Premiere XML resize findings

Flame Between Renders
1

Ok so ive done some digging into how we can deal with premiere resizes in XMLs, this will only be looking at resizes and nothing else.

I made 3 kinds of proxys of some 4.6K alexa35 footage - for premiere and did some edits with them to see how flame handles this.

  1. Fullres proxies
  2. Halfres proxies
  3. HD Letterboxed proxies

This matches what I usually see editors request, with a trend going towards fullres proxies for premiere also matches working with the OCN directly in offline.

I did many edits with different set-to-framesize and scale-to-framsize settings in premiere.

I then exported AAFs and XMLs from all of them and tried conforming them all in Flame.

Scales genereally came in fine on all of them, transforms however did all completely not work, so I had to run the premiere XML prep script from the Logik Portal to fix them, so i wont be talking about the bare-xmls anymore as there is no point.

no AAF carried any repo data.

Generally all the tlfx Actions did corrupt and I had to copy and paste the action on itself to fix that. on every single segment … (if someone can come up with a python solution… ) .

And after massaging every XML with the right scale factor every one of them except for one! conformed fine even with animated transform and scales. I also did not have to resort in doing a resize to letterbox first like you would without the scale in the XML prep script.

So lets look at every case and explain what is happening here under the hood:

  1. Fullres proxies, set to frame size

This is the easiest one, as all scales are just 100% absolute and all is fine, both in 16:9 and 9:16

  1. Fullres proxies, scale to frame size

Scale to framesize just means that premiere applies a letterbox to timeline-resolution effect before applying any scale values, so thats why we have to setup our scale to 34.13% as the relative proxy size is now 1920x1080 and our footage is 4608x3164 , for 9:16 just apply 23.44% scale (take your own footage vs timeline resolution here)

A little bit more difficult, but maybe more consitent if other factors like half or quater-res are used as proxies. difficult to manage with multi-resolution sources probably need to conform twice and merge for each camera source? (need to be checked, i am tired)

  1. Halfres proxies, set to frame size
    also easy just set scale to 50% and all is fine, both in 16:9 and 9:16
    Warning this does not conform in resolve!

  2. Halfres Proxies, scale to frame size
    Same thing as Fullres-scale-to-framsize

  3. letterboxed
    Ok so the only one that did not conform was letterboxed scale-to-framesize in 9:16, I could probably find a scale value for it but its like a 1920x1080 letterboxed source letterboxed inside a 9:16 letterbox :cold_face:

Otherwise for the 16:9 the same thing applies just apply a 34% scale as letterboxed proxies behave the same as non-letterboxed in “scale to framesize” mode .

TL’DR
So all in all simply working with full or halfres proxies that are not letterboxed is the way to go for flame I would from this point consider “set to frame size” the better option. especially with multi-resolution footage.

Resolve can work the same as premiere and defaults to letterboxing in which case I find it nicer if “scale to framesize” is used in premiere, doing halfres set-to-framesize proxies does not work with resolve I have not tried conforming the fixed for flame script in resolve either

All in all I would love to see a resize processing that matches the way resolve and premiere handle it where they basically have 2 axis on a surface, first a type of input scaling and then a timeline-resize/scale, having this mirrored in tlfx action would be the best thing but the premiere XML prep script really does wonders with the scale factor!

May this help another lost soul.

8 Likes
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I’ve been trying to track down something similar with Premiere XML. I’m wondering if you run in to this as well?

When footage is first linked, the scaling of segments is off. If you add a timeline effect to the segment, it then pops to the correct size. Flame seems to think the footage is 1920x1080 (or whatever the timeline resolution is) and not the original size, until you do something to it and then it pops to the correct size. It will also show the timeline resolution to be the size of the source footage (until you modify the segment).

I will have my offline editors try “set to frame size” but I don’t know Premiere well enough to know whether they can still pan & scan with different ratio plates.

3

you have to have fullres proxys for “set to framesize” to work, or halfres and then use the script to scale all the transforms to 50%.

bascially you have to know the resolution of the proxy media used in premiere, then you can adjust the xml to come in correctly.

What you are seeign seems to be the action tlfx bug we are talking about

so yes itll translate correcty as a ine click(scale and transform) if

→ the proxy resolution is the same as the source res in premiere

→ they use set to framesize

→ You use the xml prep script

If the sequence aspect and the footage aspect does not match flame falsely sets the tlfx into a broken state as tou have seen, its like its setting the action to be set to footage res but its supposed to be timeline res and then it freaks out.