Proxy for HD images
 

I'm using AE7 (CS2) on a Pentium D 2.6gig.

I've got full HD h.264 files playing back at 12-14 fps max in Quicktime, and there's simply no scrubbing in AE until I run a RAM-preview. So I should make proxy clips and let them stand-in until render-time.

I have a lot of these MOV's (and about twice again as many m2t's which I'll get to later...), like 180 individuals totalling 100 Gigs.

I started-out trying to render 1/8th size proxies straight out of AE, but that was going to run for like 500 hours and it was hardly an efficient batch process.

So I'm looking at MediaCoder, and after MUCH trial and error, I cannot seem to create degraded files that will play/scrub at full speed. The closest I got was encoding Raw Video at full-HD resolution in an AVI wrapper at 3 fps, but I couldn't get Media Coder to run a whole batch with those settings: it would do one or two, and then inexplicably start creating 30fps files which were useless. Now, I cannot even recreate the 3fps miracle one time.
Sample of the file is here: Casa Kids waiting for Lunch on Vimeo
If anyone coule have a look at it (Vimeo members can download it immediately, anyone else just ask and I'll e-mail it). Can anyone knock this (and whole boatload besides) down to less of a burden on my old system?

Sort-of an update:

I've created a script for AE that automates the creation of proxies for all footage items in my project.

That is not surprising with a seriously underpowered system. Get ready for a new PC.