[Andy Lewis]

What format are your proxies? If you’re not getting smooth playback then what’s the point?
Are you on the latest version of PPro with the nice proxy workflow? I’m not, so maybe there is something I’m missing.
Can you not at least change to a codec that will play back nicely – DV25 or something?

If that’s not possible (or a pain) you could:

-export the entire sequence (video only) into a very computer-friendly format
– bring that back into premiere and drag it onto the top track
– move the audio to sync it with the scratch video
– delete the scratch video track and the proper video should be in sync

[Andy Lewis]

I don’t believe there is an automatic way.

1. Duplicate sequence,
2. Duplicate clips onto the track above and assign one track to each angle (track 1 wide, track 2 close for example),
3. Scale both to 50% and move each track to a different side of the frame so you can see them side by side.
4. Add ‘transparent video’ filter on track 3 and extend to the length of the footage.
4 Add ‘timecode’ effect to the transparent video.

[Andy Lewis]

Does the original clip have attached audio? The markers will be embedded in the audio as well. If you drag that into a sequence with the multicam, do the markers show up? Then link it to the multicam video.

If you are using separate audio you can use a clip (video or audio) with embedded markers as a guide. Link it to the other clips and turn it off. It’s not ideal but better than nothing.

[Andy Lewis]

2-camera multicam: I get decent playback and then after 30 seconds or so CPU load ramps up to about 700% and playback chokes completely. From that point on the sound will play and the image will update about once per second. Playback at this point is similar to ‘software only’ mode. ie. unusably choppy.

Footage is 1080p xavc-s and xavc-l. Storage is a thunderbolt raid and computer is a 2015 retina i7 macbook pro with 16GB RAM. The fact that it will play ok for longer when cool suggests that overheating is involved but not sure if Premiere is the root of the problem or the victim of a hardware fault.

GPU is AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2048 MB. Maybe it’s throttling at high temperatures? Or maybe Premiere is going crazy and not using the GPU properly.

I’ve tried everything suggested above (some of them were new to me, thanks). Nothing seems to help though. Playback is better if I transcode to prores but it’s still not great.

Anyone having similar problems? It would be interesting if anyone is having similar problems on a different computer.

[Andy Lewis]

[Bob Miller] “I was hoping that there would be a keyboard shortcut that would hop me from the comments back to the track to hit M and mark, but I’m fine with using the mouse.
“

Not that I’ve found. I use Prelude for this reason – there still isn’t a shortcut to do what you want but you can type comments without stopping playback or (mostly) using the mouse. All of my projects use separate sound so I sync in Pluraleyes, export audio with a scratch video track to Prelude, then reconnect original video in Premiere.

[Bob Miller] “There must be a way to see a comment I wrote down and jump to it on the timeline, no?”

Nope, I don’t think there is. And with clip markers you can only see comments added to the clip you’ve selected in the sequence. If you’ve cut that clip up (as you would for an interview) the timecode IN/OUT in the marker window is now meaningless as well.

Markers is one of the most frustrating things for me about PPro. It looks like so much competent engineering has gone into it but fundamental design decisions have not made been made with editors in mind. The marker window is great but doesn’t display all markers in the sequence (and you can’t jump to clip markers so it’s useless for search). Prelude is nice but there is no shortcut to go from typing a comment to the timeline and back (and it only allows one colour for comments).

[Andy Lewis]

1. Download a free trial of Adobe Premiere Pro
2. Cut out the frames with the flash in PPro.
3. Add the ‘morph cut’ transition to (hopefully) seamlessly cover what’s missing

[Andy Lewis]

I wonder if this is partly a generational thing. If you are under 30, you strongly associate close / direct eyeline with youtube webcam video whereas eyes off to the side means cinema, innit?

I know that the Guardian pays very poorly for articles. It wouldn’t surprise me if the videos are made by unpaid (young) interns.

[Andy Lewis]

Yes, don’t understand this either. With FCP7 you can put interview on track 1, b-roll on track 2 and that’s it – track organisation finished for a simple edit. Why does PPro make things so difficult?

Then I discovered that if you have no track selected PPro pastes into the same track you copied from. I felt such a fool – how did it take me so long to discover this? Unfortunately it isn’t really a solution. You can’t select trim points from the keyboard with no track selected – to pick one limitation.

I think Adobe could fix this simply by changing the behaviour of the timeline when no tracks are selected.

No track selected is the same as all tracks selected EXCEPT tracks paste onto the same track you copied from.

It wouldn’t be taking functionality away from anyone as ‘no track selected’ mode currently serves no purpose as far as I can see.

[Andy Lewis]

Thanks David. I’m talking specifically about the use of a Prores transcode as part of a grading or compositing workflow, not about mastering or archive.

[Andy Lewis]

[Jeff Pulera] “And you still only have the original 4:2:0 color data to work with. However, if adding color effects, titles, etc. to a ProRes clip then those will benefit from being done in the 4:2:2 color space with higher fidelity. And then if you do any compositing, such as exporting your edits to a new ProRes clip, and then doing further work in the new clip, you have the unique frames at a high data rate and with 4:2:2 color, so it all holds up so much better over multiple generations, unlike AVCHD that is so highly compressed that all the artifacts (quality issues) just pile up and get worse with each copy.”

If you are adding colour effects within Premiere / Speedgrade then everything is processed in 32-bit float so the conversion to Prores has given you nothing. Without conversion, the software takes that 4:2:0 long-GOP data and upsamples it to discrete frames at 4:4:4 on the fly. Note: I am well aware that no quality has been added – the software is simply reducing rounding errors.

If you have converted to Prores, Premiere will upsample from 4:2:2 to 4:4:4 on the fly. Same result but with the inherent quality loss of transcoding to Prores (another compressed format).

It’s absolutely true that 4:2:2 Prores will hold up better than AVCHD over multiple generations but what kind of workflow necessitates multiple generations? If you are working within Adobe apps that should never be an issue. If you are sending out to Resolve through XML then there will also be no generation loss as Resolve will process those AVCHD files in 32-bit float.

The only typical reason I can see to transcode to a mezzanine codec like Prores is if it plays back smoother.