AVCHD footage slow-to-never in loading; All other footage A-OK; pretty tired of this sort of thing
Christian Jolly Nov 19, 2014 11:51 AMAs 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.



