DaVinci Resolve Proxy Media: Everything You Need to Know 

Thank you so much! Yeah, it can be really misleading when a term has multiple uses, especially when there’s not really a good understanding of what those use cases are. Glad you liked it!

I’m glad I could provide something useful for the internet!

Thank you so much! Glad it was helpful!

Sounds good! Definitely something in the works!

Thank you! Glad my daddergy is seeping through!

Hey Kevin! Thank you so much! And yeah, would love to catch up!

There’s always some more stuff to go around!

HI BRODY YW

Those proxies are generally the kind for quick file transfer workflow, assuming they’re low file size H.264/H.265 clips. How you use them will vary depending on what your workflow requires, your turnaround times, editors and/or remote editors, and whether or not you need editing proxies. Editing proxies will differ because in order for them to be significantly more efficient for editing, they need to be an intraframe codec like DNxHR or ProRes. If you list some more details, I’d be happy to provide my personal suggestions.

Thank you so much!

The Blackmagic Proxy Generator app is really nice in the sense that it can run as a background process and automatically as it sees footage. The biggest issue I have with it though and why I don't use it is because it has very little customization with what codec and resolution you can set your proxies to. The additional limitation on Windows machines is that it only allows you to use H.264 or H.265, which for editing purposes is mostly useless. The Mac version does have the benefit of using ProRes Proxy, so that would be ideal for editing. Now if you're just needing to compress heavy files into something much smaller to make it easier to send to people, then using the Proxy Generator for H.265 files makes a lot more sense. So all-in-all, it does kind of depend on application, but I would much rather have a little more options on how I want my proxies to be made.

It is a crazy field, because it feels like the more you know, the less you feel like you know. Haha! It doesn’t always feel that way though, just takes time and effort along with trial and error. As far as the Media Management tab goes, I brought it up as a brief showcase of what you can use it for, not just very specific proxy generation. I have a video dedicated to just that tool if you want to learn more about it. There are a large number of things that can contribute to slowed playback, but the key thing to remember is that editing H.264/5 will always be slower than ProRes or DNxHR. With good hardware acceleration like the studio version has, it’s definitely a significant boost in performance, but where it becomes problematic is when you start adding effects to them. Then the differences start to become a lot more prevalent again. There’s a lot to unpack with even just that, but hope it helps!

UPDATE! Found out that Resolve will export the hi-res footage, regardless, unless specified in the DELIVER page > ADVANCED > "use proxy media"… In any case, bless you, Camera Tim!

@@thetravisgreene Thank you so much! And yeah, if you want to switch proxies on and off for preview, then you can either hit the proxy tab on the top right of your viewer, or go to Playback > Proxy Handling. But yeah, as you mentioned, Resolve will use original media unless you specifically tell it to use proxies.

@@CameraTim Thanks!! Instant follow :)

@@thetravisgreene NICE

Thank you! And yeah, since this video, I've since just removed background music from the actual tutorial parts of my videos. You live and you learn...

You’re welcome! Hope this helps a lot! If you’re using the free version of Resolve, then yeah, you’ll definitely get pretty bogged down with compressed H.264/HEVC (H.265) footage as you don’t have GPU decoding for playback, so your CPU will struggle a lot. Proxies will help exponentially. I run the Studio version and I still heavily benefit from proxies. If you run into any issues with it, let me know!

@@CameraTim Ok perfect. I didn’t realize I was fully relying on my CPU without the paid version. That’s even more reason for me to try to buy it soon. I unfortunately am still having problems, but I did realize the issue. I pulled up my temps and usages. It showed me that the reason it’s getting so laggy is most likely because my CPU is getting too hot. I saw it hit 81 C and then when it cools down it works just fine. I’m not sure if maybe I didn’t get the proxies setup right or if it’s just that I’m trying to do too much with not enough cooling. I do have an AIO liquid cooler, but it’s a 240mm if I remember correctly. This most recent video is the only one I’ve had this problem with, but I’m able to slowly make progress now, so that’s good at least. Either way, you’ve taught me more about DaVinci and I absolutely appreciate it. Thank you 😊 I hope you’re doing well

@@HeyItsEmilyLoveThank you so much! Resolve can definitely run the CPU pretty hard, but if it's getting that hot, that's a bit concerning for your cooling system. I'm definitely no PC parts expert though, so I'm can't diagnose that. As long as you're generating proxies with the DNxHR LB codec, you should be fine. Definitely don't use H.264 or H.265 proxies for editing because interframe codecs are very hard on the CPU for decoding. Also, when you do buy Studio, I would go with something that comes with it like the Speed Editor, definitely worth it!

@@CameraTim Ok thank you so much for the help! I’m definitely still learning about PCs and building this one has helped me understand things a bit better, but I’m by no means an expert. The help is greatly appreciated 😊 I will make sure to keep that in mind when I go to buy it. Thank you for taking the time to respond. It means a lot

@@HeyItsEmilyLove Yeah, PC building is a pain. Haha! I’ve had a decent amount of trouble with my system, so I’m glad I know people who know significantly more than me in that area, because I’m too busy keeping up with film trends. And no problem! Glad I could help!

So to break it down simply, DNxHR LB would be your most optimal choice for proxy media, as it's the smallest intraframe codec available in the proxy media options. I would definitely recommend using an SSD if possible because they're significantly faster and more reliable. HDDs are typically better for storage purposes because they're significantly cheaper, but editing with them can definitely tend to be slower. I try and respond to every comment I'm able to! Hope this helps!

@CameraTim tysm so much man ,ofc it helped and I really appreciate it so much, and keep this great work!

@@abdallah5906Thank you for the kind words! Glad to help!

It'll use whatever is currently enabled, but how that's applied depends on the effect. As an example, if you're doing any sort of color grading, you'll be previewing a proxy file, but it won't change how it's applied to the original footage. However, if you're doing something like Magic Mask, you will want to make sure you turn proxies off when analyzing the footage. The mask data will still generate, but when you switch off of proxies, it'll still be using the data it gathered from the proxies, if that makes any sense.

Thank you so much! Yes it does. When you go to your Project Settings > Master Settings where you set the proxy codec, you can also set the folder you want to place them in there. You can also go into Preferences > Media Storage to determine if you want the proxies to generate in the folder you specified or in the same folder as your original sources.

Thanks 👍🏻

@@JFG_01 No problem!

Thank you! Glad it was helpful!

No problem! Glad to help!

Yeah, so the Timeline Proxy Resolution is only really helpful for effects since the software only has to do fraction of the math to process the effects for preview, but this doesn't work with footage because the software doesn't really have a good way of knowing what data to read or not, so it doesn't enhance playback anywhere near as much, if at all. So when you generate DNxHR or ProRes proxies, you can make sure the resolution is Half or lower. If you have mixed resolution media though, this can be a little cumbersome because it'll apply the same reduction to all the footage you generate which isn't always the best option, so something like the Media Management tool would be a better option because you can specify the exact resolution you want for everything (see the video I made on that for more info: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ofSt2cyCuIE.html). You could also use Render Cache in the same way so that you don't have to generate full proxies, and you can set Render Cache to User so you can specify what you want to cache in the timeline, or use Optimized Media so you can only generate stuff that's in the timeline if you don't to generate full-clip proxies. There's also the Render In Place option that creates a new clip entirely in the timeline. So there are a bunch of options, just depends on what best serves your needs.

@@CameraTim thank you for the reply sir 🙌🏽🙌🏽

@@bzibubabbzibubab420 No problem!

Media Management is definitely on the list of future videos. Already have an outline, just need to record it. As far as proxies go, yes, they do because they’re reducing the amount of data that color and tracking are receiving.

Timeline Proxy Resolution is a little misleading because it has nothing to do with generated proxies. They really should rename it, but it’s really a playback/preview resolution toggle. Like if you have it set to quarter, and you have a lot of effects on a clip or something, it’ll only playback a quarter of the resolution of that clip, meaning it only needs a fraction of the processing power to play it back (also doesn’t effect your export at all).

What are you trying to download exactly? DaVinci Resolve? It’s on blackmagicdesign.com

Thank you!

Absolutely! Glad to help!

Thanks for all the great information, definitely helpful. My laptop died and I was in the process of buying a Ryzen 7950 with NVIDIA 4070 with 64 gb. But it appears my wife is going to surprise me a Mac Studio M2 Max 38 core 64gb with 1TB for Christmas. In your opinion, which machine would be better for Davinci Resolve Studio? Thanks again for the awesome tutorial, definitely a new subscriber 💯‼️

@@UnK1999 Thank you so much! So that’s a difficult choice and will ultimately come down to which features are more important to you. I think if I had to give one the slight edge, it would be the PC setup for a few reasons. The biggest ones being AV1 hardware encoding and it will likely handle all GPU-related tasks more efficiently, namely Fusion. Now if you’re talking about just straight editing, you very likely see an advantage with the M2 Studio Max because to my knowledge, it utilizes memory better because the RAM is shared between the CPU and GPU. If you want more upgradability in the future though, the PC is obviously the winner there. There are quite a few factors to consider, but those would be the main ones. I’m not an expert on PC part comparisons though, so take that with a grain of salt. Haha!

Is that my man the real James Brown?! Glad this helped! And currently I use a Ryzen 7 3700X, RTX 3080 TI, 32GB 3600Mhz CL16 RAM, and a B450 Pro4 motherboard (which is due for an upgrade).

It is the real James Brown! I may reach out to you here soon dude! Started getting back in the video world and there's some stuff I may need some tips on within Davinci (we switched over finally).@@CameraTim

@@ThisIsSparta313 Do it! It'll be good just to catch up too, but I'd be more than happy to get you guys situated in Resolve. There are a lot of really amazing quality of life differences between Resolve and Premiere, and Fusion is its own incredible tool. Just hit me up!

So even if you have hardware decoding for H.265 (and really any interframe codec), intraframe proxies will always perform better because in any given case, they will take less processing power to decode. The only thing that can change that would be the file size with the data rate if you're running off of slower drives. So my opinion would be that if you're not running a heavy amount of effects on it, or at least not running effects that take a bunch of GPU resources, you can likely avoid generating proxies if it saves you time and your footage isn't lagging significantly on playback. But if you do have a larger project, it would definitely save you time in the long run. And if you are planning on using a heavy amount of effects, I'd say it's worth generating there as well.

@@CameraTim very kind of you to take the time to respond, much appreciated.👌🏾

@@Coatsey007 Absolutely! Glad to help!

There aren’t many feelings that are more bittersweet than that. Hopefully this helps save a ton more time in the future!

I’ve since removed background music from underlying the majority of videos. Originally it was because I had a preference for having some tonality to the video to make it easier to listen to my dumb voice, but after a while I found it wasn’t actually helpful.

A proxy is a reference file that editing software uses to be able to edit significantly faster and be less taxing on the software. The proxy is exactly like the original footage, except a lower quality and lower resolution version. The reason I specified interframe and intraframe in this video is because you want your proxies to be intraframe so they play back much easier. The great thing with proxies is that you can edit with them on, but when you go to render, it’ll automatically switch to the original footage.

@@CameraTim Yeah I think the intraframe and interframe is what made this really confusing for me. So when I go to render are there any specific settings I need to input before hand for it to automatically switch to original quality or the software just knows to do that?

@@med4u1 The software just knows to do it. The only way it’ll use the proxies on export is if you toggle a setting on the Deliver page for it to do so, but by default, it only uses original media.

@@CameraTim Thank you. Will give this a try.

@@med4u1 Sounds good! Let me know if you run into any issues!