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Timecode issues are HUGE!!
So I hooked myself up with a Matrox Axio because of my affinity to many of the Adobe programs like AE, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Encore. But I had no idea that Premier, with its supposed catching up with other NLEs having started a few years ago, would be so lacking in the one BASIC, FUNDAMENTAL trait that all professional editors, whether linear or non-linear, have always been expected to have. CORRECT AND ACCURATE HANDLING OF TIMECODE!! Where the hell are these Adobe people?!! How can they be reached directly?!! Because they are in serious need of some teaching in the area of RULE #1 for any editing device that would consider itself usable by real professionals. RULE #1: See timecode correctly throughout the tape; capture said timecode accurately for the duration of the clip, including in situations where there is a break in the timecode; maintain correct timecode throughout a clips usage in the program, and make sure you CAN ACTUALLY SEE CLIP TIMECODE at all times if preferred, so that working with multiple tapes from the same shoot is possible on a professional level; and make sure if you need to repeat a capturing process (i.e. batch-recapture) that the timecode is accurate to the point of having the recaptured material match precisely to the original; and finally make sure that when printing to tape that the timecode can be counted on so that the professionals that are receiving the tape are not having to adjust to an unprofessional delivery. In doing some tests with capturing, editing, recapturng, and exporting to tape – and reading the often ignored posts on this issue – I have concluded that Adobe has SERIOUSLY FAILED in this regard, even though they have had like 40 years of precedence (17 in the NLE world) to refer to when programming the timecode management in Premier. There are some good things about Premier CS3, but IMHO many are eclipsed by this rediculous oversight. I am shocked.
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18 Replies
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I understand your frustration. We also need all of the obvious timecode factors here where I work. In the end, I wouldnt expect to much development to be put into tape based timecode /RS-422. The world is moving to a file based workflow at a rapid speed. With P2 and XDCAM HD etc, the days of capturing tape are very limited.
Hopefully Adobe can at least make the info palette user defineable so we can at least see the source timecode as soon as we highlight a clip on the timeline.
Ray
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Well – that argument, if made by Adobe developers, would be sickening. Let’s say everything does completely file-based. You will STILL ahve timecode on the files, and you will STILL need to occasionally replace (or recapture in a file-based way) deleted or archived clips. Then once you have the clips in there, you will still need to be able to see the clip timecode. Highlighting the clip to get timecode info in unacceptable. It’s a complete stoppage of work, and is therefor unprofessional. With this one reason alone, if I wasn’t totally beholden to After Effects, Photoshop, etc., I probably would have gotten something else. Although, I was an Avid user for well over 10 years, and their inexpensive hardware solutions suck now, so it’s hard to know where to turn. At least they have the timecode issue down, along with Velocity.
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One thing Adobe IS good for is driving people to FCP. There are many ‘basic professional’ needs that us professionals need like timecode ‘irregularities’ and especially audio thruput.
What I find interesting is that many ‘respected’ people here defend Adobe and for the life of me I cannot understand other than for a financial benefit or maybe a free dinner every NAB.
I edit every day of the week making international television documentary’s and series and it is not rocket science to know if a software package is up to it or not.
I have both Premiere AND FCP and dread having to do something using Adode software and awake every morning hoping it will be a FCP day. This dream is slowly coming a reality for me as I have just closed another one of my Premiere edit suites and replaced it with another FCP.
Don’t let the ‘tapeless movement’ convince you that tape is dead – at least not for highend users. I would like to see HDCAM SR on a SxS card – you would probably get about 10 mins max what with 8.2meg per frame! And besides, try and deliver a memory stick to Discovery Channel and say “there you go, there is your program!”. Maybe a hard drive one day but tape is the safest and proven way to go.
Baz
(ps. I am open to a financial incentive to promote someone’s lacking software but it better be a large package!) -
Man – NO DOUBT!! You’re right on with this. I’m pretty much stuck now for a while and have to figure out a way to make this work for me. I do like the Matrox hardware that is connected with this, and I do like the other Adobe apps. But that is why I am so frustrated that I was suckered into thinking that Premier was up to snuff. Matrox made some professional gear here with the Axio – why would they not discuss these issues with Adobe? They even had digisuite FOR YEARS before Axio, and no one laying a show back to Beta in those days ever complained??? No f-in way! And you’re right about this so-called file-based horizon. I have always felt like anyone who touts the death of tape in the very near future obviously has not had to deliver a show to a major network. I’m sure there have been some file-based deliveries of a final product to a major network, but I’ve never seen of heard of it, and I deliver to 3 major cable networks. Oh well – gotta make due with what I have now. Luckily I have a huge amount of storage, cuz there ain’t no way I’m going to try to recapture clips on a timeline with this thing.
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Certainly for acquisition getting rid of tape is the way to go but there are other issues that have to be addressed if that is the way to go. I would be buying stock in hard drive companies at the moment if I wasn’t wasting my money on low performance software.
There is a new software program soon to be released that can take a DV file and split it into its respective timecode segments. I can’t say too much about it at the moment but I recently used it on a project that was shot on HDCAM.
I captured each tape via a Sony HDCAM JH3 with the firewire option as SD DV using Premiere. I then used this new software package to detect the timecode inconsistencies and create separate files. I then did a SD off line and when complete I re-injested the trimmed project as full HDCAM and it worked without a problem (other than those that are associated with Premiere). All in all it took a couple of days off the edit time which would have been used for logging each tape to identify the breaks.
Recently I did a SD doco where we injested 60 x 40 min digibeta tapes as DV. Spent 6 weeks editing and when we got to the on line edit we discovered that the digibeta camera’s they used occasionally dropped a few timecode frames each time they buttoned off (this IS a very common problem!). So what should have taken 3 days to on line and master ended up taking over 2 weeks – just because of these small timecode jumps; as the tape got further down to the end the offsets became greater – WHAT A NIGHTMARE! Of course FCP would have recognised these timecode inconsistencies on the original DV capture and compensated. A very expensive lesson learnt…
So there is hope out there still and when this new program is about to be released I will post a link to the purchase site.
Baz
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WOW. Now THAT’s what I’m talking about, and exactly what I mentioned to Matrox. If you can make third party effects (mainly useless ones) that work inside premmier, there HAS to be a way to come up with a program that will take over Premier’s timecode management and make things right. From my searches, only a couple of people have even tried to do this with Premier (ProVTR is one, and it looks like its capabilities were limited, not to mention it looks like development may be coming to a stop). So there is certainly room for someone to do this. I EAGERLY await news of this program of which you speak. PLEASE PLEASE notify me if possible when I’m able to try this out. Now, there’s the issue of timeecode visibility on the timeline; why couldn’t someone make a thrid-party app that monitors clip timecodes and info as the timeline plays?
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[BazinoZ] “One thing Adobe IS good for is driving people to FCP. There are many ‘basic professional’ needs that us professionals need like timecode ‘irregularities’ and especially audio thruput.”
I couldn’t agree more. I have not upgraded to CS3 for some of these very reasons. I will watch very closely the next roll out, but if its biz as has been, more of my investments will be elsewhere.
In response to timecode tape issues, I have found many to be machine NDF/DF – 4 field lock and gen lock issues. Adobe can do repeatable to tape match frame edits if all is adhered to through out the entire edit process. The RS422 serial timecode and 4f flags are accurate and adhere to SMPTE specs. Some of the issues are compounded by working with intermediaries, and various frame rates. That being said, clip TC functionality sucks.
When I see the capability of the other products Adobe offers, I am totally bewildered why Premiere is not on top of the NLE pack. I have done many 4 camera long format shows without loosing sync anywhere through out the entire process. No where, no dropped frames, anything. The last one done was almost 3 hours in length. I can’t do these shows with any other NLE I have tried. Unfortunately most of the work we do
is with hundreds of clips, not long format.Adobe Wake up
your time code sucks. So does audio. And if you really want a product (NLE) listen to the people that use them. -
If this is so important to you why don’t you go to this site and file a feature request, that way Adobe doesn’t have to guess what people need.
https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform -
Hey thanks! I was actually looking for that earlier but got sidetracked with actual work. 😉
Thanks again.
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“When I see the capability of the other products Adobe offers, I am totally bewildered why Premiere is not on top of the NLE pack”
Yes, this is the point I think I’ve tried to make either here or in the Matrox forum. High-level professionals use all the other stuff – Flame users, Avid MC users, Braodcast graphic artists – it seems that Adobe would have picked some of those users’ brains on the timecode implementation in Premier. They have the programmers, which is obvious from some of the very good features in the app, now just get the other stuff done.
I won’t complain about audio because audio handling in almost all of the NLEs suck. You have to dip out for real mix, but I would like to see the ability to open up the premier audio tracks in audition with a left-click.
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