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Making audio waveform files portable for LucidLink

Participant ,
Feb 28, 2022 Feb 28, 2022

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Hi there,

 

I’m trying to figure out a way to make audio waveform files reliably portable across different workstations.

 

We’re trying to optimize our use of LucidLink, which has some special technology that lets collaborators on different workstations “stream” just the frames they need into Premiere.

So long as a user’s bandwidth is high enough, and the data rate of a particular video file low enough, LucidLink will serve up the video frames as they’re needed. Users don’t have to actually wait to download a whole folder of media. It’s great.


The snag here is that LucidLink recommends against automatically creating audio waveforms. This makes sense. If LucidLink only serves up the particular video frames that are about to be played, then it’s not necessary or desirable to have Premiere Pro automatically traverse, download, and read through all of the media in the Project Panel to generate those waveform files.

 

Now, if the “Automatic audio waveform generation” box is unchecked, waveforms will indeed be generated as the files are played. However, I have editors who are receiving long interviews, and they want to see all the waveforms without having to first play through all the footage.

So my goal is to use one workstation, connected to local media [an on-premises storage server] generate all waveform files, and then find some way to easily package those files for another workstation–to somehow have them relink with the media on LucidLink filespace.

I’ve played around with compressing the “Media Cache,” “Media Cache Database,” and “Peak Files” folders in /Users/myusername/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common, to no avail.

I’ve tried:

  1. Adding the contents of those folders on the original system, where waveform files exist, over onto the new workstation;
  2. Taking those folders from the original system and using them as complete replacement for the equivalent folders over on the new workstation;
  3. Taking these folders from the original system and merely making a “Common” folder with all three “Media Cache,” “Media Cache Database,” and “Peak Files” folders on the new workstation’s desktop, and then pointing Premiere Pro’s “Media Cache” files and “Media Cache Database” location to that folder on the Desktop.
  4. Trying all of the above while having “Save .cfa and .pek media cache files next to original media files when possible.”

 

But I can’t get the new system to “relink” to the audio waveforms. As far as I know, there’s no way of doing it through the normal relinking window, for video and audio clips you’d see in the Project Panel.

So, is reliably moving audio waveforms from one machine to another possible right now with Premiere Pro 22.2.0 (Build 128)? If it is indeed possible, is it painful to do so? It feels like it should be possible, but I’m missing some detail that would make it work. Thanks in advance.

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Audio , Editing , How to , User interface or workspaces

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LEGEND ,
Feb 28, 2022 Feb 28, 2022

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Seth,

 

I saw your reference to this post on the LucidLink Slack, and immediately came here to comment. This is an awesome idea!

 

So I'm wondering if we can get some assistance ... @mattchristensen  or @Wes Howell  ... anyone, can you advise?

 

Neil

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Engaged ,
Feb 28, 2022 Feb 28, 2022

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Seth,

 

Replied to your MacAdmins / provideo post with an idea.

 

Andy

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LEGEND ,
Feb 28, 2022 Feb 28, 2022

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Would love to see that also posted here.

 

Neil

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Engaged ,
Feb 28, 2022 Feb 28, 2022

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Hi Neil,

Here is what I wrote: 

 

Did you consider Media Managing the audio files into a project on prem and then moving that entire MM folder into Lucid Link? The media manage setting can include conformed audio files & preview files. It also includes the .pek file in a media cache folder that should give you the waveform data you need.  The editor can then open this media managed project as a secondary project in their project bin and the peak files might be there for the entire file. I can’t test this till our deployment next week, but maybe something you can test. Other option if you are worried about “steaming charges” is to move to IBM servers with LucidLink. There are some new options that might save you some money.

 

AndyScreen Shot 2022-02-28 at 10.11.22 PM.png

 

Screen Shot 2022-02-28 at 10.20.51 PM.png

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LEGEND ,
Mar 01, 2022 Mar 01, 2022

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Thanks ... interesting ideas.

 

Neil

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Community Beginner ,
Mar 16, 2022 Mar 16, 2022

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Hey Andy,

 

I just got a chance to test this. Weirdly, that does spit out a `Media Cache` folder with the associated `.pek` files that have already been generated, but when I try to pull up the project on a different system, Premiere on the other system doesn't seem to "find" the peak files or reconnect to them in any way. It doesn't reconnect to the peak files that are in the new `Media Cache` folder that the Project Manager created, nor does it recognize these same peak files if I copy them over into the regular `~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Peak Files` location.

I reviewed Karl's video on this subject, just to make sure I wasn't missing anything fundamental, but I'm not seeing any clue.

I had originally thought that having the `Automatic audio waveform generation` checked might have some kind of relinking logic--that if it were checked and if the peak files were in some "correct" spot, that the peak files could "relink," but alas, I think I was tricking myself because for a few test files, they just generated quickly enough that I didn't notice they had quickly regenerated.

Any other ideas here?

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Community Beginner ,
Mar 25, 2023 Mar 25, 2023

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Did you ever figure out a good solution for this? My team is in the exact same scenario. I know LL recommends turning off "Automatically Generate Waveforms", but we have hours of interviews to go through and need to see the waveforms. Keeping this option on though forces Premiere/LucidLink to download the full files which completely defeats the purpose of LL.

 

Really not sure what to do here.

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LEGEND ,
Mar 25, 2023 Mar 25, 2023

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This is one of the problems with collaborative workflows ... the need to have access to things in the cache files.

 

You definitely get far better performance if all "cache" type files are on a local drive, not even local network storage. Online collaboration is even trickier. Even on a specialized and normally near awesome service like L-L.

 

First, have you tried their LucidLink slack channels, asking their? I'm sure other users have comments to help on what they've done.

 

Second ... with hours of interviews, you might get faster results by having them auto-transcribed on import into Pr, then you can even print out the transcriptions, and do searches for words and quite a bit through looking either at the printed page or scrolling through the panel in Pr. I do know of shops that do most of their interview work now via editing transcripts.

 

Neil

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Participant ,
Mar 25, 2023 Mar 25, 2023

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Yes, sort of.

 

If you keep that box unchecked, what you can still do is have a clip [or multiple clips] selected in the Project Panel, and then in the menubar, hit Clip > Generate Audio Waveform. This way you can generate waveforms just on the clips that you're about to work on, rather than have Premiere try to download everything all at once.

 

My colleagues seem to like this compromise.

 

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Community Beginner ,
Mar 25, 2023 Mar 25, 2023

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I actually just figured this out a couple hours ago and yeah I think this is going to work fine. 

 

Thanks a bunch for the reply!

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