Upgrade/Extend: Relink media files 2.0

Hi, thank you for your reply.

You're correct. In a way it's nice that the the clips on a sequence in Project 2 keep working (even after removing them from Project 1), because there's always that second connection:

Connection 1: Every imported clip into Premiere (no matter which project) is linked to it's original file on a storage device. Premiere will always know that clip A001.MXF in a timeline is originally located on \\Volumes\Media\ etc.
Connection 2: The most stable way to use media inside Premiere Productions, is to first import your footage in several individual projects. From there you drag your media on a timeline.

From what I'm getting, once you create a project, everything that is imported (or created) inside, gets it's own ID number. For example clip A001.MXF will get ID number 8303. Whenever you drag that clip onto a sequence in another project, that second project knows 2 things:

1. Which project it needs to refer to

2. Which file it needs to refer to, because of that ID number (8303)

So, if for whatever reason you 'break' that linking pattern, there is no way to tell Premiere: "No... don't look for a file with ID number 8303 inside Project 1 to keep all the proxies working --for example--, but instead I now want you to see this reimported MXF file with the same name, but which you gave another ID number".

Example
Project 1: contains original media, proxies attached
Project 2: contains a sequence which holds the media which is toggable between original and proxy

Once you hand over the contents of both projects to an external editor, the editor can easily relink all media files on his own set. Which (I think) is not even necessary, but imagine that to be the case.

Whenever the editor is done with his edits inside the sequence that was created in Premiere Productions, you can't just import his altered sequence and expect everything to work inside the original Premiere Productions project.

This is one of many examples, but one I had to apply a few hours ago. So added the project inside Productions (right mouse on the Productions panel, than 'Add project...' so it becomes part of Productions).

Yes, the sequence does straight away recognizes the clips (without relinking), but we're talking about connection 1 (the connection to the original files on the storage device). The second connection is lost. The clips on the sequence are now connected to projects that were exported to the editor and not to the media that still sits in the original Productions panel. Therefore, you have to apply a workaround. I have to drag all the media files inside the exported project (which the sequence is now linked to) into the original media project inside Productions, next to the original copy of the media files that were already there (if that makes sense).

So the media project inside Productions (let's say Project 1) now holds a folder with all the footage from shooting day 1, but also a second copy, imported from the exported project that got send off to the editor. Because the media on the sequence he worked on only connects back (connection 2) to the media that was inside the exported project.

That's what I meant with my request. That it would be nice to click on a file inside Premiere Productions and manually adjust connection 2. To tell Premiere: "No, don't be stobbern and keep trying to look for these clips inside the project you THINK it is because made some weird connections, but now find it inside THIS project on my storage device".

Adobe recently fixed the color space issue where it would try to fix the color space for you, but before, when you had to go to Interpret Footage to manually set the color space to Rec. 709, that was also a big issue. You had to create a sequence inside the same project which contained the media and apply the Interpret Footage workaround from there, because once you separated the sequence from the media files in a separate project, that ID number thing also made a mess of things. Back than this manually linking back to a project thing would've also been a nice option.

And besides proxies, for now, there's a couple of other reasons why it would come in handy as well. For example, miraculously, I removed media file from Project 1. Yes, that file was still visible on the sequence inside Project 2, but again: if you would right mouse click that file on the sequence and ask: Reveal in Project, that clip couldn't be found. The whole ID number thing will continue to be a problem, because you can not simply reimport that file from the storage device into Project 1 and think that will fix it. Because Premiere Productions will appoint that file a new ID number, make it 'invisible' for the sequence in Project 2 which holds on to the old ID number.

Again, hard to explain. It's a bit technical and for some this will seem like a useless thing to be bothered about, but in a couple of ways this is a very annoying way of working. Especially when you're working with huge tv shows with hundreds of hours of footage and tens of thousands of connections within Premiere Productions.

Thanks! 🙂

Is this a feature request?

I've recently begun working with Productions. I liked the fact that they kept working when 'project 1' was removed. Seemed like a good backup. Can you use 'make offline' to the media in project 1? Which would then cause a 'care to relink' message.