How Can I Move Edited Clips From One Project To Another

[Rickster213]

I have Premiere Elements 12 on an iMac.  I have a project I am done with that has about a dozen clips (MTS files from an AVCHD camera) I have edited.  I have another project and would like to use those exact, edited clips.  How can I do that?  I used to use Pinnacle Studio about 8 years ago on a Windows XP and all I had to do was select a range of clips on the timeline, copy, go into my other project and paste.  But I've learned that nothing is that easy with Elements.  I see an "export" option but it is always greyed out so I can't select it.  Any help would be appreciated.  I could just bring the same clips into my 2nd project and do the editing all over again but there must be an easier way.

The project with the 12 clips I want to export has about 50 clips all together, and the project I want to move them to has about 20.  All of them have some edits.  In other words, I can't just create a new project by deleting the clips I don't want and then just bringing in the other clips by adding assets because I won't have the edits.  Hope that makes sense.

Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks.

Rick

[Steve Grisetti · Accepted solution]

Go to Publish & Share/Devices/Computer and select the AVCHD option with the M2T 1920x1080i preset. This will output the edited video on your timeline in a format that can be used in another AVC project.

To output a segment of your timeline rather than your entire timeline, set the light gray Work Area Bar along the top of the timeline to indicate the segment you want to output and then, on the AVCHD Publish & Share screen, check the option to Export Work Area Bar Only.

[Rickster213]

That worked, thank you.

Perhaps you could answer a general, somewhat related question.  The export created a disk file of 4GB, which is basically a copy of some of my original MTS video clips.  If I was really tight on disk, would I have been better off just to bring the MTS files into my other project and redo the edits?

I'm assuming the project assets are basically pointers into the actual clip, so 1 or 10 projects would use the same file on disk.  Or does creating as asset actually bring in a copy of the MTS file, so 10 projects would actually be creating 10 video files of the same clip.

I'm used to Pinnacle on a Windows OS, which just has pointers and offsets into an avi file so 10 projects would all use the same video file.  Move the file to an external drive and your projects won't be able to find it at first, but you can browse to it and get it if need be.

Thanks again for your help.

Rick

[Ann Bens]

It would have been better to just import the clips into a new project and redo the edit.

That is how editing software works. It does not actually import but links to the clip on the hard drive.

which is basically a copy of some of my original MTS video clips

It is a compressed copy, its not a link to the original.

Get yourself storage space, a disk should not be filled up more then 75%. This is to avoid issues.

[Rickster213]

Thanks.  That's pretty much what I thought.  I'm glad imports are just links to the files. 

The reason I thought they might not be was because of the copy and paste issue.  With Pinnacle Studio, I can select multiple edited clips on my timeline just by highlighting them, then copy and paste from one project to another.  Takes maybe 30 seconds.  With Premiere, one has to either start from scratch in the new project by bringing in the clips and redoing the edits, which can be incredibly time consuming, or export to a file, which as you say is a waste of disk space and also takes more time depending how long the clips are and how long it takes to create the new file.

Premiere developers - anyone listening?