Proxy files for footage on a NAS.

What a proxy file is

A proxy file is a lighter stand-in for a camera original. In ordinary editing language, it is a lower-resolution, lightweight copy of a high-resolution video file, used so playback and handoff do not have to open the original every time. Adobe's Premiere documentation describes proxy files that way: lower-resolution copies of high-resolution video, used for editing instead of the original high-resolution files (Ingest and proxy workflows in Premiere).

That definition is general. It is not a claim about one product's settings. The useful part, for a team whose masters already live on a NAS, is the split. The proxy is for playing and handing off. The original stays the file the edit relinks to, on the storage it already occupies.

Why an archive generates them

A producer often needs to confirm a moment before an editor opens the master. Pulling the camera original off the RAID for every check is a heavy way to answer a small question. A proxy gives that person a file they can play, and a file they can hand to someone else, while the master stays put.

Media Nexus includes proxy generation as part of the archive. It indexes the NAS or RAID you approve, in place, on hardware you control. Proxies are produced alongside the masters. Frame grabs, tags, and transcripts are produced there too, so search can find the moment and playback can confirm it. Searchable playback is how someone checks the hit before the master is opened.

The proxy is not the archive. The archive is still the files on the storage you approved, plus the index that points at them. Searching footage on a NAS is that index. The proxy is one of the files that makes the index usable day to day. Where the copies should live, so the team can still find a clip, is the best way to archive video footage.

The original stays untouched

Indexing is read-only. Media Nexus never renames, moves, or deletes originals. Generating a proxy does not relocate the camera file, and it does not replace it. The new file sits beside the master, on hardware you control. The path in the edit can remain the path on the RAID.

Nothing about that step uploads the library to a cloud service. The system reads the volumes you approve. If a proxy later travels, because someone off-site needs to watch a cut or a select, that is a copy you choose to send. It is not an automatic offsite replica of every master. Media Nexus is not a backup, and it does not move media offsite.

• The master stays on the NAS or RAID, on the path the edit already uses.
• The proxy is a separate, lighter file, produced alongside that master.
• Playback and handoff can use the proxy. The archive still points at the original.
• Sending one proxy to a reviewer is not the same as uploading the library.

Proxy, review, and search are different jobs

A review tool is where a team uploads a cut, or a proxy, so other people can look at that version. That upload is a choice about one file. It is a different job from generating proxies across the library that already lives on the share. A review tool beside a searchable footage archive holds those two jobs apart.

Tags are different again. A proxy lets you play the moment. A tag records what a pass over the frames decided the picture contains, so you can find the moment when you do not know the file name. AI tagging on your own storage is that search. You want the proxy after you have found the shot, and you want the original when the edit opens it.

Where this runs

The system is installed on hardware the team controls, next to the storage the team controls. On-prem media asset management is the longer account of that. Remote access is part of every Media Nexus, so the right people can reach the system you own. Reaching it is not the same as moving every original off the premises so a hosted catalog can see them.

A build needs read access to the storage you want indexed, a computer the team controls, and a person who can say which folders are the archive and which are scratch. The Free Build builds the archive, proxies included, on your real media before you decide whether to keep it. Build before you buy is the intake before any payment.