Adobe Speech To Text Early Access is absolutely amazing for editing testimonials

#SpeachtoText @AdobeVideo

So I applied to the Adobe Speech To Text Early Access program and was granted access, you can read about it and apply here.

I am editing testimonials and an assistant already cut down sequences so just the best bits are in a sequence.

All you have to do is go to the captions workspace and hit the Transcribe Sequence and it renders and uploads the audio track, and very quickly transcribes. I have had it take 3-7 minutes depending on length.

It then very quickly auto transcribes. And yes it has some errors, that are easily fixable. Basically I duplicate the sequence after transcription and make a cut version that I can cut out the pieces I want and cut them into another timeline. You can immediately jump around or search in the transcription, and just having the transcription follow along on the sequence helps my comprehension of what is being said.

This is truly life-changing! This is the most amazing new feature I have run across in an editing program.

And you can also export a txt file with the transcription though it doesn’t contain the timecode or the speakers, and I would love to see the ability to add in the timecode and to add the speakers for more than single speaker transcriptions. Currently the export txt is grayed out in Premiere Pro 2021, but works in the beta.

Transcriptions have always been helpful to find specific things in a long testimonial, but having them connected to the sequence where you can literally jump to an individual word is beyond amazing!

Adobe Updates Audition with M1 in version 14.2 Support and Premiere Pro with Text Gradients and Improved Captions in 15.2

 

Adobe updated Audition to version 14.2 with added M1 Support, the ability to Strip Silence and a new Loudness meter. 

Adobe also updated Premiere Pro to 15.2 with Text Gradients in Essential Graphics, Label Color for Captions and Improved Caption Trimming, the same new Loudness Meter as Audition, improved Canon XF HEVC performance improvements and Direct X12 Display support on Windows.

Blackmagic Design has reduced the price of ATEM Mini Pro and ATEM Pro ISO by $100 each

 

Now I think you only need the $295 ATEM mini if you attach it as a web camera to stream your edit live, but if you want your edit to be live on YouTube or to record it you could go for the mini pro.
Still the Web Presenter may in fact be a better solution for streaming for me. Since I have the $495 Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4k, I have spare SDI ports and that way I could stream a 4k sequence as the ATEM MINI only accepts up to a 1080 60p sequence while the Web Presenter accepts up UHD 60p sequences though streams out at only 1080 60p. Of course I lose the ability to see me in a picture and picture via a gopro.

Remote File Sync for Editing workflows on Remote Systems

 Since I have been looking at work from home solutions for remote video editing, I have been looking at some solutions for file syncing. This would require media and files at remote and local to start, so that you aren’t eating all of your bandwidth copying files, and would of course be easiest with a large single storage solution that you have set to fully sync.

With Premiere Pro I would also recommend using Digital Rebellions Post Haste to set up a file structure that you follow for all projects that so that it is the same on all systems.

Once you have the project setup on a single system, you should duplicate that onto remote hard drives and then you can use a program to sync the files. Now I wouldn’t expect collaboration with the same project files, but this could mean that you sync to a remote file share, and keep your graphics and project files updating not only for backup, but for remote access if necessary.

For Mac Backup there is ChronoSync for $49.99 per license. For Mac or Windows (or FreeBSD) you can use Resilio for $59.90 for a single license, $99.90 for a 5 family member license or $30 a month for Business. Or for Windows you could use ViceVersa for $59.95 for one license, going down for 2 or more licenses.

Now this would be basic solutions, without file remote project management, and if you made changes to projects on both systems it would cause issues, but could easily help for simple setup and even work with assistants using different project files to transfer things back and forth.

Frame.io’s Lisa McNamara and Zack Arnold ACE on Adopting a Post-Production Workflow from March 2020 is well worth a read

Lisa McNamara has written an article with the help of Zack Arnold ACE on the Best practices for Adopting a Remote Post-Production Workflow at Frame.io, and it is well worth a read. It goes into the challenges and security concerns, managing media, communication, collaboration, and even morale, well being and sanity. It is of course also selling Frame.io, but it is an article by them, and the article is great and very in depth including other companies solutions.

Every post supervisor or producer overseeing a team working from home should read this article.

Adobe Support Community post on Premiere Pro Project Manager Consolidate and Transcode Problems

 

So I have been seeing a lot of people complaining about Adobe Premiere Pro’s Project Manger and it’s issues. And I have run into quite a few myself where it just doesn’t work for various reasons.

Well I ran into this post about it from 2017 and CC 2017, and it lists many of the things that will break a consolidate and transcode. This lists some things to know that can be an issue, and may be causing you problems when using Project Manager. Now I don’t know if any of these have been solved, but the Merged clips thing has likely bounced Project Manger for me.

And this makes me want to try out PlumePack from Autokroma even more. I know it is for r3d, BRAW or ProREES and can actually trim without recompressing, but the thing that gets me is that it will bring your organized final folder structure with it, instead of just putting everything into a single folder which has always really pissed off.

Allan Tépper at ProVideoCoalition does an in depth review of the Blackmagic Web Presenter

 Allan T�épper at the ProVideoCoalition has done a very in depth review of the Blackmagic Web Presenter, and since this is one of the real-time remote streaming solutions and the way Sofi Marshall did her streaming, I thought I would link to this awesome review.

I still think that Atem Mini might be the better solution with it’s build in picture in picture, but I haven’t actually tested it, so I don’t know for sure.

Premiere Pro Project Downgrader from Elements

If you make your living as an editor using Premiere Pro you will eventually run into the issue of needing to open a project in an earlier version of Premiere, and Adobe does not want you to be able to do this. This is insanity, especially for anyone who comes from the AVID side of things, but at least there is something you can try.

ELEMENTS, a German Editing workflow specialist company has put up an online tool for downgrading your Premiere Pro Projects, check it out here. Obviously make a copy of your project file before you try it.

I know Adobe now lets you open current projects in beta at least and go back and forth, but there really should be some way to save as a previous version if necessary. And I know they don’t want you to since they only support the 2 most recent versions, but honestly who doesn’t know places that stick on earlier versions. The lead editor at the place I am working at now insists on staying with 2019 currently.

2 Applications to keep your Mac apps up to date

 

or

So I have been a longtime user of MacUpdate, a web site that keeps a library of more than 32,000 Mac Apps in an easy to find interface, where you can search by Free, paid, on sale, or top rated, or recently updated. So it will update your existing applications as well as help you find new apps.

The problem is the use the MacUpdate Desktop app, it is a $20 subscription for 6 months, and I have had a subscription for a long time, but it is not without it’s issues.

First off I have a long standing re-occuring issue with my login, where the app freezes and stops getting updates, and you have to log out, but when you try to log back in your login does not work. And the only solution I have found is to contact support and have them reset my password to a generic, and then you can change the password and it works for a little while before the problem occurs once again.

Another issue with MacUpdate Desktop is Mac OS Big Sur, because MacUpdate Desktop does not run at all on Big Sur, which is on version 10.16.3 already, so a new version seems a long time coming, especially for a subscription app.

An alternative to MacUpdate is MacUpdater 2 from CoreCode. Unlike MacUpdate it is a one time purchase (at least for version 2, as there is an upgrade from versions 1), and can be had for $14.99 to $35.00 depending on the version.

It also has a Priveleged Install Helper tool so you can install apps that require a password with a single click, and you can have it make app backups of recently installed apps in case one doesn’t work.

It is also Big Sur and Apple Silicon native, which is a big plus. And it has as dark mode unlike MacUpdate. As is the price, which is certainly better.

So I would recommedn MacUpdater from CoreCode and it is what I will be using from now on.

Cinemontage from the editors guild has a great article on Parenting, Post-Production and the Pandemic

 Su Fang Tham’s article on Parenting, Post Production and the Pandemic is a must read. It really goes into some of the pitfalls of parenting and working in post from home. 

I hope it also brings up issues that could be very important in the future of editing. Will work from home be more allowed, what about commute time, because personally I think it should be counted in your work day especially when we are talking 10+ hour workdays, and we are talking hour+ commutes each way.

Now we don’t have any children as of yet, but i love working from home and being able to see my wife and dogs. I wouldn’t mind some in person meetings (with proper safety protocols), but am hoping that the future will be much more inclined for work at home, with more ability to write off the expenses that come with it, like broadband, computers and software that is so much harder to write off thanks to bills like AB5.