Premiere Pro has lost it’s spot in the clips, is there anything I can do?

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, thanks. If it’s operation error, what could I have done to have caused the program to forget it’s places in the clips, and what can be done to correct that, if anything?

[Ryan Elder]

Okay thanks, I know where all the original clips are and have re-linked them. But the program does not remember the timecode it’s suppose to start at in the clips, where I cut them. For example, if I cut a section out of a clip from 00:05:45:57, after relinking to the media, the clip will now start at 00:02:34:43… or something like that, for almost all the clips now.

Is it possible to get Premiere to remember what spot in the clip it’s suppose to start and end at?

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Do you have a backup of the project with the correct start times? Perhaps an auto backup. That’s where I would start.

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Ryan Elder]

The back up also is the same way, when I tried opening it, also starting out at all the incorrect times.

[Jamie Pickell]

I had this happen once, but only on one reel. It was a ProRes HQ Quicktime file and I had used multiple shots from the reel in a documentary I was cutting. The post-house upgraded the Premiere software over the weekend and the next time I opened the project all my edit points for the shots selected from that reel had shifted (and not a consistent shift either if I recall correctly). I couldn’t figure out what had happened. I consulted with a fellow editor and we determined that somehow the timecode track for that Quicktime file was messed up and Premiere wasn’t reading it correctly anymore (possibly a result of the upgrade). I ended up taking that file, placing it on a timeline with the correct starting timecode and re-exporting a new source master file that I then re-cut back into my project. Going forward, that was my new source master since I was going to need that same file for other episodes.

My recommendation to you is that if you know what the timecode of the first frame of each of your source master clips is supposed to be (i.e. they all started at 00:00:00:00), then put each source master in it’s own timeline and set the timecode to start at that timecode and re-export each source master. A definite PITA. While you’re at it, I would export in an I-frame codec (like ProRes or DnXHD). Once done exporting, I would make a copy of your project and use the copy to re-link to your media. See if that fixes the problem.

If the actual IN point timecode of a shot is different from what you remember it being (i.e. your original IN was 1:00:05;00, but now it says your IN is 1:00:7;15) then, you will probably need to eye-match your shots back in. Did you export a cut before your troubles started, if you did, you can use that as a reference to re-edit the shots.

Hope this helps,
Jamie

[Ryan Elder]

Okay thanks, I exported a DNxHD before, but that didn’t turn out right, as there is audio but no picture for a lot of the clips. However, I did also export an H.264 to show the others, so I can just use that, it’s just I do not know the correct timecode if each clip so I will have to cut from eye balling the frames from the previous export I guess.

[Ryan Elder]

Well I recut the entire movie back to where it was. I then saved it and saved a back up copy to a different hard drive. I then closed down the computer for the night, and re-opened the project the next day. But now it’s all in the same incorrect time codes that it was before, on both copies!

The correct time codes did not save on either of them even though, I saved two copies of it. Does anyone know how to get Premiere Pro to remember the correct time codes, since saving the correct ones, doesn’t seem to do any good, if you close out of it after?

[Todd Perchert]

There are some things I don’t see in any posts…

What is your original footage? What is the container, codec, and frame rate? And is it variable frame rate? Weird things happen with variable frame rates.
What is your Sequence Settings?
TC

[Jeff Pulera]

I’ll add my two cents worth here.

A lot of the time when someone is having troubles with Premiere forgetting where clips are, or maybe playing audio that doesn’t match the clip, it does come down to an organizational issue as Dave had mentioned.

Here’s the deal – if your original clips are coming from camera memory cards (SD cards, etc.), the way you handle that media and import into Premiere can be critical. You will notice that the SD card might have lot of folders and you might have to dig down a bit to locate the actual video clips. If you ONLY copy the video clip files themselves to the computer hard drive, that can be the start of the issues. Don’t do that.

The preferred workflow is this – create a NEW FOLDER on your media hard drive and name accordingly like “Card_1” or whatever. Now COPY the ENTIRE CONTENTS of SD card into that folder. That means EVERYTHING, even all the empty folders you might think are useless. Just SELECT ALL and COPY and PASTE.

Make a NEW FOLDER uniquely for each card you copy. And once you copy over a card, immediately back up that folder to another hard drive, that is just common sense to protect your precious video clips.

Now, in Premiere, do NOT use “File > Import” to bring in the clips, rather use Media Browser in Premiere. There can be metadata in the folder structure from the SD cards that is very important to help Premiere to keep things straight with the clips.

Using this workflow, I have never encountered all these weird clip issues I see posted about so often on the forums.

Also – a LOT of folks seem to store media/projects in USER folders in Windows. Don’t. Use a dedicated media hard drive (not C: drive) and create your OWN folders for each project you work on. There was a version of Premiere last year that had a glitch and it was actually deleting peoples video clips right off the hard drive! Would never had happened if people did not store things in DEFAULT folder locations. Was something to do with clearing of the Media Cache which is normally harmless, but in that case went further and whacked actual source video clips (because they were in a common location). Just sloppy organization.

This won’t help current situation, but please try this method moving forward, will make life easier

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Ryan Elder]

Oh the original footage is mts files. It’s my first time working with mts, cause it’s a DPs camera, that I haven’t edited with before, the Sony A7 IIs.

The framerate is 23.976. I’m not sure if it’s variable, how can I tell?