Known Participant

Question

Premiere confuses files of same name

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
December 14, 2017
10 replies
16399 views

I'm editing many VOB files from different DVDs in the same project. Files from one DVD have the same files name as files from other DVDs, but placed in separate directories. Not only does Premiere get completely confused when previewing the videos (playing video from a completely different sequence than the one selected with the play head), but it replaces the incorrect audio from wrong files when rendering... or drops the audio for certain VOB files entirely.

The only way to get Premiere to correctly reference the correct file placed on any sequence timeline is to pre-process all of my VOB files with Mpeg Streamclip, saving one large uniquely named VOB file per DVD, and importing that file into Premiere.

How is it possible that Premiere cannot handle files that have the same name? This is beyond amateur.... Professional grade? Really? I'm having a hard time showing people at work that Premiere can be used in a professional environment. I'm having to resort to using a decade old video converter (Mpeg StreamClip) to read and correct issues that Premiere completely chokes on.

Combined with the horrible extremely slow import bug that plagues large projects, and the decade old 'Unknown Error' encountered by many during export, Adobe is showing that their software is not professional grade and cannot be counted on in work environments. But what choice do I have? Sony Vegas became horribly buggy 5 years ago, pushing me to Adobe Premiere. Avid Media Composer? Software standards, with the advent of never-ending patches, have turned all customers into beta testers. This is not acceptable yet seems to be the industry norm now.

In 4 years of my CC membership, paying an average of $75 CAD/month, I've spent over $3500 to use Premiere. Adobe is repaying loyal customers with terribly buggy software that is only getting more and more buggy.

Jeff-fa-fa

Known Participant

I've had a similar issue where I have many video clips with the same name recorded from different cameras (00000.MTS), My solution has been to find the affected clips in explorer and then make a duplicate file (select file, copy, paste) Then in premiere I replace "00000.MTS" with "Copy of 00000.MTS". It works on a small number of files; when wiping the media cache didn't help. I'm not sure if it's good for a large number of files. I would probably use a bulk renaming program to change all of the media in one folder 00000.MTS > A00000.MTS and then use the replace file in premiere to swap them out.

CJCARNAHAN

Inspiring

I'm putting my drone reel together, and DJI is infamous for having no sequential (or date-driven) file naming conventions. Closing the program and re-opening the program completely wipes all stored data on where DJI_0005.mov is being pulled from. I have dozens of projects, and re-linking them all is going to take hours if not days. I wish there was some other way to link media other than just the naming convention.

S

Sina23209408ggs8

Participant

Hey guys.

Ive started to notice this issue trying to import Adobe Illustrator files into the Premiere and i kinda found out what solves the problem. this started when i tied to import several images from exports of artboards of the same file.

all of the images no matter what the name was were imported as same document in premiere pro.

so ive decided to dig into it and got here .

however there was no answers here also.

so I tried something else. and got to the properties of the file, in the details section I noticed that they are all having the same title despite the name of the file. and by changing them my problem was all fixed.

It is stupid knowing that this bug is on adobe, either Illustrator or PP. but I suggest this workaround for u guys. maybe it helps

Fine Art P

Inspiring

Three years later, this is still broken.

R Neil Haugen

Legend

When many multiple files have the same names in a project, yea, it's a pain in the tushie. And you have to be careful how you ingest them into Premiere Pro for it to keep all the data straight internally.

Whether it's mts, AVCHD or this or that, the folder structure of the initial camera card (AVCHD) or other acquisition needs to be kept, so that files referenced internally together still 'see' each other. And then the whole thing needs to be ingested into PrPro using the MediaBrowser panel of PrPro.

It seems to have a better track record at getting the file data into PrPro's internal databases.

Not that this will work perfectly, but you've got a far great chance it will. Any other import process will have worse problems.

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

J

JAPI

Participant

I'm having the same issue, I'm receiving a huge pack of files to edit. Once new versions received, of course the files are not renamed one by one. Not practical at all. And Premiere just not helping by not identifying that are different files.

Vanlazarus, it has been like a year and a half since you post this issue.. have you ever get a real solution from Adobe?

john beardsworth

Community Expert

See the suggestion at FAQ: How to clean (delete or trash) media cache files? Deleting the media cache files got me out of a similar problem where one file from a sequence of numbered files had been deleted externally and the remaining files had then been renamed.

W

Walt Wooton

Participating Frequently

It would be nice to see comments focus on the OP's problem:

"It's having problems with media files that have the same name."

It's not about the importing, or the VOB wordflow. It's about Premiere confusing the audio of files with the same name. Happens consistently with MTS files, especially in larger(?) projects, or maybe those worked on for a long time.

R

ryana68401696

Participant

As mentioned by others here, this is not exclusive to VOB files. I have this issue with multi-camera/multi-card projects. I am importing the entire directory structure but when 00000.MTS is the common starting point for many cameras, it is likely we will have files with the same name. The video seems to convert to a sequence successfully, but somehow the audio track gets confused in PP. I understand because files can move that Adobe might link file names to help relocate files, but it should still understand that when they have not been moved or relocated that it should match to the original file and use cache files that somehow distinguish by more than file name.

If anyone figures this out, I'd love the answer. Otherwise I have to painstakingly rename each file manually.

S

SAFEHARBOR11

Participating Frequently

"I am importing the entire directory structure "

Not sure what this means. Maybe I'm lucky, but this has never happened to me. Each SD card is copied in entirety to a unique folder on hard drive. Then in Premiere, importing is always done using Media Browser rather than File > Import. I think they is key to the issue perhaps.

Thanks

Jeff

L

loganrayray

Participant

I had this problem today and spent 3 hours trying to figure it out and it's freekin nuts that I have to use this work around but I had to use Handbrake to convert the .vob files to .mp4 files and then they worked easily in premiere pro. The conversion was fairly painless with 5 and 1/2 hours of footage converted in just under ten minutes. This is clearly a bug that adobe needs to address immediately but I was able to do what I had to with a little bit of extra work.....baloney but hope it helps others in the same boat.

S

Shawn34650588h1rw

Participating Frequently

It is still broken years later... I am struggling hard as I have lost 30-40 hours of work now. I edit entire days of footage. I pull in the 00000.mts file from 4 cameras, and I utilize multiple projects (where PP REALLY likes to mess it all up) so I'll have up to 16 00000.mts files going and then it rearranges the audio from all the files and sometimes plays multiple audios mixed together... I guess I need to convert each 8 hours camera day into 1 file? If you're still around, what is the best way to do this without losing quality

Kevin-Monahan

Community Manager

Have you copied the entire folder structure from the CF card to your hard drive, @Shawn34650588h1rw? That is the right method so that Premiere Pro can discern identically named clips. Please try a test and report back. I hope the advice helps.

Thanks,

Kevin

Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community and Engagement Strategist – Adobe Pro Video and Audio

S

s.leupold

Participant

I'm having a very similar issue since updating to CC 2018 (12.0.0 Build 224) on a Windows 10 64 bit machine.

We primarily shoot on two different cameras one of which resets the file number for every new card (making the first clip always 00000.MTS). I've never bothered keeping all the original hierarchy from how the camera saves the files as SAFEHARBOR11 suggested in this thread, but I've also never had an issue with this. I've also never imported the files through the media browser. All files are in a unique directory for each project and I thought that was enough. Now Premiere is pulling audio from a different clip of the same name and playing it, but not always (usually closing Premiere and reopening fixes it). When I'm in a project it's a bit of a gamble if Premiere pro will play the correct 00001.MTS audio for the project or if it will play the audio from different 00001.MTS

Based on what's said here there's no real fix other than just do things differently in the future to try and avoid this issue?

nicklear

Inspiring

I'm also occasionally getting this problem - where Premiere will link to the wrong file when the names are identical, but folders are different. It doesn't seem to bother it that the media start end or duration aren't the same!

I do try to rename clips according to date and time etc before bringing them into editing software, but I don't always remember to do it. Plus I only get this problem occasionally.

Ann Bens

Community Expert

If you download CS6 you can edit vobs.

CS6 is less picky then CC.

You can even export them to dv avi to edit instead of using the mpeg files.

T

Trevor_Asq

Legend

You could try assigning a unique ‘tapename’ for each DVD (set file & clip metadata to be linked too) - that way you can have Adobe use that when relinking (its normal approach of using filename and media start is what causes the issue - as they always match)

S

SAFEHARBOR11

Participating Frequently

Importing using Media Browser rather than File > Import would likely fix the confusion within Premiere, however you may have to move or rename the current media folders, prior to re-importing media or the previous issue may follow along if working in the same project. NEW project should be okay just using Media Browser method.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera

Safe Harbor

V

vanlazarus2013Author

Known Participant

Sorry Jeff, but your suggestion is not relevant to my problem because I am using Media Browser to import these files. And this is also a new project not created with an earlier version of Premiere. I appreciate your suggestions but am tired of the black magic voodoo methods that many bring up to solve problems with Premiere. How is it that different methods of import in Premiere DO NOT USE THE EXACT SAME CODE TO IMPORT? And why is the mantra of avoiding project files created with earlier versions of Premiere so prevalent? If Premiere is not backward compatible with old project files, then don't allow it to load them. Period. Some form of half backward compatibility is completely misleading and a complete garbage policy by Adobe, which their marketing department seems oblivious to. Either the CC suite is backward compatible or it is not. Apparently, it is not.

Has someone flagged your response as the correct answer to make it appear that the problem I report is user error?.... as if using the 'incorrect' method of import is considered user error?

S

skeat

Participant

Are you working with spanned media files, or VOB files?

Spanned media requires a careful, and precise, import process. And if done, works well. VOB files are still "murky" in use in Premiere, and Warren's suggestions above are wise.

spanned media files.

what is the best way top import them to avoid this?

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