Fit to Fill Doesn't Work -- narrowing down the issue?

[Television Photog]

There are several threads about the 4 point edit Fit to Fill option being greyed out. I too have experienced that. Solutions offered (of which none worked) centered around "resetting"/cleaning out caches etc.

Within the last month the television station I work for issued me a brand new laptop. Knowing it was an issue I moved nothing across from the old one and built my workflow from scratch. The problem still persists.

I have noticed it randomly will appear as an option. But I really couldn't find a reason or thread why. It wasn't until version 24.5 started crashing a lot and one thread emerged of Premiere not handling MXF media correctly as a possible reason of the crash that the light bulb went off in my head.

I think the common thread I have in Fit to Fill not working is when MXF media is my source. Which for me is about 90% of the time as I shoot news on a Sony XDCAM series camera and edit that material. When I had mp4 file video from our archive system it seemed to allow the Fit to Fill function. So there could be several things within the MXF ecosystem that have been "broken" in some recent updates.

[Television Photog]

Quick edit, the crashing was part of 24.4.1, not 24.5

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi @Television Photog,

I'm Kevin from support, one of the moderators here. Welcome to the Premiere Pro Bugs forum. Thanks for the bug report.

Can the team please get more information about your computer system? See, How do I write a bug report?

I hope we can help you shortly. Sorry for the hassle.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Television Photog]

Hi Kevin,

Hopefully I get all of what you need here..

Running Premiere Pro 24.5

Windows 11 Pro Enterprise Edition (22H2) on an HP Z Series Fury laptop

13th Gen i9-13950HX 2.2GHz

64 GB RAM

Nvidia RTX5000 Ada video card running driver version 555.99

2 Nv.me drives, (data/projects separate from OS/Apps)

Material I shoot comes off a Sony XDCAM, MXFOP1a

AVC Long GOP High 4:2:2 10 bit

1280x720 (Yup, we are a 720 station, not 1080)

Also today I had issues with some file video and doing a fit to fill with it too... I looked closer at the file it too is an MXF that was generated from an in-house machine from a file send from Grass Valley's Edius system, an MXF OP1a MPEG-2 420 MPHL file. (Don't get me started on how much I avoid and can't stand that product) But it too had the common thread of a MXF wrapper.

Thanks, holler if you need anything else!

[Kevin-Monahan]

Thanks for the added information. Appreciated! Can you try a test for me? See if you have the same problem in a brand-new project with standard ProRes .mov files or some other editing (non Long GOP) codec like DNxHR or GoPro Cineform. I'm wondering if this has to do with .mxf wrapped footage. Thanks for the help.

Cheers,
Kevin

[Kevin-Monahan]

I hope you had a great weekend, @Television Photog.

@jamieclarke, is it possible for you or another team member to take a look at this bug report? It appears to be format-related.

Thanks,
Kevin

[jamieclarke]

Hi @Television Photog - Can you provide some more information.  What about fit to fill isn't working for you?  Can you describe your repro steps with expected results.  Thank you.  

There are criteria matches for certain fit to fill to work properly depending on what you are trying to accomplish such as both source and Timeline need to have in-out marks set.

If you are seeing greyed out "Ignore Source In" or "Ignore Source Out", that means you do not have enough frames on your in or out to fit the media in.

[Television Photog]

Hi!

Yes I am very familiar with the fit to fill workflow, we use it all the time in news when file video isn't quite long enough. Doing as Kevin suggested I did one preliminary test where I converted my Sony MXF media to Pro Res (convertring inside Media Encoder) then I tried the same steps to do a fit to fill and it came up as an option, when before it was not an option when it was the Sony MXF media directly, which furthers my suspicion that somewhere along the line the code for dealing with Sony MXF media in that capacity has become corrupted.

It was just one quick test on my home system (which is almost identical to my work system, I think my work system has a second ssd in it and one step higher on the video card vs. my home system.) I am wrapping up a large edit, and once that is done I'll be able to play around a little more to confirm my initial tests.

[jamieclarke]

Hi @Television Photog - Would you be able to send me one of the files that you are having issues with so that I can understand what is happening?  You can send a link to jamiec@adobe.com A screen recording would be very helpful as well.  Thank you.

[Television Photog]

I can, I'm literally sitting in the Target Field Press Box, so let me see if I have something on the smaller end that I can send your way with ease!

[jamieclarke]

Hi @Television Photog - I can repro your issue!  It seems to be something to do with the transcript, will keep you updated.  Thank you for the organized project and test media.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Thanks so much for helping us, @Television Photog - you're so helpful!! Are you working for the Twins org? How great! 3.5 games out. Pretty good! I really hope we can help you.

Since birth, I've been a Giants fan. 🙂

[Kevin-Monahan]

I did one preliminary test where I converted my Sony MXF media to Pro Res (convertring inside Media Encoder) then I tried the same steps to do a fit to fill and it came up as an option, when before it was not an option...

By @Television Photog

Ah! I'm glad my test worked for you. I suspected it was format-related.

Cheers,
Kevin

[Television Photog]

Work for one of the 4 local stations here in town, but I'm down at Target Field a bunch. Glad the media helped! Would love to get that fit to fill back again! I was trying to remember if the issue cropped up while we were still shooting on Panasonic P2 cameras or if it started post-switch to Sony. I probably have some Panasonic raw stashed somewhere if you need that to test as well.

[jamieclarke]

Since this involves the transcription feature a workaround would be to go into Settings > Transcription and uncheck both boxes.  As long as your transcription status is "Not Transcribed" you should be able to see your fit to fill.

[Television Photog]

That's an interesting cause... so if something gets transcribed is the fit to fill hosed at that point? I have used it a lot recently to bail me out of reporters not giving me good scripts. Or can I just turn it off after it transcribes and the fit to fill will be happy?

[jamieclarke]

Hi @Television Photog - There is no way to turn it off once it has been activated on a media clip.  

"if something gets transcribed is the fit to fill hosed at that point". Yes.

Thank you for your patience as we work toward a solution.

[Stan Jones]

@Television Photog,

My compliments on your excellent intitial report, building your workflow fresh on the new laptop, and responding to requests.

Who would have guessed it was a transcript issue? There is an option to "ignore transcript," but it only stops the sequence from showing the transcript from the source file, it does not remove it. But I'd give it a try to see if it makes a difference.

Upvote this Idea to have an option to delete the transcript. It has the most upvotes, but still no staff response.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-ideas/provide-a-way-to-delete-a-transcription/idi-p/1361...

The only promising workaround was exporting/importing an XML:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-ideas/provide-a-way-to-delete-a-transcription/idi-p/1361...

A bit scarey.... But it worked in my test.

Stan