[John Pale]

Not sure if you realize it, but if you have snapping on (S), the clips are sort of magnetically constrained, when you move them vertically, with no modifier key needed. You will see triangles in the corner of the clips that let you know you have not moved them out of place.
They are not fully locked in place when you move them, but they do try to remain in place until you push them too far.

Not as good as what Avid and FCP 7 offers, but it does work okay once you are used to it. I’ve been doing this a lot lately (prepping timelines for AAF export) and its been fine, just moving stuff with no modifier key.

If you have to move clips a huge number of tracks up or down, you can also park your playhead at the start of the clip, select it, then cut (cmd-x) ….target the track where you want it to go…then paste (cmd-v).

Would love to get the constrain vertically feature in Premiere though.

[John Pale]

Avid changed the plug in standard to 64bit AAX in recent versions. Older plugins are incompatible.

Is it possible your old cut was done on an older version of Media Composer.

[John Pale]

Don’t use Time Machine for your media backups. It’s not designed for that. You can exclude specific folders or drives in Time Machine Preferences.

[John Pale]

The speaker icon is way too small when you have a lot of tracks, in my opinion. I think the indicator needs to be more obvious. There are many workflows where one editor might take over from another, or an assistant might be in charge of AAF exports…so there should be a way to see what type of tracks are in use to avoid errors. I can think of a number of ways this can be accomplished. One might be having the track headers be color coded (with an option to turn this on and off, of course)

The current AAF export already optionally splits stereo tracks to mono. No problem with that. What I am seeing, is that occasionally editors put stereo tracks into a mono track and then it becomes a mono track on AAF export (both tracks are summed into one). You need to scrutinize the timeline to make sure that has not occurred by mistake before export. This turns a job that should take a few seconds to one that takes quite awhile, especially if you are unfamiliar with the content. Remember, in many facilities, the person doing the export will not be the editor and may be less experienced.

Not really looking to dumb things down…just recognizing the reality that there are a lot of editors out there making the switch and Premiere is a different enough beast that some clarity in the differences is needed. I like the flexibility. I love the sub mix tracks..especially for stuff thats not being sent out to be mixed in Pro Tools. There just needs to be more obvious indicators about what is happening and what the consequences are.

The default track type is “standard”. This track type is accepts both mono and stereo sources. It would seem to be a good choice for many scenarios, but interestingly…a mono source panned to the left (or right) will have different levels than if the same source is placed in a mono track (also panned the same way). That’s something an editor needs to be aware of and its not well documented. Often, I see that editors have used a standard track with a field recording of an interview…and all the mics get mixed together and sound terrible. I’m pretty sure the individual tracks get split off on AAF export, but on stuff being mixed in Premiere, it needs to be fixed. In a perfect world, every editor would be a Premiere expert and not make these mistakes, but this is not a perfect world. I want to make it easier to avoid these mistakes, and if they happen anyway, make them easier to spot. Not looking to dumb things down and take away functionality.

Frankly, I would recommend that most new Premiere editors work with mono tracks only until they are comfortable and understand all the options, since thats similar to the way its commonly done in FCP 7 or Avid…but since Premiere Pro cannot keyframe more than one audio track at a time, doing this kinda sucks for stereo material.

[John Pale]

It’s a freaking minefield when you are trying to send stuff an AAF to be mixed , as the track type (which is unchangable after the fact), determines a lot about the media being exported.

I have to basically set up a new empty timeline correctly, paste the editors sequence into it, then scrutinize every clip to make sure it’s in the proper track type…and move it if it’s not. Something that should take seconds now takes quite awhile. I don’t understand why the program lets you mix everything up by default. If they want to be less rigid than Avid, it should at least throw up an message like. “You are placing a stereo clip in a mono track. Are you sure this is your intent?” . And what craziness is the fact that a mono clip panned left or right in a standard track (the default track type) produces different levels than a one placed in a mono track with the same panning?

What’s more, there is no visual difference between any of the track types, and Premiere will let you throw a clip anywhere.

Okay. Rant over.

[John Pale]

Yeah…I try to remember to remove them and re-apply them sequence side when using ARRI footage, but I’ve been bitten by that too. Argh.

[John Pale]

LUTS seem to work fine when applied on a clip in the timeline (not on the master clip level).

One kind of weird master clip LUT anomaly I have encountered, is the clip refusing to let a lower third graphic be keyed over it, unless you first make a meaningless opacity change to the underlying clip (slide the slider to zero than back up to 100, for example). Then and only then, will the graphic be visible. Every now and again, the graphic will disappear on export, if that section needs to be re-rendered (such as if you do not have “use previews” checked in Media Encoder). I’ve given up on source side Master Clip LUTS.

[John Pale]

I know its possible in Preferences for Apple Photos to turn off the behavior where it ingests the photos into your library. You can select to leave them in folders of your own creation. I dont think they will sync across devices or be backed up in iCloud if you do it that way. If you are fine with that, it should make things easier as far as Avid is concerned.

I’m a Mac (and Apple Photos) user. I don’t think any NLE except FCPX really has the capability to drill into the Apple Photos Library. I don’t think Apple has opened up the Photos library database to third parties, but I could be wrong about that. Maybe its just not a priority for them.

[John Pale]

Ah. You mean Apple Photos.

Yes, Apple Photos uses its own deeply nested folder organization scheme tied to a database that only it understands. Avid doesn’t natively understand it, at least as far as AMA Link is concerned, so you have to drill through many numbered folders to find what you want. Would be cool if Avid and Apple could work this out, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on it.

From what I understand, you are not obligated to use the Photos Library and Apple Photos can simply link to folders of Photos that you set up (with logical names and organization). You lose much of the iCloud functionality doing it that way, though.

If you want deep integration with Apple Photos, I’m thinking FCPX might be a better fit for you.

[John Pale]

If you want to stay Quicktime based, its a good choice…however, if you are sharing files with someone who does not have Premiere Pro, they would have to install the Cineform codec.

If you are not bound to using Quicktime media, DNX HD and DNX HR are available and offer high performance in an MXF container. (Note that Premiere’s settings are for the OP1A variant of MXF and not OP Atom, which Avid uses for its edit systems…so the files are not directly playable from the Avid Media Files folder, though they can be linked and/or consolidated to an Avid system.)