Suggestions for CS7

roxics

roxics

Veteran
Please Adobe

1. When I import a psd into Premiere as a sequence, I would like to be able to edit my text in premiere. So please make my text layers titles.
2. Please standardize your fonts. In photoshop fonts are measured by point size, in premiere they are meased as percent. Please just pick one and stick with it. Perferably point size.
3. The ability to export just a sequence/composition and import it into a different project without having to import a whole project into another project.

I would like to see an overall uniform set of terms and usability standards. For instance:

A. In AE they are called compositions but in PP they are called sequences.
B. In AE you can edit composition settings at any time, in PP you cannot (and that is stupid).


Personally I think PP and AE should just be one program. But that's just me. Having to jump back and forth is a retarded workflow that doesn't work very well. Half the time I'm doing simple compositing work in PP and half the time I'm doing simple editing in AE because it's just easier than having to figure out how to get my project from one to the other. Dynamic link is a POS that doesn't work most of the time. I don't understand why AE can't just have faster video playback, a razorblade tool and a source window. Then we wouldn't even need premiere. My theory is that they had separate programs as a way to make more money by selling more programs, but now with subscriptions where you get everything they make anyway there really isn't a reason to keep them separate.
 
Let Adobe know what you want, File a feature request for 1 and 2 and B: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

3. is already available. You can import a single sequence from another project without export.

A: AE is a total different program to Premiere. In Photoshop it is called canvas....

AE and Pro could and will never be one program: to complicated.
DL works very well for jumping back and forth.
 
AE and Premiere are very different beasts. They are designed for very different purposes, yet in my experience they work remarkably well together via Dynamic Link.

When people ask me the difference between AE and Premiere (or the difference between an NLE and Compositing software), my oversimplified response is that Premiere is for editing video horizontally (ie sequentially) and AE is for editing video vertically (ie stacked layers to create a composite moving image). Of course both have the ability to edit sequentially and with layers, but they do still have definite and different purposes.

As for the blade tool in AE, ctrl + shift + D will split the selected track at the CTI. Of course, due to the way AE works with one item per track, it will add the second half of the media on that track to a new track.
 
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And while we're on the topic of CS7 requests, here's a few of the features I'll be submitting via the Adobe request form:

1. When pasting attributes, add a dialogue box that allows you to select which particular filters/effects will get pasted, as well as whether the properties will overwrite or add to the current properties/filters/effect on the source media.

2. Ability to see waveforms and video track thumbnails even when tracks are collapsed.

3. Ability to use Warp Stabilizer on clips that do not match the timeline dimensions.
 
That's why I said "ability" to see them, ie you can choose to or not. I understand it can get cluttered and confusing with so many displays, but when you're trying to line up several tracks of audio and video using waveforms, its a pain to have to keep expanding the tracks - And once you have 3-4 open you need to then expand the timeline panel as well so you can see what you're doing.
 
deltoidjohn said:
ie you can choose to or not.
Click to expand...

You have that choice now. If you want to see them, you expand the clip. If you don't want to see them, you collapse it. This is the sole purpose of that feature and is the method used to control display of waveforms.

If you need more room for your timeline, you need to get a larger monitor or add a second monitor.
 
Let's just say that I'd like CS7 not to freeze and crash as much as CS6 does and for CS7 to fix the two features below.

Premiere CS6 is truly a Jekyll and Hyde program for me. I should note that there are so many things I love about it but here I'll focus on two primary things that need to be fixed first. It's really improved upon older versions, it's remarkably easy to use, intuitive and fast...but at the same time, I've never had so many "Serious Errors", freezes and crashes in my life. And yet I still continue to use it in hopes that it will one day be fixed. I'll start by saying that I've already tossed my penny into the "Premiere Wishing Well" aka. The wishform above in hopes of a fix. But who knows if Adobe really listens or if they are like Apple and just focus on the big release of the program (maps) and worry ignore the fact that their program has major fundamental issues that could be deadly. There are two things at the root of my frustration...but before I proceed it's important to remember that these are issues I care about because they affect me and my work on a daily basis. These issues will not affect everyone because we all have different types of projects that require different types of editing:

1) Warp Stabilizer - The cause of the freezes and crashes. Three major bugs that I have found and that I can repeat with ease.

2) Multicam - Two major flaws in its design that frustrate any new user that hasn't just "gotten used" to its flaws like one "gets used to" the sound of their car's tailpipe dragging. Sure it runs...but it still needs to be fixed.


More about the issues...

Regarding #1 - I use Warp Stabilizer a ton. And I mean that every project I probably apply it to well over 100 clips. It's a VERY effective tool and despite its bugs I love it over FCP7's smoothcam. But man is it buggy! There are 3 bugs that hit me almost every project (mostly because my projects are all similar and require me to do the same things to the clips): Bug#1 - If you toggle OFF warp stabilizer after it's been applied to a clip and then hit Analyze, PPro freezes up and you have to Force Quit. Now, I just refrain from doing that but when you are working on hundreds of clips and hours of footage, sometimes you make mistakes and click a button but it shouldn't crash the program...if anything it should just warn you that it's toggled off or not do anything at all. This is the least annoying bug to me because, despite being annoying, it's fairly easily avoidable. Still, it should be fixed. Bug#2 - I have found that if PPro is in the middle of Stabilizing a clip and the "Auto-Save" engages, everything freezes up and you have to Force Quit. Now I don't mean while it's "Analyzing" a clip...but actually the brief moment when it's "stabilizing" the clip. This one sucks. I could turn off Auto Save but then lose that convenience and security. This one nips me about once a day believe it or not. Remember, I'm dealing with hundreds of short clips that need stabilizing. Very, very frustrating. Sure I save often so I rarely lose that much work, but then I'm hit with bug#3 and I know that just to get back to my project it's gonna take some extra (wasted) time. Bug#3 - Every single project I do I encounter the same error "...TickTime.cpp-207" Looking into forums, I've found many others do as well but its hard to pinpoint the exact cause. All I know is that I could edit my entire project and will NOT have this error but as soon as I start applying numerous Warp Stabilizers to clips the error will appear. Now it does NOT appear while you are editing. It appears when you go to reopen the project or when you export to AME. The error pops up and you have to hit continue numerous times for it to go away and then you can continue editing. The more stabilizers, the more you have to hit continue. I've counted over 400 times for larger projects. Now imagine every time you go to open your project you have to hit continue 400 times. It would drive you nuts. Then comes the usual deadline time crunch and rush to export...but wait!...there's the error popping up and I gotta hit continue another 400 times. Ugh! On average for me it's in the 200-300 range, but still it sucks. And I probably wouldn't have to reopen my project as much if Bugs #1 and #2 weren't forcing me to do so. Again, once I'm past the error, all works well. But like I said, this happens on every single one of my projects without fail and I have other editors working for me that have the same results on both PC and Mac and it drives us all nuts. So yeah, great feature...just REALLY, REALLY buggy. Hope they fix that. I also secretly wish the default stabilizing "method" was "Position, Scale, Rotation" instead of "Subspace Warp" because 9 out of 10 times it works better (less wobble/rolling shutter) and crops less...but that's another story.

As for issue #2 (multicam)...it's simple. Two major design flaws in my opinion. Because I deal with LONG multicam sequences several times a week (over an hour in length usually) these issues are exacerbated. The first flaw is that when you are doing a live edit and stop or pause your edit - the record button is toggled off and when that happens, Premiere makes a cut in your timeline and switches angles on you back to the original angle. If you hit pause during your edit, it happens. If you hit stop, it happens. There is no way around it. Yes, it takes just a moment to reset the correct angle but what the hell?!! Yes, you could go through the whole thing in one shot but that's not always the best way to do it because sometimes you switch cameras only to find that you shouldn't have so if you stop now, Premiere is gonna make a cut in the timeline and switch cameras on you. A lot of people in various forums are very frustrated by this. Especially to new users who aren't used to "hearing the tailpipe drag" it's a major time wasting flaw. Imagine if every time you played the normal timeline and stopped Premiere made a cut and changed clips on you. That would suck. Well, this isn't that far off and serves no purpose whatsoever. The second flaw is that there is no audio levels or audio meters while in the multicam window. You CANNOT MONITOR AUDIO while editing multicam. HORRIBLE oversight. If the multicam sequence is long like the ones I deal with day in and day out, this means that after doing all the video cuts, I now have to go back over the whole thing again and make sure the audio levels don't peak. Twice as much work. Keeping one eye on the levels is essential to any editor. There is no other NLE that I know of where this feature is missing. The meters/levels work in the source/project window and in the timeline...but not in multicam. Such a waste.

Oh sure, there are other things/features/functionalities from other NLE's like FCPX and Avid that I'd love to see in Premiere's future, but as of right now (version 6.0.3) its a great program that doesn't yet have all it's kinks worked out which can lead to hours of lost time and frustration. I still use it but you asked what would we suggest for CS7 and there are my two suggestions...fix these two broken/flawed features. Better yet, let's not wait until CS7...how about getting it done now? Otherwise, just adding more features on top of a flawed or buggy program is like getting new rims for that car with the dragging tailpipe...it's still annoying. Sorry to drive that analogy into the ground. :)
 
Great post Irish TRex. I run in to exactly the same issues as you. While I don't stabilise hundreds of clips per project, it can easily be 30-40. I've found that the TickTime bug appears if you ever apply a warp stabilise to a nested clip, so I try to avoid doing that and only apply it to the top layer. This all but illuminates the problem for me, but you may have different experiences. I'd love timewarp within PP too, and be able to apply to the same clip. That would be awesome. Right now 99% of my round tripping to AE is for timewarp.

Of course.... we likely have 6.5 to come before 7 don't we? :) They need to get you to pay for small increments somehow!

And..... we still have some major bugs to fix in 6 before they can expect me to pay for an upgrade to version 6.5, let alone 7! WE NEED THE AVCHD BUG FIXED IN 6.0.x..... that's SIX............. NOT............... SIX...POINT...FIVE or SEVEN as a PAID UPGRADE. !!!!!!! C'mon Adobe, I know it's not your codec, it's a codec you buy, so why isn't some one on the phone to the codec company EVERY DAY asking where the fix is? We need more feedback on this. It feels like they managed to ride the waive of discontent long enough that people got tired of complaining and now it's being swept under the rug. CS5 didn't have this bug (if it did we would never have moved to Premiere Pro) CS5.5 didn't have this bug. Please......FIX IT !!!!!!

OK - it doesn't effect everyone, but then neither does the warp stabiliser bug or multicam bug ;)

Multicam - Yes there is a real bug. If it's not a bug it's a bad design. either way - FIX IT! (and don't make us pay for an 'upgrade' to get the fix!).

Skimming on the timeline - I'd like to see clip skimming on the timeline in Premiere Pro, like in FCPX.

Icon View Sort Order - Being able to scrub clips in the icon view is a big time saver - but I'd like to see the sort order of the icon view added.

Audio Conforming - ARRGGHH!!!!!! It takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r to conform audio! I restored a previous project from LTO tape a couple of days ago because the client wanted a 'quick' change. Literally one clip swapping for another and then export. OMG! That's not even possible! It took Premiere Pro almost TWO HOURS to conform audio before I could make the edit and export. Seriously, the client is looking at me going WTF? Get a grip on this please Adobe, it's killing me. Other apps that edit natively (including FCPX!) don't need to conform audio, so please try to figure this one out!

Timecode vs Creation Date I'd like the option to sort on timecode AND/OR creation time from ALL cameras without them being mutually exclusive. Right now Premiere Pro sees the time code from my Canon XF but sets the creation time to 0. It sets the timecode of the AVCHD to 0 but sees the creation time OK. So we can sort on the timecode but all the AVCHD ripples to the top because it's timecode is zeros, or we can sort on the creation time but all the XF footage goes to the top because it's creation time is zero. These are mutually exclusive sorts and there seems no way to combine those to get them to sort as they 'could'. Guess what.... FCPX sorts them all properly so all cameras are in shooting time/date order. C'mon Adobe, it's not that hard!

Proxy workflow. This is something FCPX does so well and the one thing that Premiere Pro is not so good at (actually doesn't do at all!). You can yell and scream the 'native worklow' at me all day long, but sometimes things can't be done smoothly with native media and you really need some proxy. I did a 9 camera multicam and even on a beefy machine PP couldn't keep up with native media and still run smoothly. ProRes Proxy was no problem. So I would like to tell Premiere Pro to create proxy media (for chosen clips) and be able to switch back and forth without having to disconnect media and reconnect manually. i realise that's not what Premiere Pro is all about, and not many Adobe customers do that many cameras at once, but I'm sure there are lots of other features they added I don't use ;)

Colour correction in Premiere Pro is still relatively poor (and the Speed Grade round tripping is a joke at this point). Guys, take a look at how the colour is done in FCPX. Forget the colour brick, if you prefer three way colour correctors that's fine - let's not get hung up on that - but take a look at how they did shapes / masks. You can add what seems like unlimited shape masks, vignettes, colour selections within the masks etc and make changes to both inside and outside without having to replicate the footage over and over on the sequence. The Premiere Pro way of doing this is a joke and seriously tedious work. The FCPX way is fast and easy. Things I used to have to go to Resolve for (from Premiere) I can now to inside FCPX and it still renders in real time with even 10 or more corrections / vignettes / colour masks etc on a clip. C'mon Adobe, step up to the plate here. Don't make us go to Speedgrade because I often need to get a lot of this work done BEFORE I get picture lock, not after, and if a client wants changes (as per the audio conforming problem above) I don't want to go through all that pain again with Speed Grade.

Premiere Pro & Prelude Integration - Seriously? What's the point of having an entry tool for meta data if you can't then search that meta data in the editing? Clearly the Prelude and Premiere Pro team were not on the same page prior to CS6 release.

Before anyone jumps in and shouts 'USE FCPX THEN' there are of course little niggles with FCPX too ;) There is no 'perfect NLE' at this point.

And yes..... I know where the feedback page is.....

I wonder when Adobe Anywhere will appear, what the hardware requirements will be and what it's going to cost....
 
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One more thing.....

The algorithms in the 3 way colour corrector and fast colour corrector leave a LOT to be desired. They introduce banding and posterisation far too quickly, so I end up having to use colorista II instead, which is no longer GPU accelerated. So much for being in a 32 bit colour space!

Oh, and another ;)

BROADCAST SAFE.... if there is one filter that kills my GPU acceleration on export it's this one. PLEASE make this GPU accelerated!!!
 
Jim Simon said:
If you don't want to see them, you collapse it. This is the sole purpose of that feature
Click to expand...

Incorrect. It also hides the keyframes. So that's two purposes it serves.

There's plenty of times when I need to see the waveform briefly and it can slow me down a lot. It makes it worse that, as far as I can tell, there is no way to assign the track expand/collapse toggle to a shortcut (though you can decrease/increase track height with shortcuts after it has been expanded.

Fair enough if it works for you as is but that doesn't mean you need to beat other people down if they would benefit from a certain feature.
 
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