Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018 Dolby Audio Problem

[AshrafAziz]

The main specs. of my computer are:

Processor:                         Intel Core i7  950 @ 3.07 Ghz

Installed Memory (Ram):  12 GB.

System Type:                    Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit

Graphics Card:                  Nvidia Geoforce GTX 7 70

Plug-ins                             Red Giant

I was using PrPro CC 2015.3 with no problem at all. After reinstalling Windows 7, I wanted to try the new Adobe PrPro CC 2018 and here the problems started as I could not open my projects which were created using the PrPro CC 2015.3 and I got an error message: " the selected file could not be linked because its type (video) does not match the original file's type (video and audio)"  After doing some research I could find that the reason of this problem was the the newest version of Adobe PrPro does not support the Dolby Audio  !!!!!!!!!  I couldn't find a correct solution for this. Adobe respected staff, Can anyone help please?

Thanks in advance.

[Master Hatcher]

This is frustrating and ridiculous! I pay a monthly fee every month for years now and I feel as though I am being bullied to upgrade my OS when I don't want to in order to use software I'm paying to use monthly....Adobe should care about it's members because without us there is no them! Provide a simple plugin to support an audio file you have always supported in the past is all that is needed. What is the problem? May need to start looking for alternatives.

[ProDesignTools]

Sorry for the difficulty! Try one of these suggestions if you've lost Dolby functionality:

1. Your simplest and best bet is to recover your CC 2017 apps as they were before you installed CC 2018. See if you can use Windows Restore to roll back the state of applications on your computer to before that time. On a Mac, you'd use Apple's Time Machine.

2. If you can't do that, then do you have a system backup or image from when you had CC 2017 installed, or perhaps it's installed on another machine? You could possibly use that backup together with the CC 2017 direct download links to get back to where you were before. At  a minimum, you'll need both the Premiere Pro and Adobe Media Encoder apps.

3. If neither of those strategies recover a working CC 2017 for you, then you could try moving forward with CC 2018. You could use a third-party utility like Handbrake (a free open-source video transcoder) to convert your MTS/ACS files. Rename the files and reimport them into Premiere Pro. Then clear your media cache.

4. If none of the above work, then maybe consider upgrading to Windows 10 while it's still free, and press ahead with CC 2018 (if you're concerned about Windows telemetry, that's easily handled). Meanwhile, for Mac users, macOS upgrades are always free... Windows 8.1 or above and macOS 10.11 or above contain native support for Dolby decoding functions. Again, rename the applicable files and reimport them on your new setup. Then clear your media cache.

5. If you can't upgrade your operating system, can't move forward with CC 2018, can't go back to CC 2017, and are genuinely stuck with a project caught in the middle – and none of the above solutions work for you – then you could try contacting Adobe Customer Care to let them know and see if they can help.

6. Moving forward, when upgrading Creative Cloud apps, use 'Advanced Options' in the Desktop app to retain older CC versions rather than the default behavior, which is to remove them.

Hope that helps!

[ProDesignTools]

Update: The "Common questions" section of Adobe's help page on the Dolby issue has now incorporated many of the suggestions given above (see under the question, I use a local archive system for my computer – can I use that to roll back to an old version?😞

Adobe Creative Cloud apps use native OS support for Dolby

Adobe also just added this text:

"It is never our goal to remove capabilities from our products. Unfortunately in this case, we had no option but to change the way we accessed Dolby functionality and for some users this caused a disruption in workflow.  Ultimately – we’re sorry that you’ve experienced any difficulty, below are some suggestions to both address the current situation and best practices for moving forward."

[davidpayne1981]

I cant believe adobe would add support for 5.1 handling (causing me to remove my minnetonka audio subscription details from my computer, thinking i'll never need them again) and then within a couple of years.. totally remove it?! WHY!?!

[ProDesignTools]

Because apparently there is a licensing dispute and lawsuit going on right now between Dolby and Adobe, with a lot of lawyers involved, unfortunately.

[kokodude]

I have had to resort  to rendering my AVCHD audio files out in Sony Vegas and then reimporting and relinking the audio files to the proper clips. Actually I have had problems with audio import on my AVCHD clips since CC 2017 though. Only now do I fully understand why. What a major PITA!!

[Jim_Simon]

The Dolby issue is new to 2018.

[kokodude]

Yes, but as I said, the inability to import audio from .mts and AVCHD files has been going on since the 2017 release.

[Jim_Simon]

I got that.  But it wasn't caused by the Dolby issue being discussed in this thread.

[kevinm17031933]

I have Windows 10. Dolby options also disappeared for me after updating to 2018 CC.

[ProDesignTools]

If you're having trouble with Dolby decoding on Windows 10 after upgrading to CC 2018, then make sure your version of Windows 8.1/10 has the necessary support for Dolby:

Adobe Creative Cloud apps use native OS support for Dolby

If it's still not working for you, then try renaming your MTS/AC3 files and reimporting them into Premiere. Then do the steps here:

FAQ: How to clean media cache files?

[aronč83606110]

The same problem happened to me, missing dolby audio decoder. The simplest solution that works is to convert video into mp3 and that mp3 import in Premiere at the appropriate footage. I used free ANY VIDEO CONVERTER to convert footage to mp3. It's not the best option, but it's easiest and it works well.

[davidpayne1981]

Lawsuit snawsuit.

It mucks up my work flow!

I managed to retrieve my old surcode details from their (amazing) support team so I guess next time Adobe decide they're offering it natively I'll still still stick with surcode.. If Adobe let me..

[R Neil Haugen]

Lawsuit snawsuit.

Easy for you to say. You're not the one getting sued. So I'll be generous and assume you mean that as a bit of snarky humor.

Apple and Dolby are two of the more ... jealous? ... shall we say? ... Defenders of the Realm around, it seems. They lawyer up awful quickly ...

Neil

[Zach_Hall1]

This is ridiculous.  If they can't get this dolby thing they at least need to develop a workaround.  So much for getting any work done today.  Thanks adobe.....

[brandonray00]

This may sound stupid but it's what I did. I had a project that HAD to be done. Couldn't wait on fixes. I just opened my video files with Audition and then just saved the audio to a folder. Then dropped it into place under the video. Then I linked the files, up and running! Pain in the ass but seems to be working. I'm not exactly happy with Adobe myself and looking for something else to use.

[juanmario]

Well, there is a solution that I never wanted to mention, simply because I would not, I would update my operating system.

It is not quite perfect, red line in the timeline, possible error (importer 39), in which you have to disable the intel decoding h264 and the workflow, you may not feel it, but you can slow down.

And it is installing the old Mainconcept Codec Suite package, at least in Windows.

[yoavnir]

Solution

After researching the web with no avail, and getting angry with Adobe, I found a quick workaround.

First, describing the problem as I had it: some of the clips that have originally audio, are being imported to PPro CC 2018 with no audio. This happen to me with .mpg files. You can also notice that the icon of these clips in the Project tab (bottom left) contains only video purple sign and no audio green sign. Also, if you look at the bottom right corner you find an Error message: "Missing Dolby audio decode"

Deleting the Media Cache, renaming the Common folder in the %appdata% - all that advice from Adobe and other places did not help.

Workaround

Download VLC media player. If you don't know it, it's a free player, one of the best.

Go to Media menu > Convert / Save. Click Add, select the file, choose Convert, choose profile (e.g. Video H.264 + MP3 (MP4) ), choose destination and start.

That's all. No need of "favors" from Adobe..

[yairb999]

Hmmm... that way you loose quality so... you still need "favors" from Adobe .

[yoavnir]

Yep, but  still better than nothing. In my case the original video was old and low quality anyway, so it didn't matter

[mogheraa93465286]

i guess that's it ,, i've been stopping myself so many times from moving to finalcut but now i think it is time for it,, i should of never updated,, it is sad that adobe is going down after many years of good work. if thy can not find a solution for such important problem in no time, then they need to start creating phone app's, cause it looks like their software engineers are just good for nothing,,

[MK.Kabi]

Download and install this. 

Make sure Premiere is closed when installing. 

I'm using CC 2018 on Win7 .

Works like magic