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przone
Known Participant
January 30, 2020
Question

POOR format support from Adobe Premiere - for such an expensive package...

  • January 30, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 937 views

One of the most popular smartphones of all time - and the cause of a BIG increase in sales for Apple in 2019, the iPhone 11 Pro is a pretty amazing piece of kit.
Many professional media creators will be using the iPhone 11 Pro to shoot video at events etc.
Recently, in Zurich, I had the chance for an exclusive video interview with the CEO of a billion dollar corporation.
The lighting was good, so I opted for my iPhone 11 Pro - set to 4K at 60 frames per second - with Rode Go mics.
Watching it back on the phone, the colour/sharpness were excellent and the audio nice and clear.
Perfect.
Until you try to edit it.
Adobe Premiere doesn't know what to do with a 4K 60fps video file from the iPhone 11 Pro.
Say it with me folks...   "O. M. G."    Followed by, "W. T. A. F."
Up and down the various threads, I install Handbrake (free app - in case you think that Adobe can't afford this kind of Codec tech) and proceed to convert it to an H.264 MKV file.
I go eat lunch, come back and import my sparkly new file into Premiere.
Or not.
Adobe are soooooooo CHEAP, that not only do they not know what to do with an Apple 4K file - they also don't understand what to do with an MKV.

My question?

IN WHAT WAY IS ADOBE PREMIERE A PREMIUM VIDEO CREATION TOOL IF IT DOESN'T WORK SMOOTHLY WITH 4K?

Seriously...   What are we paying for, if we constantly have to install other packages and/or switch formats?

Poor form Adobe.

Poor form.

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    1 reply

    S
    SAFEHARBOR11
    Participating Frequently
    January 30, 2020

    Variable Frame Rate is an abomination. Its purpose is to decrease file sizes and it works for that. But VFR is not good for editing. Say you record a scene with TWO such iPhones and you are going to do a 2-camera edit with those clips. The two clips are not marching to the same beat, as the frames from one clip are out of time to the other!! That's a problem...

     

    I've been editing NLE for 25 years or more, and this sudden thing of clips having random varying frame rates...makes no sense. It's hard enough mixing mismatched clips, like 29.97 and 23.976, when the frame rates are at least constant. Now let them just go all willy-nilly over time. Yikes.

     

    As for mkv, yes that is a very efficient codec but the only place I've really seen it widely used is for downloading bootlegged movies. It's a DELIVERY codec, not an intermediate for editing use. Convert to .mp4 and it will work fine in Premiere

     

    Thanks


    Jeff

      P
      przoneAuthor
      Known Participant
      January 30, 2020

      Hi Jeff,
      But am I correct in assuming that my all-singing-all-dancing Adobe subscription doesn't include a 1-click-convert-to-MP4 for the iPhone?

      That's my issue.

      Why do I need a 3rd party tool to use 4K from an Apple phone 😞

      jasonvp
      jasonvp
      Inspiring
      January 30, 2020

      No, not at the moment.  The HEVC files that the iPhone produces will load into Premiere Pro on the Mac ... eventually.  There's a lag in importing them and it seems like Premiere has crashed because it's gone "Not Responding".  But it does eventually load them in.

       

      Whether those same files will load into the version of Premiere on Windows is unknown to me.  It sounds like a lot of folks have failed at that.  Apple does something to the iPhone's HEVC files that throws the Windows version of Premiere off.

       

      It's not VFR; that has nothing to do with the problem.  The issue is something else.  For now, Handbrake them into CFR h.265 files and Pr should import them.

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