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Maybe switching to Premiere from Avid – Questions
I’ve been using Avid Media Composer forever. But, I’m thinking about switching to Premiere (and I’ve been trying it out). However, there are a few things I want to ask about first –
1). Adding transitions seems weird. Let’s say I have a video clip (with clips on either side), and also a title (same length)on top of the middle clip. Now I add a transition to both the clip and its title. I want the title to dissolve in at the same time as the clip. Yet Premiere adds the dissolve centered on the video cuts, but at the start and end of the title. This seems as counter-intuitive as anything I’ve ever seen. Is there a way to change this behavior in Premiere? This slows my editing.
2). The timeline is split between video and audio – I can’t scroll up and down like one would expect, but instead I must be in the “audio area” to scroll my audio tracks vertically. Any way to “combine” my tracks vertically? This would slow me down a lot.
3). The responsiveness of the JKL keys for play, pause, reverse seem slow – sometimes requiring a second push of the L key to begin play. This slows me WAY down while editing. Thoughts on this?
4). Transcoding an HDV video into DVD format takes about 3 times longer than my Avid – a 1.5 hour HDV timeline took 11 hours to convert to mpeg2. Is this normal?
I’d love any thoughts on any of these points! Thanks!
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4 Replies
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Gday Mike, I’ll do the best I can to address your message. 🙂
1. with the cross dissolve transitions they behave based on the at edit point. So if you have two clips at an edit point the shortcut to add a default transition will add it to the edit point and overlap half half. you can drag the transition to a position you prefer. such as the start at cut instead of default center at cut.
1-a. if you dont want the transition to act as a dissolve and just as a fade from black I use a different workflow, whereby I have a black video that sits over the top and I fade accordingly and stretch to the length I need/want.
2. this style of video audio tracks is standrad practice across FCP too, yes there is a lacking of scroll up/down to see tracks under/above the viewable space – it’s being looked at. 🙂 You can hit the ` or ~ button on the keyboard to fill the screen with the panel the mouse is over, that helps on multiple track edits that require refining. hit the same key to bring back the ful UI.
3. JKL response times are being refined with ever update/release. The native support means there is some look ahead and it’s not going to go immediately like you are perhaps used to. once playing back tapping JL controls for speed during playback are fine, it all depends on the format you are working with. DSLR is probably the least responsive. It can be frustrating, but it’s not such a big deal once you adjust for the initial lag in response. It’s constantly being worked on to make better.
4. HDV down to SD DVD is quite a lot of crunching on one compressed format to another. I would recommend a different approach to the kind of timeline you are rendering out from to speed up the “processing”. Instead of exporting from the HDV timeline, create a new sequence that is set to DV (NTSC/PAL) your region/format and nest the HDV edit into this one. The number crunching is less as the sequence is already at a matching dimension. Let us know if that helps.
Speeds depend on several factors, not just with CPU, RAM, HDD setups – the complexity of an edit makes a big difference too. If you have AE comps added to the edit via Dyn Link that will also increase the export times dramatically. Then there is the tick box for “Use Maximum Render Quality” that will kill your export speeds.
Hope this helps.
– JB
Jon Barrie
Adobe Video Solutions Consultant ANZ
Jon’s YouTube Tutorial Page
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[Mike Dalton] “1). Adding transitions seems weird. Let’s say I have a video clip (with clips on either side), and also a title (same length)on top of the middle clip. Now I add a transition to both the clip and its title. I want the title to dissolve in at the same time as the clip. Yet Premiere adds the dissolve centered on the video cuts, but at the start and end of the title. This seems as counter-intuitive as anything I’ve ever seen. Is there a way to change this behavior in Premiere? This slows my editing.”
Some NLE’s contain a default clear “gap” clip event on empty tracks. PPro is not in that category. Empty space on tracks is, by default, actually empty. So technically you can’t have a centered transition without at least two clips back to back.
To help you better achieve your desired editing experience, you might consider using PPro’s create transparent video clip feature.
Here’s a link on how to create it:
https://help.adobe.com/en_US/premierepro/cs/using/WS363B6AD6-AC91-4f2a-83F1-7FB1704A9143.htmlOnce you have one in your project panel, drop it, on an empty track and extend it to the desired length….say the runtime of the project.
When you add titles or other clips to that track, now you’ll have back to back clips on that track, so transitions will be added as “centered” in stead of “starting at.”
Hope that helps…
Alex
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Excellent tips, guys – I appreciate you taking the time to answer these concerns – bonus points for you both!
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These resources should help you to get started with Premiere Pro if you know Avid:
https://adobe.ly/cx384G———————————————————————————————————
Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
Technical Support for professional video software
After Effects Help & Support
Premiere Pro Help & Support
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