Wondering what exporting best practice is when working on source clips that are captured ProRes 422 Proxy.
I've c-corrected/graded these clips in DaVinci.
When it's time to 'Add to Render Queue', do I select ProRes 422 Proxy again or LT or higher?
1 Answer
Definitely proRes 422HQ.
While you won't gain anything by encoding in a higher quality codec, what you will do is avoid losing more.
Proxy codecs are just that: stand-ins for the real content, their job is not to faithfully encode the material, it's to be lightweight and easy to play, so you can swap in the full quality copy later. Whoever it was that shot Proxy, give them a whack upside the head to remind them not to do it again.
Export to proRes422 HQ as your master, if you need copies that don't take up so much space, say for delivery on the web, then transcode to h.264.
