2 Replies Latest reply: Nov 19, 2014 1:23 PM by Christian Jolly RSS

    AVCHD footage slow-to-never in loading; All other footage A-OK; pretty tired of this sort of thing

    Christian Jolly Community Member

      As a Premiere user since 6.5, Adobe Certified Expert in Premiere Pro since 2005, stockholder since 2006 and general Adobe apologist since long long ago, I'm just about ready to depart from Premiere Pro as my NLE, and that's not just hyperbole. Those who've known me around this forum and other spots in the real world will know I wouldn't just say something like that and not have my reasons.

       

      I've incorporated AVCHD into my workflow less and less over the past 18 months as I've transitioned to other formats (MOV on DSLR cameras, AVC Intra on Panasonic cameras and DNxHD adn ProRes on BMC cameras). However, AVCHD is still usually on at least one camera we use in multicamera situations. I never had issues with the format at all in previous versions of Premiere Pro, but both CC versions (CC and CC2014 - including 2014.1) have just not cut the mustard on this format natively.

       

      There were issues migrating old projects into new versions and PPro would lose the clip spanning...suddenly a long shot in the timeline would be truncated b/c PPro wasn't reading the metadata right, and re-importing the clips didn't help, nor did relinking...only in some cases did the media come back after clearing media cache files and database (manually in the system...the preferences dialog, it did nothing to help).

       

      So that was a huge bummer, and my big Adobe help-you-out came in the form of "well you shouldn't update your app in the middle of a project" (which disregards the fact that I, like many others I'm sure, are never NOT in the middle of a project, since this isn't exactly a "9-to-5, fix it on the weekends" type industry).

       

      Multicam workflow was butchered - then fixed - a couple versions ago, and until the fix came in, the Adobe handholding amounted to some of the familiar "this is the new way" type of talk. Hey, I can handle new ways of working, but not with half-baked features and what appears to be a slow response to user feedback on the other end.

       

      But I'm off topic. My issue today is that in the newest 2014.1 version, I cannot get AVCHD footage to play nice in the Media Browser, in the project bins, nowhere inside of PPro - not realiably at the very least. This is regardless of existing project, new project, cleared caches, various different hard drives and connection technologies, etc. Lo and behold, however...if I open up the CC non-2014 version and load an old project (or create new from scratch - results are the same), AVCHD loads, previews in Media Browser, plays back, happy times.

       

      This is just too ridiculous, and it seems to be affecting others, and solutions are pretty limited beyond "don't use that format" or "use the old version." This is the sort of workflow halting mind-numbing insanity that has plagued my previously-beautiful Premiere Pro workflow in these recent versions. Like I said at the start, I'm about ready to just go shop, something else I really don't have time for. But honestly, if I'm going to be sitting here troubleshooting my PPro workflow so often, I've clearly got time to kill anyway.

       

      This isn't a call out for Adobe to call me personally and work through these issues, or to get a corporate apology. I know these guys are doing the best they can as the face of Adobe here, but it's really out of their hands. Between in person conversations and e-mail talks over the years, I know this. What I want to point out is that if I'm being vocal about being done with these hangups, I can assure you I'm not the only producer waiting and looking for a way out of this. Adobe will still get my CC payments, b/c Ae and Ps and all that other stuff still works good enough for me. But PPro is gonna be competing with someone else for my edit space pretty soon.

        • 1. Re: AVCHD footage slow-to-never in loading; All other footage A-OK; pretty tired of this sort of thing
          Kevin-Monahan Adobe Employee

          Hi Christian,

          Sorry you're experiencing issues with this format. From the sound of your post, I'm not sure there's much I can say or do to be of much help.

           

          Christian Jolly wrote:

           

          ..."well you shouldn't update your app in the middle of a project" (which disregards the fact that I, like many others I'm sure, are never NOT in the middle of a project, since this isn't exactly a "9-to-5, fix it on the weekends" type industry).

           

          The advice is good, actually. It doesn't matter which NLE you use (or switch to), you should never update an application or the OS in the middle of a project. I learned this from the best in LA back in the 90's when I went to Avid boot camp. Personally, I still adhere to these rules. With Creative Cloud, you can run different versions of Premiere Pro at the same time or you can reinstall previous versions that are not currently on your computer so I really don't see why protecting your project by not updating versions is that big of a deal. It is something you have to be aware of, IMHO.


          Still, you should be able to update your project without catastrophic results.

          You should also be able to work with AVCHD footage in new projects without any trouble.


          Hopefully, things will improve with the next update. Sorry again for any trouble this is causing you.


          Kevin

          • 2. Re: AVCHD footage slow-to-never in loading; All other footage A-OK; pretty tired of this sort of thing
            Christian Jolly Community Member

            With Creative Cloud, you can run different versions of Premiere Pro at the same time or you can reinstall previous versions that are not currently on your computer so I really don't see why protecting your project by not updating versions is that big of a deal. It is something you have to be aware of, IMHO.

             

            Still, you should be able to update your project without catastrophic results.

            You should also be able to work with AVCHD footage in new projects without any trouble.

             

            Hopefully, things will improve with the next update. Sorry again for any trouble this is causing you.

             

            Kevin

             

            To be honest, I adhere to some pretty old school and possibly outdated rules as well on my edit machine...one of those is "don't use this machine for anything but editing." That one I actually keep 100% because it's practically stupid not to do so. Another is "remove old versions before installing new ones." That's just really great advice...however, I've broken this rule recently, but only for Adobe, and only because I have found out the hard way I need a recourse in the event the newest version "breaks" some feature or thing I need, or doesn't allow me to continue an existing project. Thus this discussion.

             

            Again, I hear you on that bit of advice, but it's never proven to be an issue for me before. From version 6.5 to 1.0, to 1.5, to 2.0 to CS3 to CS4 to CS5 to CS6 I never had any issue loading old projects, and I always used all kinds of crazy native formats, dynamic link assets and so on. Sometimes I've upgraded in the middle of completing a project but that's rare...more often it has to do with reloading older projects because a client needs something, or I'm accessing sequences and modifying them in a new project with new footage, or something of that nature. That's a need that never goes away. I've recently been in the position of upgrading in the middle of a project because I've had issues with the current PPro build that were solved in the patch version (to be clear, if Adobe patches PPro with a new version that fixes these issues, I guarantee I'd be instructed as "Hey, new version, fixes these problems, update now and fix it!" I can't recall ever hearing "start over with a new project, kill your old broken junk, and trust us, it works great now."

             

            I understand what you're saying as far as keeping older versions on the computer, but at some point my otherwise speedy 256 GB SSD drive is going to become rather sluggish with so many older versions of software just to prevent hitting a wall in Premiere Pro version (next). This is to say nothing of having to maintain multiple versions with plugin updates and such, in an event such as this where my workflow must go backwards to a previous version.

             

            To be fair, we're not talking major expectations here...I'm not saying ALL plugins from version CS5 need to port into CC 2014, or that a certain template or setting or something needs to be adhered to. I'm not asking for a deprecated format to be recognized. In this instance, it's AVCHD footage from current issue Panasonic pro cameras. I likewise understand that file handling algorithms change at the code level from time to time, but I'd expect something better than simply being unable to process the footage in a meaningful way. Even still, this isn't the kind of bug I'd expect to go unresolved for a long time either. Again, it's not like I'm having an issue editing DivX footage or something dumb.

             

            Appreciate you chiming in, I know you wish you had a better answer, but I understand there's a lot of moving parts and there are relatively few issues that will get an "all hands on deck" attention grab. That being  said, the whole Creative Cloud revolution was supposed to enable faster fixes, patches and features loaded in as soon as they were ready. Already I've seen that we're really only at a quarterly or semi-annual release cycle. I understand it's more efficient to bundle a whole group of things into a single release, but that was always how it was done, and this CC deal was supposed to be "as it comes down the pipe and is ready, we'll release it." In some ways, I've seen where we're better off now, in other ways, it's been underwhelming. And when functionality breaks and can't be fixed quickly in this environment, something's amiss.

             

            Anyway, before I branch this complaint/bug notice/rant out any further, I'll just resign myself to working in CC anytime I have to use AVCHD footage, and start shooting less on AVCHD whenever possible. That seems to be the fix.