn't reducing video quality at all, and still just used up hundreds of gigabytes for like an hour of footage

[@tuggaSepolious]

Awesome. Thanks for the help. Knownledge is everything 💪

[@forestchaput]

Happy to help!

[@paulrobinson8702]

This video was very helpful. Thank you so much! Keep up the good work.

[@forestchaput]

You're very welcome!

[@mickeyoern]

Needed a solution to painfully slow H.264 4k 60 fps editing. Searched on KZbin. Found Rocky Mountain School of Photography. Listened to the eloquent solution presented to solve the problem. And subscribed with an appreciation for the good communication.

[@alexandrepiche5609]

Amazing information! I'm new to video editing and this will serve me well! Thanks a lot.

[@forestchaput]

Glad to hear it!

[@slimyelow]

Wow, I wish I had known ALL THAT a few weeks ago when struggling and getting really irritated with Premiere. Thanks a lot for this - keep up the great work!

[@forestchaput]

Thank you!

[@sonyazh7642]

Thank you so much! Very clearly explained, got it straight away! x ( little note: it would be nice to see how the proxy folder looks like as U`ve mentioned it but didn't show) Still super grateful for this video, very helpful! :)

[@justim4545]

good video. exactly what i was looking for.

[@Rahman413]

thanks for the video! This was exactly what I'm looking for!

[@forestchaput]

Glad to hear it!

[@3duy525]

Realy helpful for me, Amazing sir !

[@forestchaput]

Glad to hear that

[@pablographx]

So helpful! Thanks bro!!

[@marcusmars9576]

Bro thank you very much, this helped a lot. God Bless ☮🙏🏼

[@sbday2417]

Most excellent video and great explanation. You are now my favourite KZbinr. Just the facts. A couple questions if you would be so kind. About transcoding from the dreaded H.264 and .265 to pro res. 1. If I shoot 4K or 5.4K at 23.976 or 29.97 HLG or D-Log on my DJI Air 2S what flavour of Pro Res would you transcode to to preserve quality? ie. HQ, LT etc. 2. Second, some of my Drone footage is 23.98 and some 29.97 and some 59.97(60fps) Playback stutters depending on settings of timeline ie 23.976 stutters on a 29.97 timeline and vide versa. "Interpret footage" works kind of OK but a real pain. Can I do it just in the timeline ? What do you do here? In Avid I might just Transcode my final sequence footage to save space only but I haven't found out how to do that in Premiere yet. Again thanks . Note I have the M1 Mac Studio and H.264 and .265 still stinks at 4K and 5.4K but more tolerable than my older iMac. Also SSD drives. Does Rocky Mountain School of Photography have a football team?

[@gcfilms2840]

This really helped a lot!!

[@bellabellabellabella]

this was super great. thank you

[@forestchaput]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@steveritchie4926]

Super helpful, thank you!

[@forestchaput]

You’re welcomeb

[@AnnexF]

Awesome video! Learned a lot.

[@forestchaput]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@whisperingtide618]

Very helpful, thanks! :)

[@forestchaput]

You're welcome!

[@thelexiconabc]

Really awesome and informational video. I'm new to editing 4k footage and didn't realize the lag Premiere would have. I'm in the final stages of exporting but can't get the project to open without crashing... any workarounds to help?

[@PaulJWCampbell]

Very helpful dude!

[@antoniocuevas6855]

This video, jus saved my project🙏

[@forestchaput]

AMAZING! Glad to help

[@subhendukundu3980]

Great Video! ❤️✌🏻

[@forestchaput]

Thank you! 😁

[@MabawaVocal]

THE BEST TEACHER EVER,I NEVER HAD TO REWIND TO UNDERSTAND,YOU EXPLAIN THINGS STRAIGHT FORWARD,IM A SUBSCRIBER,NEXT CAN YOU SHOW HOW TO SOFTEN SKING IN MUSIC VIDEOS OR IN ANY VIDEO? THANKS

[@caribeno188]

Great Video !!!

[@Benji370]

Thank you so much, you just saved me!!

[@forestchaput]

Glad I could help!

[@MrBerniebling]

Thank you for this video, good stuff:)

[@forestchaput]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@ydb1651]

thanks!! helped a lot!!

[@forestchaput]

Glad it helped!

[@clipdump]

Exporting motion graphics from ae with prores + alpha really helps too

[@83yWasTooShort]

very helpful, thanks

[@LaJewel]

Hi - great explainer! 👍🏽 I have a question for you ... I have a weird problem. I took on a show that had started in an old AIC codec (previous editor had old mac & cut on FCP7, etc.) I'm on Premiere presently. Premiere couldn't read the old AIC nedia files. And Adobe Media Encoder couldn't transcode the AIC files. So I was advised to get Compressor, which I did . That worked at first (two test transcodes of AIC to ProRes 422, output to source folder, a couple of days ago.) So I thought I was all reeady to go, and loaded up a bunch of clips to batch - but when I hit the button to start batch (and had it all highlighted) - I now get an error code that there's no output (?) I selected source for output, as far as I can tell - same as my tests ... Any ideas? Thanks!🙏🏽

[@TonyRush21]

A very comprehensive and clear video tutorial. I didn't even hesitate to subscribe. Need to clear up something though. Can I convert/transcode my H264/H265 footage from the camera to Prores in Premiere, and then convert them to proxy for editing, and then have Premiere encode them back as Prores in the final output?

[@forestchaput]

Yep! But you might not even need proxies. If you convert everything to Prores chances our your computer will be able to edit that Prores footage without the need to create smaller proxies.

[@emrey2252]

awesome. thank you.

[@forestchaput]

You're welcome!

[@IsmashedtoRedbone]

Very comprehensive

[@arkahhhzzrisingto1071]

Nice 👍 and thanks 🎉💝

[@forestchaput]

Most welcome 😊

[@fahamfahm8290]

Tnx that was great toturial

[@forestchaput]

Glad you liked it!

[@ALMFoster]

So useful. Thank you. One quick question, what sort of file sizes were the proxies you created as low res pr ores files compared to the original h.264 file sizes? It would just be useful to know this. Thanks.

[@mincrafter934]

Depends on what the original media was (ex Full HD or 4K). In my case i have a H.264 4K file. When i create a proxy then the file size went from 2,31GB to 0,20GB

[@xodius80]

great vibes man, nice video. So proxies are basicaly transcoded files but in smaller space, than to transcode the originals.

[@forestchaput]

Yes, exactly

[@David-cq6zx]

Great video. One question though - The downside of transcoding that you mentioned (that the output files will be bigger). Can't you just transcode to Apple pro-res for editing purposes and then export as a different codec? (e.g. h.264) Or am I misunderstanding something? This would help clear up for me if I should transcode or use proxies. Thanks again!

[@forestchaput]

That's a great question, but I still think proxies are your best bet as they minimize the time you will spend rendering when compared to transcoding one way, then back again.

[@RabiiHayani]

Great video now i know all thx

[@forestchaput]

Glad to hear!

[@minttjulep]

I can’t even get my footage to import. It just crashes.. does anyone know how to fix this. It never happened on my first try.

[@cassa8640]

Thank you

[@forestchaput]

You’re welcome!

[@swiftsarcasm7134]

you saved my bacon dude. thank you

[@forestchaput]

Glad I could help!

[@philderp3326]

nice I just would like you to have shown you exporting the footage because you said something about it being an option to export with the full quality footage.

[@forestchaput]

Ah, great question. It will always export with the full quality footage. That isn't an option you can turn on or off. Proxies are just there for the editing process.

[@JohnOsCreations]

I would love to know why this is happening. I just purchased a M2 Mac mini 16GB. What I find strange is any mp4 (h.264) footage I add to the timeline it is a breeze to edit. scrubs through it no problem in 1/1 Quality. For a test I encoded some mp4s to Apple proRes HQ 422 in Adobe media Encoder. When I add these .mxf files to my timeline and try and scrub through them, to my surprise it is really slow and glitchy compared with the original MP4 files. Any idea why this would be? Thanks.

[@forestchaput]

That's a tough one. I would assume that it's purely an issue of file size. A full size ProRes file will be much larger than an h.264 clip. That's why I like using proxies.

[@kbvisuals619]

Dude so I just got the air2s and quickly realized I need to use proxies in my work flow. But I’m having a huge issue issue with my after I export. My video become very very choppy and basically frozen. What sequence settings do you use and do you think I need to use media encoder to export as well? Btw raw footage plays back smooth on my computer. All my problems some within premiere somehow

[@forestchaput]

Hmmm. I would say that's most likely an exporting issue. Try exporting using H.264 with the KZbin 1080p or 2160p option and see how it plays back after export.

[@DannyDorjee]

Thank You

[@forestchaput]

You’re welcome!

[@sauravchaudhary997]

subscribed. this is EXACTLY what i was looking for. One question tho - i recently worked on a video that had footage shot on one plus 7. Earlier I've made videos with footages from my EOS 70D and screen recordings and videos downloaded from youtube. never had a problem. but, when i worked on this new video with one plus 7 footage, the exported video came out all glitchy. when i exported with the "match sequence setting" option, the exported video was okay but some screen recording parts were still glitching. I don't know why, and i dont even know how to search for something to solve this problem. If you can solve it, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DO.

[@forestchaput]

Hmmm. That sounds pretty strange. I haven’t run into that myself. Maybe do a few google searches and see if someone on the Adobe forum has run into the same issue. It sounds like a bug to me.

[@stevchickmusic1574]

hi thanks for your great video .Question what benefits would there be to transcode over proxy?

[@forestchaput]

Transcoding would permanently alter your footage. That’s fine, if that’s what you’re after.

[@stevchickmusic1574]

Hi don't understand how does that work?

[@kfire69]

Transcoding automatically with a watch folder on adobe encore is agood way to go if we have a lot of space no?

[@forestchaput]

For sure!

[@alexishikula]

so pro res makes the file bigger but this helps to edit faster via proxies... I'm missing something how does a.bigger file help with proxies

[@melvinch]

It doesn't need to decode during playback as all frames is present, unlike h264, which uses GOP.

[@noicerone]

Yo this need to be heard!

[@forestchaput]

Thanks! I agree! Haha.

[@Kalesh_101]

How to edit hdr video?

[@forestchaput]

Unfortunately I have no idea. That’s not something I’ve ever gotten into.

[@KTHKUHNKK]

Rocky I loved this video. If you answer my question I will definitely subscribe. I love to edit videos. I use Corel VSP As my editor. I also create proxy files Now If I shoot in 4K with my drone. And render it out 1920 by 1080 What bit rate do you recommend ? Give me a number please. Thanks Keith Your video was very well explained.

[@forestchaput]

That entirely depends on what you plan on doing with the exported video, and what frame rate you are exporting it at.

[@KTHKUHNKK]

@@forestchaput Okay you said it depends on what I want to do with the video. And yes I am subscribing to your channel now. I only post my videos on KZbin. The frame rates are always between 60 and 120. So as far as the bit rate what would you recommend ? Thanks. PS I'm going to send you a drone video and you can see how crappy it looks tried to play it on a larger screen if you can. The leaves in the trees look just terrible. Blotchy and pixelated. Why do you think this would be ?

[@KTHKUHNKK]

@@forestchaput Look how crappy the leaves look in this video. kzbin.info/www/bejne/a5q5gGOCi9p4Y8U

[@forestchaput]

Yep, that definitely looks pixelated. Assuming it looks good when you're editing and it starts looking bad when you upload it, then yes, that seems to be an issue with too low of a bitrate. KZbin recommends a bitrate of 12Mbps for 1080p 60fps content and 8Mbps if you are only uploaded at 30fps. Here's a useful chart: support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171?hl=en#zippy=%2Cframe-rate%2Cbitrate You should be able to set Corel VSP to 8 or 12 Mbps and get some better looking trees!

[@KTHKUHNKK]

@@forestchaput I appreciate your reply let me explain something. Straight off of the card when I put it in the computer it looks fantastic crystal clear. Once I put it into my editor which is Corel. VSP 2020 THAT IS WHERE THE PIXELATION OR BLOTCHINESS STARTS AT. So once it goes on KZbin it's still blotchy or pixelated. It only seems to do it with the trees in the forage. I put my bit rate is high as I can get it I don't remember the exact number now. I can let you see another video which is crystal clear but it's not of trees it's over a boat basin have a look I will send it on shortly. Keith Kuhn

[@kumakick6038]

great video! making my life easier lol

[@RetroBusker]

yes i tryed doing a "create proxy" makes no difference... I imaginge mines more power than yours, espcially if urs in only a laptop.. its not the vegas pro 19 editing software as i can't play the 5k videos in any of the players.... just a heads up from the scecs of my pc so you know its high end... CPU Cores 10, threads 20, intel core i9 10900, mother board ROG MAXIMUS XII HERO (WI-FI), 64GIG MEMORY, NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2070 SUPER GRAPHICS CARD, Let me know if yours is more powerful or if mine isnt enough for 5k... I'm playing and editing any 4k easily, just so you know

[@forestchaput]

I used to be a PC guy, but now I use Mac. My little 13" M1 MacBook Pro eats through the 5.3K GoPro footage without proxies or rendering. I'm running Premiere Pro.

[@forestchaput]

By the way, that's a nice machine! Very similar to the PC I had before!

[@RetroBusker]

@@forestchaput what is the core cpu, Ram & thread of your system? mines prob more... cod be a simple tech issue... if u tell me, then i will let them know that theres a guy on youtube editing 5.3k easily with tech that is 1/3rd the power of mine... they hopfully will pull their sleeves up and let me know its something simple like updating some software & they'll take control & do it NOW

[@forestchaput]

​@@RetroBusker 8-core 3.2GHz, GPU is 2.6 TFLOPs, 16GB of RAM.

[@RetroBusker]

@@forestchaput thanks, waw!!! mine is 10 times stronger... something wrong there

[@BrokenSword1978]

you sound like brett from inside job

[@KALINAmoto]

Creating proxies takes like 4x original video time. So if you have 2.5 hours of video its gona be encoding for 10hours....

[@forestchaput]

True! But you can run that at night when you aren't editing!

[@KALINAmoto]

@@forestchaput The only solution