Smart proxy Vs Vegasaur

Arthur.S wrote on 9/23/2013, 2:20 PM

Any opinions on which of these works best? Obviously, SP is only available in V12, whereas you can use the Vegasaur proxy in earlier versions of Vegas. Seemed to me to be a tad slower converting than SP. Also, I like the fact that SP reverts to original files automatically. It appears that you have to do that manually with Vegasaur?

Comments

videoITguy wrote on 9/23/2013, 2:42 PM

Smart Proxy in V12 should be faster and more seamless as a proxy manager than anything else. But that is describing the true proxy feeling.

On the other hand there are proxy creation tools like Vegasaur, GearShift, and Rosebud Proxy Script that are infinitely flexible and can be used in all versions of VegasPro. That translates into some other uses of "proxy" such as interchange with digital intermediates, and special uses for VegasPro such as cutting and matching timecode or color-graded footage.

Read this for a perspective...
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?Forum=4&MessageID=867569

NormanPCN wrote on 9/23/2013, 2:56 PM

I have not used the old media swap method of proxy. I have used Vegas native smart proxy and the new Vegasaur feature to create Vegas 12 smart proxies.

Vegas created smart proxies are MXF 720 mpeg-2 VBR 35Mbps files. They also do a quirky thing with the frame rate and that is why I used the Vegasaur SP feature for my 1080p60 AVC files.

Vegas smart proxies can actually be any input file format Vegas natively supports. It does not have to be exactly what they create.

So others can speak to the media swap mechanism, which Vegasaur supports but you can also create Vegas 12 compatible smart proxies of your choosing. Whatever method you want to do with proxies you can do it with Vegasaur. Vegasaur also can watermark your proxy file. Makes it obvious when you are looking a the proxy.

About why I like the Vegasaur SP feature. Vegas created SP are encoded as 24 fps. No frames are resampled. So my 60 fps proxy files were 2.5 times larger than the sources. 60 / 24 = 2.5.

I also like the smart auto switching between proxy and original of the Vegas feature.

Arthur.S wrote on 10/10/2013, 5:55 AM

Can someone walk me through a Vegasaur work flow for proxies? I get the creation bit, but not sure about reversing the process. Looks like you have to use the 'replace media' option in Vegasaur, but how do you guarantee that you're replacing the exact same files?

NormanPCN wrote on 10/10/2013, 6:50 PM

I only did this once, but this is what I did and what I saw.

As you noticed, when creating the proxy you can also have Vegasaur swap the media at that time. When you use Replace media to restore Vegasaur noticed that the proxies were in place and defaulted to a restore operation. Vegasaur has an option to write the original file name into the comment field of the media when the proxy is in place. I believe this is how it automatically recognizes a restore operation.

After creation with a swap you will use replace media to swap media back and forth.

Vegasaur swaps based on file extension. So if the source file is, myfile.mp4 and the proxy has an m2t extension, myfile.mp4.m2t, then this is how it goes about swapping between the two. The file names will be the same and only the proxy extension will differing. Vegasaur defaults to creating proxies in a subfolder, proxy, in the source media folder.

"exact same file". Vegasaur goes by file names. If you overwrite one or both of the files then obviously something is getting changed and Vegasaur cannot detect this.

Arthur.S wrote on 10/11/2013, 4:50 AM

Thanks for that. I've just tried the Sony 'Smart proxy' work flow. 2 cam edit was very smooth, though it take a while to create those proxies! What I didn't like about it is not being able to easily revert back to the original to check Colour correction/effects etc.
Only way I could think of was to rename the proxy files and restart Vegas. This would seem to be MUCH easier in Vegasaur, and particularly gearshift.

WillemT wrote on 10/11/2013, 9:02 AM

@Arthur.

When using the built-in Vegas proxies, all you need to do is set the Preview Quality to Draft or Preview to use the proxy files, and then set it to Good or Best to use the originals - Vegas does all the work. That is what makes it so great - no need to manually "switch".

Willem.

Arthur.S wrote on 10/11/2013, 9:50 AM

Cheers for the info Willem!

OldSmoke wrote on 10/11/2013, 9:54 AM

Vegasaur does the same. It only uses the proxy file when in Preview or Draft mode. In addition, it can put a watermark on it so you know immediately which file you are looking at.