How to make a copy of 2018 premiere pro file to open in 2017

[ObiMoz]

Hi

1) I've been working on Premiere Pro 2018 with dynamic links to After Effects. However, my friend who's editing is using 2017. I need to open it on her version, please advice how to make a version suitable for 2018?

2) Also my 3D camera composition in After Effects is not updating live inside Premiere Pro. Is the only solution to export a video file here?

[kulpreet singh]

Hi ObiMoz,

1) I've been working on Premiere Pro 2018 with dynamic links to After Effects. However, my friend who's editing is using 2017. I need to open it on her version, please advice how to make a version suitable for 2018?

Premiere Pro projects are not backward compatible. You can open your project file either in the same version or a new version.

2) Also my 3D camera composition in After Effects is not updating live inside Premiere Pro. Is the only solution to export a video file here?

Actions you perform on the complex source composition require additional processing time. After Effects takes time to apply the actions and make the final data available to Adobe Premiere Pro. Please check this link: Dynamic Link performance

Thanks,

Kulpreet Singh

[R Neil Haugen]

The only way to back-convert is to try say an XML export of the project and import that into 2017. Which may not take all effects and settings.

Neil

[dkcoleman]

How would you do this?

[Meg The Dog · Accepted solution]

Open the project in Premiere Pro 2018. Select all the items in the project panel. Go to the menu File > Export > Final Cut Pro XML and export the XML file.

Move the XML file, along with any media you are using in the project to the computer with the older version. Note: no media is contained within the XML file, you must move any media you were using separately to the computer with the older version.

On the computer with older version, launch Premiere, open a new, empty project. Go to File > Import and navigate to the XML file and import it. Once the XML has imported, Relink all the media as necessary.

Note: XML is an extremely terse transfer language. Some things will not transfer through it, as in all but the most simple transitions, etc.

You will need to verify what made the transfer and what did not - for example all the cuts will be there but no color correction, etc.

MtD

[dkcoleman]

Meg the Dog, you are so incredibly helpful!!  I just performed the task and it worked great - thank you so much!

[excited_Genie16B8]

1. Have your friend install 2018.  She can have both 2017 and 2018 installed.  Just check the install options carefully.

2. Have you tried rendering in PP?

[Charlie Shread]

Hello, when I import into CC 2018 from 2017 or into 2017 from 2018 (via XML) - exactly as you suggested - lots of the footage goes out of sync. The audio seems to have shifted, not in the timeline but internally in the file. I have been pulling my hair out trying to solve this issue. This also happens on my partners computer - same issue. The files are fine when I open them in the original project or in windows explorer. The files are .mts from Sony a6000 and Sony a6300 (AVCHD). Any ideas on what might be happening? Thank you!

[Roei Tzoref]

for opening a Pr 2018 in Pr 2017 try this workflow instead:

1. change the extension of your project file instead of .prproj to .zip

2. open the zip file

3. open the one file inside that has no extension and named like your project in a notepad editor that has wrap text functinality like Windows Wordpad.

4. change this number which appears at the top of the page from 34 to 33

5. save and change the extension of this file to .prproj

6. open in cc2017

7. success!?

[R Neil Haugen]

This is also the way to take a 'modern' PrPro project file and open it in SpeedGrade 2015.1 ... except you need to use the number 30 as the replacement. And interestingly ... if after working in Sg, you want to re-up the file to 2018, just do the same but restore that number to 34!

Save, and it will open as a 2018 project file.

Also ... for PC's ... Patrick Zadrobilek of Austria created a mini-app based on this that automates it. Does an incremental save-as, mods the incrementalized file, and it's all ready to open in Sg ... or a previous version of PrPro. Run the same file back through his app, it will revert the file to the former 'modern' standard. Around 10 euro's or so. His site:

PrProBCC - Adobe Premiere CC 2018 Project Converter

A couple caveats, of course ... first, ALWAYS test with a dupe or test project to make sure it works for you. Second ... it won't work with AE comps in a sequence, you need to render those out to full media from AE and replace your sequence comps with rendered media.

And ... some of the newest tools/effects of course will not make it through to the older PrPro ... if that version doesn't have the same tool stuff. Most things do go, but of course ... TEST!

Neil

[Roei Tzoref]

it won't work with AE comps in a sequence, you need to render those out to full media from AE and replace your sequence comps with rendered media.

that's one way of doing it. another way is you could prepare for this and save your aep assets in Ae as previous version (Ae let's you save a version down or more) and then in the 2017 sequence you can locate them instead of those offline aep compositions.

[R Neil Haugen]

Righto! I keep forgetting Ae has that delightful "previous version" option.

Neil

[Charlie Shread]

Very nice suggestion, thank you! I just did as you instructed and I was surprised and very hopeful, as it did allow me to open the 2018 project in 2017 - I thought "yes, this is it! The man is a genius."... but unfortunately the sync issue is still there Thank you for the suggestion, I think this is a useful trick to have for the future.

[Charlie Shread]

Thank you thank you! This trick made all the difference. in the end I was able to have a work around - I reassigned the external drives, so the letters matched and made sure the folder structures were identical, then using this conversion, there were (strangely) only a couple of short moments out of sync, as opposed to half the project (many hours of material). This is manageable enough to fix manually and continue my work