Premiere's latest upgrade does not address a big problem

[Loch Phillipps]

We have a longstanding case # with Adobe, ADB-1168212-M1V5, who had kicked it up to their higher levels. We had been assured by them that Adobe's next Premiere update would include better sharing of projects among multiple editors. Apparently it doesn't.

This problem is well documented on these forums and something Adobe has known about for at least 5 years. Avid has always had great media management, and I'm told FCPX now does too. Sharing projects among several editors is commonplace in the feature world, with both docs and fictions. For docs, where new footage is incoming all the time, being able to constantly update footage across multiple drives for multiple editors is important. Adobe's market share now demands that they get on top of this ASAP. We don't need another fancy transition, we need proper media management tools.

We called tech support to inquire as to whether our problem had been addressed in the recent update. Our bottom level tech in India(?) had to check with a superior and came back to tell us it had not. He suggested that Team Projects offers a fix to the problem (though no one has been able to tell us how it does this or why the same fix can't be made to Premiere itself). Team Projects requires that each member of the post team (we have 5 of us) have a license and that license runs $30/month. That's more than Premiere costs!

We are in the middle of making a feature documentary with lots of footage. We've gotten 10 months into shooting and logging using Premiere. There is a lot we like about the program. But we're now faced with possibly having to move to Avid or FCPX if this problem persists. We've been working with Adobe tech support to do the best we can - making sure we maintain a master project and that no other users write any XMP information to clips. We are hoping this works. The problem is that any mistake we make costs us. We are making a documentary and on deferred pay. It's not like we're all tech experts here. Premiere has thus far slowed us down plenty. Next snafu and we will be moving on.

[Steve_Hoeg · Accepted solution]

I’d love to hear more about what you have been running into. Send me a direct message if you are interested in chatting with the engineering team.

[Loch Phillipps]

Steve,

Thanks for the reply. Sent you a DM.

Loch

[JesseSchluntz]

So..... what's the answer? This thread has been marked "answered" (?)...

I too am lead editor for a feature doc right now. All footage has been imported with the "write XMP IDs" box ticked in preferences. When I combine sequences from other projects, so far I do not get duplicate media. This is wonderful... but only as long as I stick to one of our RAIDS as far as I know because the XMP IDs are file dependent, so the second I have to connect to the media on another drive, there are likely to be serious issues with duplicate media.

I have so many questions, and they are not readily available online. I've been reaching out to my film contacts for someone... ANYONE at Adobe who I can have a very simple discussion with about a shared editor workflow. How can I set myself up for success? How do sidecar files work? Where are they stored? Can they be cloned to another drive's copy of the media enabling a no-duplicates-ever workflow? Can moving to team or shared projects fix this issue altogether? I have to figure this all out over the next few weeks. Can someone throw me a life preserver? If you're out there, I've got a gift card with your name on it!  

Side note: I also called India, and after 1.5 hours on hold, I was told they could not help me with guidance on the proper XMP ID workflow. They could only "troubleshoot" or "send me a link", and were not familiar with how XMP IDs worked.  MY GOSH Adobe, can you PLEASE hire a team who actually knows professional workflows stateside so we can get answers. Your professional phone support is non-existent and abysmal, leaving us to waste hours of our lives on forums like this for information you can easily share. Why can't I talk to the long-haired dude on your video tutorials? That guy speaks clear English and knows his stuff. Number please?

HELP!

Thanks

[Radiant_speaker16B8]

Hey Loch and Jesse,

I too am cutting a feature doc and have to deal with a ton of new footage coming in at any given time.  The workflow that I'm using that doesn't create duplicates is to funnel all the footage through one system and then share it across any other work station afterwards.  My set up is as follows:

Note: We're not operating off a central server, so we're exchanging footage via shuttle drives to RAIDS we each independently work off from.  We're also on Premiere 2017, latest build.

1. Have Assistant Editor ingest, log, and make proxies of the footage

*make sure that their system has the option to write XMP ID enabled

**I have my assistant writing all meta-logging info into the clips themselves (tape names, description, etc.).  Not necessary, but I'm doing that in case the project gets corrupted, so we don't have to re-log everything. (it's that little chainlink icon in the metadata panel)

2. Once the AE is done with their tasks, they will then put the "treated" footage into a shuttle drive and transfer that footage to my system, and the Director's system.

3. Using Media Manager, I bring in the logged bins the AE worked on into my project, and reconnect the footage and attach the proxies.

4. Cut as desired.

5. As you bring in selects, or string outs from the AE, either have them create a "light" project with only the sequences you need, or if you're more of a power user and have shared access to their master project, either by network connection, or dropbox, google drive, etc., then you can just pull what you need from their projects directly using Media Browser.  If you see that Media Browser creates duplicates, you can undo and import using the import command. (From my experience, you shouldn't see any dupes show up, and I'm on a project with over 100 shoots over the course of two years.)

The logic behind this workflow is that the AE's machine is the central hub of all footage coming in.  You, the Editor, should not import anything directly into your system that has not gone through theirs, otherwise you'll break the link of footage to program and increase the likelihood of dupes showing up.  If you do have to import assets directly into your system, make sure that your system also has "write XMP ID" enabled and that once you import it into your project, you give your AE, and anyone else who's dealing with the footage, your work copy.

I hope this helps you guys from another Doc Editor.  Maybe your solution is to roll back your Premiere to 2017.  Either way, have your AE's do some tests where they transfer footage from one project to another to make sure that it works before applying the workflow.

--As a side note, I worked on a project that was in 2018 and it was incredibly buggy and did generate dupes when it shouldn't have.  Also had an issue with "Recovered Files" bins showing up every time I reopened a project file.  So I would highly recommend cutting your docs in the previous version of Premiere, if possible.