[John Pilgrim]

Greg wins an internet for the day for providing the most actionable piece of help so far!
Thanks!

[John Pilgrim]

Indeed. We contacted Adobe support last week and got the usual call center blather. I’ve been waiting on a call back from “someone more senior” in their support organization.
This has also been posted on Adobe’s Premiere forum, but no one from Adobe has responded.
https://forums.adobe.com/message/10698786

[John Pilgrim]

Here’s a better annotations:

[John Pilgrim]

I’m quite confident hacking around in XML files and Premiere “.prproj” files are XML, so…
Looking through some “.prproj” files I created in both Premiere CC2018 and CC2019, containing either (a.) the original MXF file with the wrong Media In timecode or (b.) a MOV transcode of the MXF that has the correct Media In timecode, I found the following.

The TL;DR is that Premiere CC2019 has two bugs:
1. it misinterprets the Media IN timecode of MXF files on import
2. it misinterprets the Media IN timecode of MXF files when converting a CC2018 project file

[John Pilgrim]

Fortunately, our Premiere Timecode effects have been matching the source media
And as a colorist I pay close attention to timecode because bad timecode means a bad conform (and lots of wasted time) in Color (rest in peace), Resolve or Scratch.

[John Pilgrim]

Shane, Exactly.
But the problem we are experiencing would appear to be a software glitch wherein the Media Start TC in the MXF is ingested as drop-frame and converted to non-drop and presented in the user interface, stored in the project file, and stored in the various media cache metadata files that Premiere stores.
I have characterized the problem, but I have yet to understand (a.) what causes it, (b.) how to prevent it, and (c.) how to correct it once it has occurred.
I have a workaround described in my OP, of assigning the correct Media Start TC in the Premiere (or After Effects) Interpret Footage dialogue, but that’s not really workable for hundreds of clips.

[John Pilgrim]

Yes, the correct and incorrect time codes seem to be related by a drop-frame/non-drop-frame conversion relationship, but I have yet to find anything in the Premiere UI that would give us control over the footage interpretation such as to be able to resolve the issue.

[John Pilgrim]

PS: Sadly, After Effects also is showing the incorrect timecode for the start of these clips. 🙁

[John Pilgrim]

I get an error downloading the actual product upgrade I just purchased this morning:
Akamai Download Manager (runing as Java applet on Mac Firefox 2) says,
“Download Manager Fatal Error — The requested file is not available for download….”

John

[John Pilgrim]

Watchout for the Adobe store!

Purchased the AE CS2 Mac upgrade and Adobe’s Akamai Download Manager repeatedly gives me a fatal error that the file is “not available for download.”

Two hours on the phone to Adobe support — mostly on hold for the reps to “look into the issue” or reading to me from the scripts — and all I have is conflicting answers that they’ll ship me the physical media instead or that I need to wait 24hrs before the download will work.

Sheesh!!

I should have ordered from a reputable online vendor and paid the overnight shipping.

Anyone have a workaround for the Akamai download failure? I’m on OS X 10.4.10 and Firefox 2.0.

John