[Richard Clabaugh]

I very much appreciate your feedback. It’s a logical thing to check. I remain open to any other suggestions.

[Richard Clabaugh]

Regarding Modify > Timecode — I have not yet tried that for several reasons.

First, I would be unsure what the correct modification would be.

As an example, one clip I have:

Quicktime and Resolve mutually report that first frame TC = 15:38:29:08
Premiere Pro says the first frame TC = 15:37:33:01

That’s a difference of 56-sec and 5-frames

But by the end frame of the clip ( 3min-11sec-12 frames)

Quicktime says the Last Frame TC = 15:41:41:00
Premiere says the Last Frame TC = 15:40:44:13

That’s now a difference of 56sec and 9-frames
A change of 4 frames in roughly 3-1/4 minutes.

If we were in NTSC (30fps/60i) I’d think Dropframe vs Non-Drop Frame, but there is no DropFrame in 24p (23.976)

It’s not enough difference for a 24fp vs 30fps difference, which would be a much higher drift (6 frames per second).

Stepping through frame-by-frame does show both are counting only 24fps base (going from frame 23 to the next second in all programs).

Have not looked to see if there are “drop frames” in either program, but Quicktime reports NDF and, as I said, there is no such thing as 24p drop-frame TC.

Comparing other shots I find that all clips, and parts of clips, have a different offset, so in terms of modifying timecode, I didn’t know what to put in as a correct timecode adjustment, since it drifts and their was no constant offset, although it does seem that the higher the timecode number value, the greater the difference.

Second reason I did not try this – concern I might really seriously mess up Premiere’s file of the timeline and I’m on a deadline with this project and that could be serious – so messing with the underlying timecode without being sure what to adjust it to, felt like it might be unwise at this juncture.

If you know from experience this will fix the problem, however, I will gladly take your consul and do what you suggest — just reluctant to experiment below the hood while on a tight project deadline.

Regarding the EX1 footage — While not impossible I am disinclined to think it is the culprit here. I’ve used it for years now with no problems in both Premiere Pro and Final Cut, DaVinci Resolve and After Effects, trading footage between each program at both 24p (23.076-just to be precise) and at 30p (29.97) with no problems, including just this week posting a bunch of commercials shot at 30p. This is the only problem that has arisen and the only new combination of elements is Premiere to Resolve at 24p.

Well, okay – not 100% true. A couple updates and corrections to my original post that may be important:

My wife (an editor here) pointed out that we did export another 24p project, a feature film shot in 4K on the Red Epic, and that project, which was quit large and lengthy, had no timecode issues when the XML was taken into Resolve for Color Correction. That was done at a post house off site but I checked the XML here in our version of Resolve before sending it on and it opened fine and re-linked correctly. So we HAVE exported a 24p project, and a very large one, successfully before with no problem.

While I am not ruling out the 24p-XDCam format file being somehow connected to the problem, it’s not my first thought, especially since two other posts I’ve see regarding this problem used different file formats but had the same issues.

Follow the link in my original post, go midway down the page and you’ll see some screen captures this man did in Avid and Premiere of matching timecodes and matching frames (where the timecodes differed) and what he described and experienced with AVID is exactly what I’m experiencing here.

I will add one VERY IMPORTANT CORRECTION to my original post – on re-examing a clip in After Effects, it turned out to be showing the same timecode that matched what Premiere Pro said — so the Adobe Programs (Premiere Pro and After Effects) are saying one number while the non-Adobe programs (Final Cut Pro 7, QuicktimePro7, DaVinci Resolve) are all saying a different number.

If you think a sample clip would be useful let me know where to send it and I will.

I confess I was sort of hoping someone reading this might say, “Yes, I had that happen to me and all you have to do to fix it is go to preferences and set your interociter-interpretation techno-code emulater to read timecode channel2A in Latvarian trans-digit-multiplex mode, and all will be fine!” Something so simple and obvious I’d be slapping more forehead going, “Duh, of course, what didn’t I think of that!”

Just hoping! 🙂

[Richard Clabaugh]

I did, in fact, try that as one of the first steps in the process and the results were exactly the same, and for the same reason. The EDL reflected the same incorrect timecode values from the source clips.

To be clear, these in the EDL and the XML are the values that, if you manually look at the Premiere Pro timeline, is says are the start and end timecode values in the source clip for each edit, but those numbers ONLY match those frames in Premiere. No other program agreess that those numbers goes to those frames, so the EDL, like the XML, produced a garbage result.

[Richard Clabaugh]

Having exactly the same problem, now with multiple projects. A project will play fine, then suddenly, for no reason, hitting play causes nothing but a change in the play/pause button state. It seems to think it’s actually playing, but nothing happens. Everything else keeps functioning — in fact, we have actually started EXPORTING the project just to see it! And it works. But it will not play! Once this happens we can take the project to different machines, different user names, clear preferences… all that and STILL it won’t play. We’ve also tried messing with audio hardware (because someone online posted that as a possible issue) and that’s done nothing for us.

This is a serious issue for us and we’re stumped. We will be in the middle, near complete, with a project and this happens. It is very frustrating. If anyone knows what’s going on we’d like to hear it.

Currently running most recent version CC2015 on iMac with 24GB memory, MacMini, an older Mac Pro. Same situation on all machines. Other projects working fine — until they don’t. Most still fine. Anyone???

[Richard Clabaugh]

Kalle, it appears you are suggesting an expression based solution, which is fine, except I am unclear on the implementation. Could you please elaborate on this with an example, as in “type this expression into this place.”

I think we were hoping for a simple command or keystroke solution that would consistently “center” a text box, but I’m open to anything that works here as this problem continues to come up in work and I’m SURE it’s not hard.

[Richard Clabaugh]

Curious if anyone finds an answer to this. I’m doing title cards for a film and need them all centered both vertically and horizontally, even though they are of different lengths and sizes. Thus both the cards for…

Directed By
Director’s Name

and the care for…

Produced By
Producer A. One
Producer B Two
Producer C. Three

BOTH cards must be centered. I’ve got 26 cards like this and aligning them each manually seems prone to errors. I’m sure someone must have a simple and easy way to do this as I’m sure it’s a common task.

[Richard Clabaugh]

Just a note for any others who happen upon this thread, as I did…

ProRes 422 does not support an Alpha channel. ProRes 4444 does support an alpha channel, which is what the extra “4” at the end stands for.

I think the problem above was in exporting to a format that did not support an alpha channel in the first place.

[Richard Clabaugh]

I had the exact same problem and this fixed it, simply using TextEdit to change the “5” to a “4” in the opening line allowed FCP 6 to open and import the file properly.

Thank you for this very helpful suggestion.

[Richard Clabaugh]

I’ve been having this problem recently with the effect “Bad TV” in Final Cut Pro when rendering an HD sequence in ProRes 422 HQ at 1920×1080. When I reduced sequence settings in video processing from render in 10-bit to render in 8-bit it rendered okay. If there is any difference visually it’s pretty insignificant.