Find start time of cut video in full video file

[WondrousPiffle]

Hi y'all,

I'm working on a project with 20+ hour long videos I've imported, sorted through, and cut out small (< 10s) pieces from. However, from what I've been able to find online, the sequence I'm editing has at some point corrupted, and I can no longer play the video without the program locking up (can't stop with the keyboard, can't click anything with my mouse) for upwards of 10 seconds or several minutes.

The suggestion is to start over in a new project, import the .prproj of the previous iteration of this project, and check playback. However, when I do this, none of the edits I've made are transferred, only the video library I've imported.

I REALLY don't want to have to go through 20 hours of footage to get all the work I've already done back. I would like to be able to select each individual cut I've made and find what time it matches in the full video, which I can write down and jump to that point in the same video file with the new project (skipping the need to re-watch the entire hour of footage to find it). If that doesn't make sense, please let me know.

Is there any way of finding this timing information in Premiere, or will I simply have to pour through everything over again?

Thank you.

[Michael Grenadier]

Please tell us your system specs: OS version, Premiere version, amount of RAM, Hardware specs including graphics card and your source properties and sequence settings.  By any chance was your source from a screen recording?  If so, the problem is probably that your source has a variable frame rate

use mediainfo to determine whether your source is variable or constant frame rate

https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo/Download

if it's variable use handbrake to convert to constant frame rate

https://handbrake.fr
and here's a tutorial on how to use handbrake

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=34&v=xlvxgVREX-Y

Once you do the conversion in handbrake, you should be able to unlink your clip from the original file and relink to the constant frame rate file so you won't lose any of your sork.

[WondrousPiffle · Accepted solution]

Thank you for the suggestion! I'm running Premiere Pro on my Dell XPS 13 laptop on Windows 10 with 16 GB of installed RAM, 460GB in total. The graphics card I have is Intel UHD Graphics 620, which has been more than fine to operate Premiere in the past.

I'm not sure what you are asking for with regards to source properties and sequence settings. What information is needed to diagnose this issue? None of these videos (which I realise now I should clarify, they are 20+ in quantity, hour long videos. Not 20+ hour long videos). And yes, most of them are screen recordings (including the ones that seem to be causing the hangup when they play).

I will work on using Handbrake and let you know if this solves the issue. Thank you!

[WondrousPiffle]

Thank you again @Michael Grenadier for the suggestion. I was able to convert the files that were variable framerates to constant framerates. I'm not sure exactly how to unlink and relink the clips as you mentioned. The closest thing I can find on my own (Google seems to be no help, just showing how to unlink audio from video) is "Replace with clip > From bin." While this does swap the source clip, it doesn't use the same time section as the original cut, rather it uses the start of the clip (but keeps the duration the same).

Is there something else I can try, or am I not understanding what you mean?

Thanks again for the help!

[Ann Bens]

Right click on clip in Project Window > Replacer footage...

[WondrousPiffle]

That does seem to have done away with the issue and every clip seems to have been preserved. Thank you so so much @Michael Grenadier and @Ann Bens. You guys are the best and saved me so many more hours of work.