Playback with Pre-Roll

[jmacleod92]

I’d love ability to toggle playback with a Pre-Roll.

Right now, we’ve got the "Play Around" (Shift+K) function, which is great, but it stops playback two seconds after the toggle point.

There’s a workaround where you crank up the Post-Roll amount in preferences, but that creates another issue: when you stop playback, the playhead snaps back to the original play point. This jumping around makes it really impractical as a solution.

What I’m suggesting is essentially adding a shortcut which is a tweaked version of the "Play Around" feature:

• Turn off Post-Roll, so playback doesn’t stop after a set time.
• Stop the playhead from snapping back to the starting point when playback ends.

This would make reviewing edit points so much more efficient because you wouldn't need to shuttle backwards to review. 
Would be amazing if this could be added!

[R Neil Haugen]

There is a trim mode method if all your prefs are set right so that you go into a Loop mode.

Is that what you need? As that way, you can say set the out, go to Loop ... and see if you like it, try moving a frame forward or back ... without it ever stopping.

[jmacleod92]

Assuming I’ve understood you correctly, I don’t think that would work the way I’m talking about.  That would link the playback to an outpoint. It would also require you to either set an IN and OUT point or enter a trim mode.

What I’m talking about is a playback shortcut that’s independent of IN/OUT points, Work Area, Trim Mode, etc.—just like the current Play-Stop Toggle (Spacebar).

The only difference is that it would include a Preroll, so you could quickly review a section with some lead in.

Basically, I just want to be able to quickly press Play without having to worry about setting IN and OUT points first, or shuttling back a few seconds.

[R Neil Haugen]

It's dependent on the cut point, not an in or out point click.

So it loops several seconds before/after the cut point that is currently highlighted when you go into this. And you activate it by keyboard short without needing to select anything with the mouse.

And can adjust your trims with the keyboard also ... a wonderful way to set and test your cut points.

And ... both Jarle Leirpoll and Christine Steele feature this in all their advice on Premiere editing. Two of the fastest, most efficient editors I've ever even heard of.

Watching Christine blast down a sequence is ... near frightening. Blazing fast, doesn't hardly ever touch the mouse, grabbing clips dropping them in ... trimming slipping sliding next clip ... yowza. While talking to you about something else!

[DJP2014]

I created a macro to do exactly this. It works really well—much better than "Play Around."

Only downside is that you'll need to buy Keyboard Maestro, but trust me it's well worth it.

[Ann Bens]

Stop the playhead from snapping back to the starting point of the timeline when playback ends.

I think that is a bug. If uncheck in the preferences

[DJP2014]

@Ann Bens Poster wants preroll but then normal playback (without stopping or looping). A macro is the only way i'm aware of.

[R Neil Haugen]

Easy.

Set to Trim mode, Shift-K on my machine, while Loop is selected in the Program monitor. Pre and post roll set in the Preferences Playback tab.

[DJP2014]

Sorry @R Neil Haugen, my post wasn't very clear. Meant the poster wants normal playback, not looping.

[jmacleod92]

Thanks for the responses so far!

@R Neil Haugen – what you've described sounds like a great way to quickly work on a specific edit point, and it’s definitely something I’ll be adding to my toolkit. That said, it’s a bit different from what I was suggesting.

@DJP2014 seems to get where I'm coming from.

What I'm saying is that I want the ability to have playback, with pre-roll, while not being constrained by the post-roll point, whether it's looping or stopping.

Hopefully, my shoddy Illustrator work helps explain what I mean. The blue line represents what you’re describing, whereas the red line illustrates my suggestion.

[jmacleod92]

@DJP2014 A macro is a great idea for a halfway house, thanks for the suggestion.  Given how many custom things I've programmed onto my StreamDeck, I don't know why I didn't think of it before!

That said, would still be great to have it as a native shortcut with in Premiere.  Mainly, so that it's on my keyboard rather than via another peripheral (or requiring third party software like AutoHotKey).

For anybody who's interested, here's the StreamDeck macro that I created (via Multi Action button).  Happy for others to tell me that there's a better way of doing it!

1.  Numpad -
2.  Numpad 5
3. Numpad 0
4. Numpad Enter
5. Spacebar

As I said, a good work around, but I would far rather see it natively!

[DJP2014]

Yeah, agree it'd be great if it were native.

Definately try it with the keyboard, I have mine set to 3seconds activated by the Tab key. Use it constantly. A few taps and you can quickly scrub back 6seconds without ever touching JKL or a mouse. 

[R Neil Haugen]

I'm puzzled at the use of this ... is it just to do a quick 'hit' on one cut point, then to move on?

[ScottSimmons]

Yes, this would be a great feature that doesn't exist. It has been asked for and seems like it would be easy to implement but the workaround suggested don't exactly allow for this simple playback option. 

My personal workaround is to just hit something like - 6 0 0 (on the numeric keypad) and then space to play. But a single key for this would be great.

[MyerPj]

Late to the party here, but I think your example of "Play Around" was a bit of a red-herring. You just want something to skip back 2 seconds and start playing. And that is from where the cursor happens to sit. Is that correct?

[DJP2014]

@MyerPj Exactly.

@R Neil Haugen For me it's just a quick way to review each change I make as I edit, whether that's swapping a clip, changing cut point, reframing etc. Before I would hammer Step Back Many Frames each time I made a change.

Also, I almost never want to start playback dead on an edit point, much prefer a little preroll.

[MyerPj]

I gotta say, that would be a good feature:

"Playback with Preroll" - Jumps back the "Preroll" amount, and then plays.

So, "I + ctrl+space" does it for now. But it sets the inpoint.

Upvoted! 🙂

[Kevin-Monahan]

Nice feature request. After I do a fine trim, I want to skip back and play through the cut to review it. A keyboard shortcut would be ideal for reviewing a cut. Much slicker than having to click the Timeline or use a workaround or a macro.

Upvoted.

Cheers,
Kevin

[jmacleod92]

Thanks to everyone for the input and helping to clear up things up!  Glad to hear that there are others out there who agree that this would be a cool feature to add.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share the work around that I've gone with for any other Windows users who are interested.

This is a script I put together using AutoHotKey v2 (it's my first time using it, so I am definitely not an expert).

It's setup so that I just have to press 'F1' and it skips back 50 frames and then presses play.

AHK only works on Windows, but apparently you can do something similar on Mac using Keyboard Maestro.

It's a decent enough work around, but there are definitely some quirks.  Fingers crossed it get's implemented natively one day!

#HotIf WinActive("ahk_exe Adobe Premiere Pro.exe")


F1::
{
    Send("{Escape}")
    Sleep(5)
    Send("{NumpadSub}")
    Sleep(5)
    Send("{Numpad5}")
    Sleep(5)
    Send("{Numpad0}")
    Sleep(5)
    Send("{NumpadEnter}")
    Sleep(5)
    Send("{Space}")
}
#HotIf  ; Ends the context-specific hotkeys

[MyerPj]

Thanks very much!

🙂

Others who like the idea should UPVOTE this thread, it's the big number - upper left - by the thread name.