Allow Proxies and Master Clips to have Different Audio Channels
Just like you can re-link a file to one with different timecode than the version in the project, you should be able to link a proxy file to a master clip with different audio channels than the original. Just like with TC, if there is 4 channels in original clip and proxy clip only has 2 channels, the slash marks simply appear in channels 3 and 4.
THIS IS IMPORTANT because the H.264 spec only supports 2 channels. ALMOST ALL CAMERAS shoot with 4 channels. H264 is IDEAL proxy format if you're taking project to edit mobile (ie to the beach) or especially to transfer online to an assistant. So, effectively, this restriction does not allow h.264 proxies to be used, which is dumb.

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Marcel Duvenage commented
Oh my gosh, this is doing my head in! Handed over a production with 38TB of footage , proxy files generated outside of adobe with 2 channel stereo audio vs the Full-Size version which have 5 channel mono and now can't connect the Full-SIze media short of Offline/Unlink the whole sequence and then link manually. If I use auto-connect other media it only re-links the one file and the rest connected back to the low res versions. I'm sure there is a work around but a what a mission... Please give us the option to choose whether or not we want the audio..
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Antoine (Autokroma.com) commented
H264 could have more than 2 channel though. Maybe you need to create proxies with the same number of channels !
You can do that in .MOV with AfterCodecs https://autokroma.com/AfterCodecs/ -
Kevin Monahan commented
Agree that this is a problem that needs a solution. Thanks for pointing out the pain points. Upvoted.