When I first heard that adobe would be adding a real proxy workflow I was happy. But I've tried it back when first introduced... and still I have not been able to get it to work. Why does it fight me so?

This is how it goes:

1. I record video.


2. I put the files on my editing disk


3. I import to premiere


4. I right click the file to create the proxies.


5. I create the proxies using one of the ingest presets that for some reason cannot be altered in any way (why no option to set up an ingest preset HERE?!)


6. I toggle the option to play back using proxies in the program monitor.


7. Dissapointment.


8. Continue working without the proxies.

Ok. To be fair. The workflow does work... IF and only IF the source has the exact same aspect ratio as the proxy ingest preset. In every other case. Premiere decides to just mangle the image.

What it seems to be doing is to take the video that is in another aspect ratio and add black to the edges to fill it out to the specs of the ingest preset.

To me it seems like a waste of bandwidth but ok. The ingest presets have resolutions locked in stone (again... WHY?) and it has to do something to not crop the original video.

If that was all. I would not really worry. But When premiere then plays that proxy back... it seems to have something in the metadata saying that "Hey, squeeze the image so it fits the frame of the original video".

For example (attached images for clarification):

• original video is 4:3 square pixel


• proxy is created as 16:9 with pillarbox in square pixel


• I can test the proxy in vlc and it reports 16:9 square pixel


• playback in premiere adds 1.33x anamorphic pixel aspect ratio and squeezes it up horizontally to fit the original videos frame. WHY?!

I have tried the same with footage that is 1.9:1 and it pads the proxy to 16:9 and squeezes the resulting proxy video vertically to fit it back into the 1.9:1 original size... WITH THE BLACK BARS.

I have had this issue now since the features release. I was pretty sure I had already made a post about it here. But it seems not.

I would love to use proxies. But first it seems I have to overcome my unreasonable expactation that square pixel is interpreted as square pixel...

Or am I really the only one who has had this roadblock?