Solved Hello all, so glad I found this forum! - and a newbie question

Newcomer to Movie Studio 13 and film making in general.
I have many years experience making music on DAW's, so it's not completely alien though.
I want to get into making documentary, music videos, and eventually who knows.
I have a Lumix GH2, a Rode Videomic Pro, a few lenses, a tripod, and loads of big ideas!!

The couple of weeks or so have been spent reading manuals and watching tutorials,
and I feel like I've just scratched the surface. SO glad to have found this community.

What I have worked out is that I need to use the Smart Proxy feature for my laptop to play nice.
Can anyone tell me where the Smart Proxy files live by default?
Do I need to change any settings or move them to my external usb3 drive?
Or should I just leave them where they are? (my laptop is stretched so just wondering what's best practice)
Or equally, am I worrying about nothing???

Hi Joe and welcome to the forums,

Nice setup equipment you have with the Lumix GH2, a Rode Videomic Pro, a few lenses, a tripod.

Joe Bananas wrote: Can anyone tell me where the Smart Proxy files live by default?

If I'm not mistaken, the proxy files live in the same folder as the original source with the same file name, with the .sfvp0 extension.

Joe Bananas wrote: Do I need to change any settings or move them to my external usb3 drive?

If the original source clip is on your usb3 drive, that is where Movie Studio will put the sfvp0 file.

Joe Bananas wrote: Or should I just leave them where they are? (my laptop is stretched so just wondering what's best practice)

Probably......it appears you are using your laptop internal drive to run the program, and your usb3 drive for the source. If you put your project files and render files also on the usb3 drive, there will be nothing to move, as the proxy files goes in the same folder as the original clip. If my assumption is correct, Movie Studio will handle it, just expect there to be that extra .sfvp0 file for each source file you created a proxy.

As I understand it, the .sfvp0 proxy file, isn't a completely rendered reduced resolution of the original. It has certain parts of the original and relies on the original for certain other information, such as frame rate.

Hi Joe,

In addition, what I have noticed about using the proxy files......

A little background first....there is a setting in Options > Preferences > Video tab > 'Automatically create video proxies for Ultra HD media'. Your GH2, if I'm not mistaken, takes 1080 HD, so the proxies aren't automatic (I know you know that, just clarifying for others who may read this post). So, you make then manually by right clicking on the video clip in the Project Media bin and select the option to 'Create Video Proxy'.

Assumptions......the proxy file is created and Movie Studio handles it behind the scenes. The file enabling the proxy is the same name as the original with the .sfvp0 extension.

.......If you load a project into Movie Studio and the original source media file(s) have been moved, deleted, or renamed, Movie Studio will pop up a warning the files is missing and provide some options to replace it, or find it, etc. However, if the proxy file (.sfvp0) is missing, Movie Studio will not give you the same warning. Movie Studio will load as if nothing is wrong. It that event, to my knowledge, there are only three ways to determine if the proxy is being used.

1. We can look into the folder and see if the '.sfvp0' file is present.

2. If the original source media does not play smoothly, but does with the proxy file, and now again the preview isn't running smoothly, that may be an indication that the proxy is missing (although there could be other causes of the preview not running as smooth as previously).

3. When the proxy file has been created, if you right click again on the video clip in the Projects Media bin, the 'Create Video Proxy' option will be grayed out. This would imply we already have a proxy created. If the 'Create Video Proxy' option is now available, this would imply the previous proxy is missing and we can create another one.

Again, Movie Studio is very good at keeping track and handling the proxy behind the scenes, as long as we keep the files together.

If you are not aware, there is a way to save all the files used in a project, including the proxies. It's Project > Save As. At the bottom of the 'Save As' window there is a check box 'Copy media with project'. I use this occasionally when I want to archive my project to a backup disk storage drive and want to assure I haven't missed something. This option puts all the files in the designated folder, which isn't how I normally organized my source and project files, but it is an option to assure nothing is missing if in the future I want to bring back the project and my memory has faded (that seem to happen more than I like lately!!)