Hello,
I am writing to propose to whoever at adobe can make decisions like this, that the simple feature of opening up a file browser to select a filename when exporting be added back into the sequence Export window. I do like the new Export window, the thorough layout is nice. However, with the new Export window you removed the ability to select a file by name for export, instead only allowing the user to choose a folder. Unfortunately you may not have considered how this breaks certain workflows, so I will explain how we have been impacted by this change.
We produce nearly 200+ videos each month for our business and on a daily basis I need to export video files that include a certain date format in them. So this is change is no small inconveniece, the change has added time onto my daily workflow.
Here is how I used to export and name a file (windows user, btw). Inside of a premiere project I had one sequence with 3 video tracks. I used to use each track for a different video, each video with a different name. I would simply use the track I needed, for instance, use track one and make it the only visible layer then export my video, use track two and make it the only visible layer then export, use track three and make it the only visible layer and export. Each export has a different file name containing a date in it. Because of the high volume of videos, I would begin my export by exporting by file (not by folder as is with the new export) where once I clicked the filename in the export window I was presented with a windows explorer that showed me my specific project folder filled with all of the video files already rendered with all of their respective dates in the filenames. At a glance I could now see that I hadn't somehow missed a date or made some manual error previously, and most conveniently, I could simply click on yesterdays video with yesterday's date and change only the day number, leaving the month and year in place. Now, with my file named how I need it for the export with the current date on it, I could simply save, and click export - Done. I would of course repeat this process for the other videos I was exporting from that sequence on that day.
With the changes, I can no longer select a file upon export. That means I cannot select an existing file, with say yesterday's date, and just update the day number. So that would mean now my filename each time I go to export something would read "Sequence 01" and I would have to manually type out this long title with a date including typing a month, a day, and a year. I know at first it doesn't seem like too big of a deal, but there is always a chance I might mistype something, and therefore publish a video with a mispelling in it, or a wrong date on it, as mistakes happen. Whereas before I completely avoided this by just selecting yesterday's filename and updating just the day's date. Also consider I do this on hundreds of videos per month. All of that extra wasted time adds up.
Ok, so I am smarter than that, and I did devise a way to make the situation a little better, but it involves major workflow changes, and still remains inconvenient.
The solution was to now create three sequences in my project, one for each of the different video tracks as I described earlier. Then I was able to rename each sequence with the filename that I will need upon export. So now, I have to remember which seqence I am editing and rendering, as I can no longer just visually glance at what track I am using in the timeline. While I am in each respective seqence, the timeline now looks basically the same. A small inconvenience, but an inconvenience nontheless. Now, when I finish editing my sequence I can export, and the filename will be autopoulated not with "Sequence 01" but with the filename almost as I need it. The problem now is that the date will always have to be corrected. Now I need to rename each file by typing the month and the day. And everytime a year passes I will need to rename my sequences. Or I could put the month number into my sequence name and then every month I need to rename all of my sequences. Do you see the inconvenience this has made? There is no way around this. When before all I had to do was select yesterday's filename and change the day number, now I need to use three different sequences and rename them from time to time, manually typing months and dates into my filenames.
This could all be resolved by simply including the option to save by file selection, just as the export used to do.
I know this doesn't seem like THAT big of a deal, but when you edit hundreds of videos regularly, a change like this is MASSIVE. And quite frankly it wastes time that didn't need to be wasted.
I hope someone on the adobe team will simply consider putting a little button next to the filename area on the export menu that opens a file selection exporer as in the past. The user could opt to use that, or opt to use the folder selector instead.
Hope this helps anyone who might face a similar problem.
Thank you for your time.
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