Adobe please add ability to see both video and audio waveform in viewer window like DaVinci Resolve

 

Now as full fledged editor I still much prefer Adobe Premiere Pro over DaVinci Resolve. DaVinci Edit is functional, but just doesn’t feel as fully functional, and I like that I can setup the windows on Premiere Pro however the hell I want to, while I am much more forced into how they want me to do it on DaVinci, and that is my big complaint with Final Cut Pro X, engineers forcing you to do things there way. Also I am not a big fan of the new Cut Page. It feels very Final Cut Pro X to me. Yes I like how you can quickly scan through a folder as if it is a single sequence, but the actual editing is just not how I edit, and I would much rather have an edit control surface for the Edit page than for the Cut Page.

That being said there is certainly one feature in DaVinci’s Edit page that is far superior to Premiere Pro’s the Monitor window and the ability to overlay your Audio on the video either in zoomed in or the full audio. To activate this click on the 3 dots on the upper right of the viewer window and you can seelct either show zoomed Audio Waveform or Show Full Clip Audio Waveform. 

Premiere is either or, and you can do that in Resolve, but I just find this so much faster.

Either Video

Or audio in Premiere

But both together is such a time saver! Please Adobe I hope they adopt this soon.

There are over 500 votes for this at Adobe Voice, but if you agree please add your opinion. This is a timesaving feature that I really love and would love to see added to premiere.

Amazing article at Frame.io on Batch Syncing Audio in Premiere Pro

 Sofi Marshall (who wrote the amazing article on setting up for remote editing with Premiere Pro) has another must read article on Batch Syncing Audio in Adobe Premiere Pro.

I too prefer Merge Clips to multi-cam clips if there is only one video track because it acts more like a clip, but the problems are very frustrating. Why there is no batch ability for Merge Clips is beyond me, and why not ability to flatten back to source as you can do with Multicam?

But the biggest gotchas are with Proxy and Audio.

If you are going to be doing Proxy always do it before you Merge Clips otherwise it doesn’t work.

The number one issue with Merge clips for me has been that it breaks AAF export and removes all the audio clip metadata. And her solution to export an FINAL CUT PRO XML and re-import and it will fix the audio tracks and return audio metadata is awesome (and if you get rid of the video you can just cut this audio in for your mix). Sure it is an extra step, but a quick one that will work easily, but remember to switch off linked selection before deleting video or you will have more problems with your sequence.

Now the thing that Sofi Marshall doesn’t mention that is a huge got you for Merge Clips, is that using Merge clips breaks Project Manager in Premiere. So if you need to use Project Manager, then Merge Clips is not your solution and maybe just stick with Multi-Cam clips.

And I have always done Merge Clips in a different way than she does. She uses Multi-Cam Batch to sync all of her clips, then goes into each Multi-Cam sequences and merges clips, using the multi-Cam batch to do the syncing.

Personally I just sort each folder by Media start and select the audio and video that corresponds (with similar start time code) and right click and merge clips.

And from the dialogue sync by audio and remove cameras audio.

My only complaint with this method is the weird sort issues of Premiere Pro’s bins, that even though I am sorting by start timecode, the new merge clips jumps to the top of the bin after it’s creation, and until I make a new clip won’t sort into timecode order. I never figured out if this is a feature or a bug, but to me it is a bug, if I am sorted in a certain order, I always want every clip to sort that way and anything else is just confusion.

Now there are literally a ton of threads on issues with Merge Clips at Adobe Voice, and I hope anyone who reads this will click on many of these to try and get Adobe to work on these issues.

Adobe Speach To Text Early Access was not working yesterday, and I realized how quickly I have become addicted to it, it makes Testimonials so much easier!

 

#SpeachtoText @AdobeVideo  

This is what when I tried using the Transcribe sequence in Premiere Pro for a while yesterday. And I realized I don’t ever want to cut a testimonial without the transcription.

It is amazing I can start making selects on my first pass with the transcript. And my comprehension is better. Man this is a feature I can’t live without.

Unfortunately it looks like their 3rd party cloud infrastructure took a hit today.

I am pretty sure Adobe is going to have to expand their infrastructure because this is going to be a popular feature.

Arrow from Knights of the Editing Table copies a frame to your clipboard in Adobe Premiere Pro

 

The awesome Knights of the Editing Table has released a new plugin Arrow for Adobe Premiere Pro that will copy a frame to clipboard with a keyboard shortcut, and it is free, and you can save the image as well to a location that you chose.

And for users of their amazing keyboard launcher for Premiere Pro Excalibur, you don’t need this because it was added to the last update.

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.

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.

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.