Top 15 Issues/Fixes Needed in the next Premiere Pro release/update (CS6.5 or CS7)

[DMH79]

I’m excited for what’s coming next in Premiere Pro CS6.5 or CS7 (whichever update is next). As a former FCP7 user myself, Premiere CS6 was a quick and necessary switch (especially after changing the main keyboard shortcuts back to what I was used to). I’ve since gone back to FCP7 on occasion for certain things and I can tell you that I’m so glad I’ve switched. For all the headaches and serious errors that I still get daily/weekly with Premiere Pro CS6, it’s still definitely a big step up. I'm encouraged by staff members like Mitch W. that have expressed confidence that many of these issues will be resolved in the next release. Here is my personal list of “Top 15 issues/fixes” needed in the current Premiere Pro CS6…

(Adobe STAFF...feel free to print this out and hand it to the engineers responsible for making changes )

1) The infamous multicam FLAW. Needing no introduction…when you are editing your video in the multicam window and you hit pause or stop Premiere has decided that’s a great time to make a cut on your timeline and also switch angles back to the original angle whether you like it or not. You cannot stop ever while editing multicam without Premiere making these unwanted cuts and angle changes. Awful. Multicam in PPro is otherwise pretty nice, but this issue is terribly counter-productive especially when you are editing longer complex multicam sequences. Imagine if every time you hit pause or stop in the regular timeline it made a cut there and switched clips. Ugh. You get my point.

2) The audio meters/levels do not work while in the multicam window. A staff member in the forums (I think it was you) said this was a bug. Hope it will get fixed. The audio levels work in every other window and its essential to be able to keep an eye on the levels while editing multicam.

3) Ticktime.cpp-207 error. Ugh. What a nightmare. I have confidence that it will be fixed soon. Mitch W. from the forums is my new hero for taking on this error. How to replicate it?…simply have 6 (or 7) or more clips with the warp stabilizer effect added on the same timeline as a nested multicam clip and you get this error upon reopening your project. The more warp stabilizers you use, the more times you’ll have to hit “continue” to get through the error before you can open your project or export it to AME. I deal with this every single day because all my projects use these two elements. Most of my projects I have to hit “continue” on the error message upwards of 350-450 times to open my projects. Gets old fast.

4) Icon View order control. When you display all your clips in icon view instead of a list view (In the project window), there is no metadata to allow you to put the clips in order somehow (or at least maintain the order that you have in the list). There are roundabout workarounds, but c’mon.

5) Warp Stabilizer fixes…it is an AMAZING tool (far, far, far better than smoothcam in FCP7) BUT…it has it’s issues. Since I use hundreds of times/week (no exaggeration) I know it’s functions/flaws really well. The issues with Warp Stabilizer:
a) #3 above
b) Toggle OFF the effect after it’s applied and then hit Analyze again and PPro crashes. (easy to avoid but annoying bug)
c) If a clip is in the middle of stabilizing (not just analyzing…but the final step labeled “analyzing”) when Auto-save comes up…most of the time PPro freezes and crashes.
d) The DEFAULT “method” (in the settings for Warp Stabilizer) should NOT be “Subspace Warp”…it should be “Position, Scale, Rotation”. Why? It’s FAAAAARRRR better and more efficient. 95 out of 100 times it causes MUCH less “wobble” in the final stabilized clips AND most importantly 95 out of 100 times it scales the video less. Way better method.

6) The ability to open multiple projects simultaneously. As simple as FCP7 had it…or even better…as cool and efficient as FCPX does it would be nice.

7) The ability to mark a clip and not just a point on a timeline (because if you move the clip, the marker doesn’t go with it). I know you can use “Clip Marker” but it's very limiting, can't be moved, can't add notes, can't advance to the next marker (as far as I know). Also a marker list like FCPX has would be nice so you can see your markers all in a list at a glance and adjust them as needed.

8) Ability to select a clip in the Project window and find out where it’s used in the timeline. I LOVE how you can do the reverse and take a clip in the timeline and “Reveal in Project Window” but it would really help to go the other way around. Dealing with several hundred clips for every project I’ve missed this feature from time to time (FCPX handles this really well).

9) Add a through-edit indicator in timeline and “re-join clips” option. If you cut a clip but keep both clips together it’s just one continuous clip. But I really hope Premiere adds the not only an indicator of some sort (like FCP7′s way of having two small red triangles facing each other on that cut) so you know it’s one continuous clip BUT ALSO the ability to right-click and “re-join” the two clips into one.

10) When clip is double-clicked in timeline, CTI position in source viewer should match location in timeline. This one is pretty annoying and a fix would be incredibly helpful. The way it is now is very counter-productive. Definitely hope this gets fixed ASAP.

11) Better border controls for images/videos. Can’t do much with images right now in PPro. At least allow to customize the color and size/strength of it’s borders and shadows.

12) Better support for Mac/Apple's top end computers/GPU's. I'm still surprised that 2011 top of the line iMac cards (AMD 6970M) that have 2gb of ram are not supported. I’m sure/I hope 2012 iMac’s will be supported with their new Nvidia GPU’s…but I’ll hold out hope that the top iMac (up until 3 months ago) is supported at least at it’s full power. All around better Mac support would be great considering the wave of new users coming over from FCP.

13) Opacity/Transparency issues with EXPORTED videos with Cross Dissolves, etc. For some odd reason videos exported from Premiere CS6 have issues with cross dissolves or minor transparency. I’ll try to explain…in the program window of PPro CS6 cross dissolves look fine. Also, if you take a clip and stack it on top of another clip and put the top clip at say 99% opacity instead of 100 it looks like it should in PPro. But, if you export the clips you’ll quickly see that there are issues. It’s almost like the exported videos dissolve from 5 to 95. They skip the subtle beginning (0-5%) and subtle end (95-100%) of any fade. A clip in PPro as described above that is on top of another but set at 99% will look more like 90-95% in the exported file ESPECIALLY if the two clips are contrasting (eg. top layer dark, bottom layer with bright elements). It’s like the opposit of ease-in/ease-out. I have to ease-in/ease-out of every dissolve to avoid this issue…and even then, it’s not THAT much of an “ease” as one would hope. Another user in a forum once posted a video that shows how abruptly exported videos end their transparency changes…see: THIS SAMPLE VIDEO  Perhaps this is a GPU/processing issue with AME vs. Premiere Pro but whatever it is, it should be fixed so videos you export look like the videos you edited!

14) Better control in Creative Cloud over which devices are “activated/deactivated”  We have 3 computers and it would be nice if one could log in to their Creative Cloud account and see a list of which devices they have and just toggle on/off which one’s are activated/deactivated. This is especially helpful when you are mobile and forget to deactivate one of your two home/office devices so you’re stuck now until you get back to the home/office to deactivate it. This is not a Premiere thing, but just a general wish.

15) Ability to sync multicam clips automatically using the audio. Plural eyes apparently does this well. Would be nice to have it built into Premiere like FCPX does. Select all the shots you want to sync, One button click, wait a few seconds, done.

That’s my top 15. Everything else is awesome in my opinion for what I do 10 hours a day 6-7 days a week. I’ve included bug reports/feature requests for all of these at one point but if you are someone else reading this go to the following link and ask for these issues to be fixed: FEATURE REQUEST/BUG REPORT

I wish Adobe did smaller updates more often. Because even if they were smaller updates, we’d at least know you are working on fixing some of these issues that have plagued this NLE for years. Holding off fixes for one or two big “updates” every year is tough to deal with in a world of the ever updating apps we live and play with daily on our phones. I realize Premiere is a much larger scale and far more professional than a phone app, but hopefully you get my point. Here’s to hoping the next release (NAB 2013?) resolves all my top 15 issues. Here’s to hoping that these issues will be resolved sooner than later so I can stop raising hell in various forums. I’m honestly ready to start praising and defending Premiere Pro instead of griping about it’s bugs and flaws. It’s a fantastic program “on the way” to being the best. I hope.

[daxmacrog]

Nope, even after changing in the sequence they still match.

You're right.

I see.  That would be pretty handy.

Indeed.

[jasonvp]

Jim Simon wrote:

It hasn't yet successfully synced for me either.  Though the levels were admittedly low, and there was no 'clap' to work from, just room noise and dialog.

I've had 0 luck with it as well, and the audio in mine actually did have a "clap" noise to sync off of.  No joy.

[lmenningen]

Referring to Jim Simon #118: "You're leaving out that all important step of finding the frame to mark, and where is that best done?  Source Monitor!  Which is where you set markers quite easily."

What I need to do is to mark clips in the sequence; using the Source Monitor is quite useless. Say the Sequence Panel has 5 or 6 cameras and since it is nearly impossible to sync clips using the video as you know, we have to use the audio. Now say four tracks have cameras with wireless receivers all getting a signal from a master transmitter, therefore the audio will look similar; but other cameras may have mic's, and a mic signal will be dramatically different. My procedure is to manually align all six tracks roughly, then I try to locate common points visually by comparing the audio signals. This may take trial-n-error, but once I do find a point to use, I'm stuck.

As you know, in CS6 we can no longer mark a track. Therefore, what I do while still working in the Sequence Panel is to settle upon a point for a particular track and create a faux inpoint by drag-trimming the left edge to that point. I'll repeat that for two or three tracks as required, then I align all six tracks (I guess we call that sync'ing), then I redrag the left edges of each trimmed track back to the original inpoint. Now I'm ready to do the multi-cam switching, as if I were at the live event.

Is there a better way to do this?

[srukweza-PhMhaR]

Is there a better way to do this?

That is the best way I do it as well. CS6 Sucks ...

Take a look at this video

[excited_Genie16B8]

since it is nearly impossible to sync clips using the video as you know

I don't know that.  In fact, that's how I do it most often.  I look for flashes and sync manually.

Works every time.

[srukweza-PhMhaR]

In fact, that's how I do it most often.  I look for flashes and sync manually.

Works every time.

Yes that's another possibility too! I think he mearnt that if there are no flashes then it would be more time consuming to compare frames from different angles.

[excited_Genie16B8]

Well, there's usually something I can sync to visually.  A foot hitting the ground, a hand clap, a firework burst, a drum stick hitting a cymbal...something.

[srukweza-PhMhaR]

Well, there's usually something I can sync to visually.  A foot hitting the ground, a hand clap, a firework burst, a drum stick hitting a cymbal...something.

Case closed!!

[shooternz]

Usually a large delay between fireworks bursts and  the sound of them.  Wouldnt recommend this method.

[excited_Genie16B8]

Yeah but if all cameras show the burst, it's an easy sync point visually.

[preditorj40153117]

I agree with Jim. even in speach there are splosives that peak. There is also an average hieght of fireworks and there is the speed of sound. in most cases its about a 2sec delay from explosion to sound pick up.

I am probably bias in my thinking that sound sync is easy since i come from an audio engineering background. Whether you have 2 or 20 angles you can select the clip (unlinked) and set numbered markers that can be used to slide all clips to your sync point at the same time.

[lmenningen]

To advise we set a clip marker based on video frames or via the Source Panel doesn’t work for us. We don’t have visual motion from animated musicians or flashing lights, and trying to locate a unique body part movement such as a hand moving in an arc is often too ambiguous. If its singers, marking their lips theoretically might work sometimes on tight shots, but not wide ones. For speakers, gestures may repeat too often to be unique plus, in my case, I can’t use lips even on the tight shots because they don’t move uniquely enough for me to find a point to mark.

So it gets down to audio, which for me is much easier than video. Yet even audio can be problematic if one camera doesn’t have the same signal as the others – e.g., a cough may show as an energy burst in one signal but be buried -24db in another. We look for pause patterns or we may try listening for something unique such as sibilance; there is no one thing to look for, we have to just mark what we can.

But here is the point: this is doing “comparative analysis” which benefits from having all the tracks stacked in the same window. The Sequence Panel in conjunction with the Program Panel used to be an ideal place to do this work. This is why we wish Premiere Pro maintained its ability to mark clips on a track.

I’m hearing there is no longer this capability at this time???

[excited_Genie16B8]

we wish Premiere Pro maintained its ability to mark clips on a track.

You can, it's just not enabled by default.  Search Clip Marker in the keyboard shortcuts.

[lmenningen]

Thanks – I don’t know how you found it; I had a hard time finding it since at first I visually searched Keyboard Shortcuts > Application, then both Clip and Marker, and it wasn’t under either of them. Then I realized you may have meant typing into the Search box instead, that’s when Add Clip Marker came up. Turns out its under Keyboard Shortcuts > Panels > Timeline Panel.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t restore CS6 to the prior versions capability. It does apply the marker to the clip, but with some anomalies. First, I don’t see any way to explicitly delete it (^Z works, if you catch your error soon enough). Second, I can’t drag it to a new location. Third, it appears in every instance of that clip in every timeline.

Nevertheless it’ll probably be usable as is for our purpose, so thanks for digging it up!

[excited_Genie16B8]

CS6 did remove most clip marker functionality in the timeline.  You can add them, but you can't navigate to them or delete them, or anything else you might have done previously.

This does make them far less useful.  Thankfully, clip marker navigation at least has ben restored in Premiere Pro CC.

[SMG720]

Sorry for the necro post but I remembered this post since it asked for one of my feature requests:

8) Ability to select a clip in the Project window and find out where it’s used in the timeline

Well, I finally figured out how to do this from the Project window, just from messing around with it.  If you're in List View, make sure either the Video Usage or Audio Usage is viewable in the Metadata Display. If it's not there, you can add it by right clicking on the column bar and choosing Metadata Display and finding both Video Usage and Audio Usage.  Once those columns have been added, there will be a little number to indicate how many times that clip or audio has been used. If you click on the upside down triangle next to the number, you will see all points in the timeline for that clip or audio. And you can click on them to take you there!  This has saved me countless hours on a large project.

You can also do this on Icon View, which I never use because it's so clunky.  To do this from Icon View, you'll see a little symbol in the lower right corner to indicate video or audio usage and you can click on those icons to take you to the timeline point.

Hope this helps someone because I searched this forum for some time looking for it.

[Mark Mapes]

I hope you didn't spend too much time looking, because you might be chagrined to find that staff member Steve Hoeg called attention to the Audio & Video Usage features in Post #2 of this very thread--just two posts above your first post, SMG720.

Also, you missed one that he cited: the Project Panel's Preview Area also shows the A/V usage...

[SMG720]

How did I miss that? Thanks for the reminder.