If you read my blog you probably know that Adobe Premiere Pro has become my editing software of choice, especially for anything graphics heavy. It really is the spiritual successor to Final Cut Pro 7, though obviously more modern and high powered, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have bugs.
One major one that they really need to fix has to do with Multi-Clip Sequences.
Multi-Clip Sequences are how Premiere deals with multi cam, and it has an awesome ability to sync clips on it’s own using embedded audio and to chose which audio is used for all clips (so say your good external audio can be used for all angles. This all works great, the problem comes when trying to resize any of these clips in a timeline.
If you try to resize a Multi-Clip sequence in a timeline the resize will not render, leaving the clip looking awful and very interlaced and low quality. And it shows in the timeline as not needing a render. To solve this you need to flatten the clips and then you can render and make the zoom look how they finally look. The problem is that it would be better to not ever have to flatten an image, so you can make changes at any point, and it is always better to have it look correct, especially when working with a client in the room.
One way to really notice is if you put an image with alpha over part of the Multi-Clip that has been resized. Having the alpha image over the Multi-Clip forces it to render correctly, but only for the portion with the alpha image over it, which can make the unrendered part look even more jarring!
The client or Producer often ask to push in on shots, so I run into this bug all the time. Adobe needs to fix this so these clips render properly while still in Multi-Clip sequences!
And I have discovered a second major bug with Multi-Clip Sequences, and that has to do with a roundtrip to Adobe SpeedGrade.
A major touted new feature of the Adobe Suite is being able to quickly and easily roundtrip your Adobe Premiere Pro sequences into SpeedGrade and back to Premiere. And your grade shows up in Premiere Pro as an effect that can be turned off or removed in Premiere Pro.
The problem comes when using Multi-Clip sequences and trying this round trip. Yes the grade works and shows up in Premiere Pro, but the effect does not. So you cannot turn it off or copy and paste it onto other clips. The Multi-Clip sequences in your sequence show up with the grade baked in, and the only way to change that is to go back to SpeedGrade.
So that is it for Multi-Clip Sequences for now. I have more bugs that I will be blogging about and reporting to Adobe in the near future so keep your eyes out for more of my posts.