Making audio waveform files portable for LucidLink

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.