Anyone using Plural Eyes?

[Greg Janza]

Plural eyes is a solid program but ever since Premiere incorporated syncing into it’s features, there’s no need for Plural eyes at all.

Windows 10 Pro | i7-5820k CPU | 64 gigs RAM | NvidiaGeForceGTX970 | Blackmagic Decklink 4k Mini Monitor |
Adobe CC 2018 12.1.2 | Renders/cache: Samsung SSD 950 Pro x2 in Raid 0 | Media: Samsung SSD 960 PRO PCIe NVMe M.2 2280 x 2 | Media: OWC Thunderbay 4 x 2 Raid 0 mirrored with Resilio

[John Watts]

Perhaps.
Getting the Premiere sync features to work has alluded me to this point, but, I will continue to try.

The first successes with Plural Eyes were so good and fast. Seemed like the perfect answer. Wish I could get it
to work like it did initially.

Be great if they responded.

John Watts

[Greg Janza]

John, what are your system specs? I noticed that you also posted about having repeated audio problems.

If your Premiere system is running normally you should have no problems playing back or syncing audio.

One major flaw of Premiere is that it operates separately from whatever audio selection is made in system settings and that’s frustrating. You have to select your audio output in the Premiere preferences and you also have to make sure that the same output is set in your system prefs. Many people have made the request to Adobe to fix this but for the moment it is what it is.

I’ve noticed on this forum and others that many people have issues with syncing inside of Premiere and that’s very confusing. I’ve yet to run into a file that Premiere cannot sync properly. As long as you have usable sound on each file you should be able to highlight whatever clips you want to sync, right click and select “create multicam source sequence” and then it should sync.

Windows 10 Pro | i7-5820k CPU | 64 gigs RAM | NvidiaGeForceGTX970 | Blackmagic Decklink 4k Mini Monitor |
Adobe CC 2018 12.1.2 | Renders/cache: Samsung SSD 950 Pro x2 in Raid 0 | Media: Samsung SSD 960 PRO PCIe NVMe M.2 2280 x 2 | Media: OWC Thunderbay 4 x 2 Raid 0 mirrored with Resilio

[John Watts]

Concerning the audio settings. I check and make sure it is set as “Internal Speakers”
I’ve had this problem since day one with Premiere. There seems to be a connection to the latest versions of PP.
Relaunching PP 2-5 times is what it takes to work at this point.

I will have to work more with the internal sync functions on Premiere. Right now I get no success. My sync situation is
somewhat unique and when I try Premiere sync options it is just greyed out, so far. The turnaround time is very tight.
To a master audio track I must sync 10 locked down cameras. Each camera has ambient show audio. Audio drift is an issue, but Plural Eyes fixed that perfectly. Main issue; the low end AVCHD codec is often a frame or two or even more off intermittently. Also, the cams are limited to 2gb file limits while recording a one hour program. This leads to about 7 separate files per camera x 10 cameras. Again, Plural Eyes fixed this up nicely the first 3 times, and now, no luck.
It would be great to hear from their customer support!

Here are system specs.

John Watts
Premiere Pro Version 12.1.2 Build 69
2017 iMac (Retina 5K 27 inch) 1TB SSD
4GHZ Intel Core i7
32GB 1867 MHz DDR3
Graphics AMD Radeon R9 M395X 4096 MB
macOS High Sierra Version 10.13.6

[Greg Janza]

I’m not sure whether time allows but ideally you wouldn’t be editing from the avchd files due to the file spanning as well as the fact that it records in H264 format which is very CPU intensive. In order to smooth out your workflow I’d suggest:

transcode each of the ten angles into an edit friendly codec-i.e., Pro res or DNxHD. Import those transcodes into Premiere and sync those 10 angles to your master audio track.

A few ways to improve sync: jam sync the timecode of the 10 angles and your master audio recorder or send the soundboard audio of the event your shooting to all ten angles. If your 10 angles are just capturing audio from the camera mic you’ll likely run into sync problems.

Windows 10 Pro | i7-5820k CPU | 64 gigs RAM | NvidiaGeForceGTX970 | Blackmagic Decklink 4k Mini Monitor |
Adobe CC 2018 12.1.2 | Renders/cache: Samsung SSD 950 Pro x2 in Raid 0 | Media: Samsung SSD 960 PRO PCIe NVMe M.2 2280 x 2 | Media: OWC Thunderbay 4 x 2 Raid 0 mirrored with Resilio

[John Watts]

Time does not allow for any transcoding.

The reason for doing this program in Premiere Pro instead of my preferred choice of FCPX is the fact that
PP will work with the native files, untranscoded. In fact, I have to work on the SSD drive for media in order to handle the AVCrap files fast enough.

I’ve yet to try the proxy route yet, it may be a way to get through this with FCPX.

Have just picked this show up recently and as time allows I effort (wait, is that millennial talk?) to improve workflow.

Thanks.

John Watts
Premiere Pro Version 12.1.2 Build 69
2017 iMac (Retina 5K 27 inch) 1TB SSD
4GHZ Intel Core i7
32GB 1867 MHz DDR3
Graphics AMD Radeon R9 M395X 4096 MB
macOS High Sierra Version 10.13.6

[Greg Janza]

I would test FCPX to see if it might better handle the avchd files.

False advertising has led many to believe that Premiere can work with any type of file just by importing it. That is true in that Premiere can technically playback any file type but Premiere will struggle mightily with file types that aren’t intended to be edited natively.

Any and all variety of H264 media is not edit friendly and therefore Premiere will struggle with it. And whatever format you work with the files need to be on a secondary drive and not your OS drive.

The proxy workflow requires transcoding as well so you won’t save any time that way. Hard drives are cheap so if FCPX doesn’t handle the AVCHD files any better then your best option is to transcode all of the raw media. If you’re working with pro-res files you’ll have zero issues and your computer will work optimally.

Windows 10 Pro | i7-5820k CPU | 64 gigs RAM | NvidiaGeForceGTX970 | Blackmagic Decklink 4k Mini Monitor |
Adobe CC 2018 12.1.2 | Renders/cache: Samsung SSD 950 Pro x2 in Raid 0 | Media: Samsung SSD 960 PRO PCIe NVMe M.2 2280 x 2 | Media: OWC Thunderbay 4 x 2 Raid 0 mirrored with Resilio

[John Watts]

FCPX requires transcoding of files, believe me, I’ve tried. It takes too much time for this program.
We record on Thu night, I take it home, need to have it ready to upload on Fri night. There is no line switch either, the edit cuts the show. Every minute is precious.

I agree, H264 is not edit friendly and AVCHD bites. But, it is what the client has and I have no control over that at this point.

Initially, I set up for putting the media on a new 8TB drive. The throughput (comp Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 on the drive) was not fast enough to work the way I needed it to. Although, I have some ideas to try that might resolve the issue down the road. When first told by another editor to use my SSD, I thought that was batsh*t crazy. But, he was right. Right now, it is the only way it works, probably because we are dealing with so many raw AVCDH H264 crapola files.

I love Pro Res…it would be great…hands are cuffed, though.

John Watts
Premiere Pro Version 12.1.2 Build 69
2017 iMac (Retina 5K 27 inch) 1TB SSD
4GHZ Intel Core i7
32GB 1867 MHz DDR3
Graphics AMD Radeon R9 M395X 4096 MB
macOS High Sierra Version 10.13.6

[Greg Janza]

You’ll need to work from a raid and not a single drive in order to get decent data thruput. A four drive TB2 raid can handle all types of media. your ssd is working because it has very fast thruput but that’s putting a ton of stress on your imac.

Unless you work all night thursday night why not just batch transcode overnight?

Windows 10 Pro | i7-5820k CPU | 64 gigs RAM | NvidiaGeForceGTX970 | Blackmagic Decklink 4k Mini Monitor |
Adobe CC 2018 12.1.2 | Renders/cache: Samsung SSD 950 Pro x2 in Raid 0 | Media: Samsung SSD 960 PRO PCIe NVMe M.2 2280 x 2 | Media: OWC Thunderbay 4 x 2 Raid 0 mirrored with Resilio

[John Watts]

All night Thursday is edit time, as well as daytime friday, and sometimes nightime friday…and…

John Watts
Premiere Pro Version 12.1.2 Build 69
2017 iMac (Retina 5K 27 inch) 1TB SSD
4GHZ Intel Core i7
32GB 1867 MHz DDR3
Graphics AMD Radeon R9 M395X 4096 MB
macOS High Sierra Version 10.13.6