[Bret Williams]

So, as an example, can I assume the situation is something like you have a bunch of clips. Some are interviews or the newsperson and they need to have CH 2(stick mic) patched to track 1(panned left) for dialog, and the other clips are broll that needs to have NAT (camera mic) CH1 patched to track 2 (panned right) to keep the nat discrete for use in other productions/stories?

Have you tried highlighting a bunch of clips in the browser (the interviews for example), then in the inspector making sure it’s mono, then turning off the track(s) you don’t need, and then panning?

Like this:

That should accomplish what you want to a group of clips with about the same effort as setting up track patches. And, if for some reason down the road you decide you have the wrong channel in use for a particular clip or clips, you always have all the other channels available Instead of having to match frame and reedit. Wouldn’t it be a hassle on Avid if you edited in 100 edits using only ch 1 and then realized you should have been using ch 2?

So it still seems like there’s very little difference in the two scenarios of X vs. track based NLEs. In the track based scenario (for example) you like to have the CH2 patched to track 1 and track 1 be automatically panned left (which is set by the sequence). So you set up the patch once and edit away, with the exception of a few clips that might need a patching change (if you notice) or maybe a match frame and overwrite the clip with the correctly patched audio channel (if you didn’t notice). Of course don’t forget to change the patch back because it might f up your next 100 edits until you notice you’re using the wrong patch settings.

In X, as suggested at the top of this post, I’d simply highlight all the shots in the browser, choose mono, and turn off the unneeded channels and then pan left or right as desired. One time. Across the board. (And those clips are all now correctly set for any editing in the future with no worries about patching or who is doing the edit.) Then, during editing, or later if I notice a channel is incorrect, I simply change the channel/pan in the inspector. No match framing/overwriting needed. And if I realize 100 clips are wrong, well it’s just as easy to change 100 as it is 1. Not 100 match frames needed. I realize that’s an exaggeration not likely to happen, but um.. interns, assistant editors, producers that think they can edit, and so on can foul up a rough cut in this sort of way. Especially if someone left the patches set wrong.

And if you wanted to use two channels from the clip and have them automatically left and right, then yes, you’d have to use stereo which would be a different selection as would having to adjust a patch to use both channels OR a tiny more work to open the compounds and pan each channel separately.

[Bret Williams]

Click where it says dual mono and change that to stereo. Which is the very definition of what you are attempting to achieve. Channel one will be out the left speaker, and channel 2 will be out the right speaker.

If that’s all you wanted to do I can’t believe that’s what all the fuss was about. I assumed you must have more than two tracks, because then you might have an issue if dual stereo wouldn’t do what you wanted. I could forsee someone wanting ch 1 and ch 2 left and ch 3 rt and ch 4 left. Something like that would have to be done in the timeline. THAT would certainly be a legitimate and educated rant. But saying it can only be done in the timeline clip by clip misinformed, and hardly even worth worrying about once you’re familiar with the software. The way I see it you can worry about where you’re putting each clip during the edit (don’t you do anything more complicated like a simple J or L cut where the rigorous track panned system doesn’t really suit?) In 23 years of NLE editing I’ve never wanted to use that method. But I’m sure any new piece of software is frustrating in a fast paced environment if you’re not familiar with it. Especially news.

I would think news would find other aspects of X helpful. Motion template publishing and rigging for graphics? Keywording?

[Bret Williams]

Outputting a multichannel file that plays back on air as a perfectly mixed stereo file would be of no use? The same file could be used as archival or for reediting in an NLE with completely discreet audio. In fact, I’m kinda wondering why I’m not exporting multichannel stereo files for every project now that I think of it.

But your main complaint about X was that it was difficult to pan individual mono tracks within clips. That you had to pan each clip individually. I demonstrated that was incorrect and specifically detailed the simple 10 second process to do what you wanted. Hopefully that had some value. Roles are just icing on the cake and an advanced feature that I haven’t seen on track based editors. Setting up multichannel exports in legacy was quite a bit more difficult and limited compared to roles. From what I’ve seen Avid and Premiere haven’t advanced that much since then. But if you don’t like roles there’s no need to use them. Especially if you don’t have a use for file based multichannel output.

[Bret Williams]

In messing around I even discovered another interesting thing about roles. Turning them on/off via the timeline index actually digs down INTO nested comps. So if you have a nested comp with 3 roles inside like titles, video, and dialog and you only want to see dialog and video and turn off titles, it will actually turn off the titles inside the nested comp. Much more powerful than I remembered. I would have thought it would either turn off the nest or leave it on. Not turn on and off parts of it inside. And if you jump inside the nest, it’s all on. It only selectively turns them off/on based on the settings of the exterior comp. In fact you can even turn off different roles inside the next, but that will be ignored by the exterior comp. Amazing. Please show me how that is even close to possible within Premiere, Avid, Resolve, or even AE. Tracks just can’t do that. Well, they could. There’s no reason an app couldn’t have both Roles AND tracks but nobody else is doing it. You’d think Adobe with all their continual advancement all the time would implement something similar. Or rig up an AE publishing system. They do have quite the advanced, cloud based, billing system though!

[Bret Williams]

I think you’re right on the Premiere front. What I was remembering is the way audio is in Resolve. But I swear I’ve seen numerous posts about similar issues in Premiere. In Resolve (track based) I can’t do what you want. A mono clip can’t be panned. It lets you pan it, but nothing happens. It’s like they only half copied the way audio works in legacy and Premiere.

But in X I can do what you want in a few clicks. The difference seems hardly worth worrying about. Lasso select all the clips and open their components. Then lasso select all the components to adjust and pan as desired in the inspector. No need to do it clip by clip. See screenshot below.

Seems similar to the workflow with tracks. Maybe a few more clicks but on the upside there’s no need to do track management and patching throughout the edit process so it seems like a pretty fair tradeoff.

And usually the issue would be much simpler than the above and could be accomplished with roles like mapping all sfx to channels 1/2, all VO/dialog to 3, and all NAT to 4, and all Music to 5 upon export.

Exporting:

And I tell ya, once you’ve got your roles set up it’s really cool to be able to turn on/off (or even just highlight) video or audio roles in the sequence via the timeline index.

Index:

Turning on/off based on roles and exporting discreet channels based on roles are both advancements over track based systems. I could have 10 different roles in a single track (secondary) and have it output to 10 separate channels without the need for 10 separate tracks taking up space. You can even have those 10 roles export as 10 separate audio files. I’m not sure if Premiere can export each track as a separate file automatically.

X is definitely a different beast, but it roles are fully capable for track management (if not a little more advanced) and it’s pretty simple to accomplish mass clip or channel pannings with components and the inspector.

[Bret Williams]

Seems to be even worse in Premiere. All changes have to be made in the browser there. Once you place a mono track in the timeline in premiere, it’s mono. No panning allowed. You’ll find threads about it in the Premiere forum. The answer there is to match frame to the clip in the bin, change it’s audio format, then reedit back into the sequence over the mono audio clip.

So that’s better? I disagree.

[Bret Williams]

And I could have just RTFM which shows there’s even a little more to it. It’s actually a pretty well thought out feature. The only thing I didn’t figure is that it will balance based on the frame you’re on in the project IF you haven’t analyzed the clip…

FROM THE MANUAL…
Final Cut Pro includes an automatic color-balancing feature. When you use the color-balancing feature, Final Cut Pro samples the darkest and lightest areas of the image’s luma channel and adjusts the shadows and highlights in the image to neutralize any color casts. In addition, Final Cut Pro adjusts the image to maximize image contrast, so that the shot occupies the widest available luma range.

The video frame used as the reference frame depends on whether the clip has already been color analyzed:

If the clip has been color analyzed, either during import or while in the Browser: The analysis process extracts color balance information for the entire clip. Whether you add a portion of the clip or the entire clip to a project, the color-balancing feature chooses the frame within the project clip that is closest to being correctly balanced. This means that if you add multiple partial clips from the same Browser clip to the project, each clip is balanced based on analysis information for its own section of media.

If the clip has not been color analyzed and you balance its color: You can determine the reference frame for a clip selected in the Timeline by moving the playhead to that frame in the clip. If the playhead is on a different clip or you’ve selected a clip in the Browser, the clip’s middle frame is used.

Turn a clip’s color balance correction on and off
Select one or more clips in the Timeline or the Browser.

Do one of the following:

Choose Modify > Balance Color (or press Option-Command-B).

Choose Balance Color from the Enhancements pop-up menu in the toolbar.

Enhancements pop-up menu in toolbar
After you have applied a color balance correction (using one of the methods above), select or deselect the Balance Color checkbox in the Effects section of the Video inspector.

[Bret Williams]

After reading both my and Oliver’s responses I went back and played with it. It appears analyzing does nothing to the clip UNTIL the color balance effect is applied (cmd+opt+B). So, YES it will take longer when it “analyzes” the clip because it seems to analyze the whole file, vs. ONLY adding the color balance effect after import without analyzing which probably just balances based on the first frame(s?).

So here’s what I gather is the normal process-

1. Analyze the clip either on import or by right clicking the media in the bin after import and choosing to analyze. There will be no apparent color change to the clip. It’s just been analyzed.
2. Add the color balance effect cmd+opt+B and you’ll see an effect added in the inspector and it will say “analyzed” which I assume means it looked at all frames because analyzing takes awhile.
3. If you opt to add the color balance effect without analyzing, it will still do a color correction based on the first frame(s?) of the clip or perhaps the first frame(s?) of the edited clip (most likely because it’s instant) and the effect in the inspector will say “not analyzed”
4. In all cases it can be turned on/off in the inspector.

I didn’t test the above on an actual import, just an after the fact import. But if analyzing color is the same as all the other analyzing features of X it can be done after import via right clicking on the clip in the event and choosing analyze and the result should be the same. Which is why I would never suggest analyzing on import. It’s a waste of time when you can do it later on a case by case basis.

[Bret Williams]

Color Balance is something you can add after the fact with cmd+option+B and it’s instantaneous and generally real time. I wouldn’t apply it to all your clips on import. Likely each clip will result in a different color balance. Good for home movies perhaps. Not so great for matching cameras. You can’t paste one color balance to another clip either. (Well you Nor can you adjust the result of the color balance. IOW it doesn’t give you a color board type result.

I use it sometimes as a last step in color correction (not matching). I’ll get the image close and the color balance effect will nudge the white balance where I want it. it’s also good for color correcting a bunch of run and gun broll where all the shots were different lighting like in a factory.

[Bret Williams]

Yes. You would have the original h264 and the pro res. You could technically delete the h264, but it is technically a teeny weeny imperceptibly better quality file and I think X goes back to it for rendering and such if available.