What follows is not for everyone, and I apologize if some of this has been covered before.
If you have a fast CPU and the $$$ to buy Connect HD, then you can capture to an intermediate file and get on with your editing. However, if your computer and/or budget force you to capture to m2t, then you need to render to an intermediate. On my older (3.5 year-old) 2.8 GHz P4, that takes about 4-5 hours for every hour of video. For many projects, all I need is some simple cuts and I'm done. It sure hurts to wait all that time for the intermediates.
Proxies are good, but rendering DV proxies still takes time. I wanted something faster. My first attempt involved using the index files that Scenalyzer can create. What you do is set your HD camcorder to output DV, and then let Scenalyzer capture the video at 12x. This takes five minutes to capture an hour of tape, and you have your proxy file. Unfortunately, this gives you a file that is about 3 fps. Not good enough even for rough cuts. I guess I was guilty of trying to be a little too clever.
My next attempt was to try to find something faster than DV. I went through every codec on my system and tried various project and codec settings. After a lot of testing, I found the Sony YUV codec, when set to 1/4 1080i resolution (360x270) and draft video rendering quality, with all other settings set to match 1080i HDV, seems to produce the fastest render. The quality of the video is plenty good enough for editing. Most important, I can render these proxies in close to real-time, reducing the wait time until I can begin editing to about 20% of what is required for intermediates, and less than half the time required for DV proxies.
I assume most people reading this understand the trade-offs between intermediates and proxies. The only "new" thing I am providing here is information on what I think is the fastest way to get a low-res proxy that is good enough for simple cuts-only. The time savings vs. DV is over 2:1 and vs. Cineform about 5:1.
If you have a fast CPU and the $$$ to buy Connect HD, then you can capture to an intermediate file and get on with your editing. However, if your computer and/or budget force you to capture to m2t, then you need to render to an intermediate. On my older (3.5 year-old) 2.8 GHz P4, that takes about 4-5 hours for every hour of video. For many projects, all I need is some simple cuts and I'm done. It sure hurts to wait all that time for the intermediates.
Proxies are good, but rendering DV proxies still takes time. I wanted something faster. My first attempt involved using the index files that Scenalyzer can create. What you do is set your HD camcorder to output DV, and then let Scenalyzer capture the video at 12x. This takes five minutes to capture an hour of tape, and you have your proxy file. Unfortunately, this gives you a file that is about 3 fps. Not good enough even for rough cuts. I guess I was guilty of trying to be a little too clever.
My next attempt was to try to find something faster than DV. I went through every codec on my system and tried various project and codec settings. After a lot of testing, I found the Sony YUV codec, when set to 1/4 1080i resolution (360x270) and draft video rendering quality, with all other settings set to match 1080i HDV, seems to produce the fastest render. The quality of the video is plenty good enough for editing. Most important, I can render these proxies in close to real-time, reducing the wait time until I can begin editing to about 20% of what is required for intermediates, and less than half the time required for DV proxies.
I assume most people reading this understand the trade-offs between intermediates and proxies. The only "new" thing I am providing here is information on what I think is the fastest way to get a low-res proxy that is good enough for simple cuts-only. The time savings vs. DV is over 2:1 and vs. Cineform about 5:1.