… for Adobe Premiere Pro CC

Tip #1830: Well, DUH! When Transcripts Don’t Work

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Yup. Obvious. But I got caught by both of these.

You would think this would be obvious but, well, I embarrassed myself publicly in a webinar with these, so I might as well share them with you.

There are two instances where creating transcripts won’t work using the new Speech-to-Text workflow in Adobe Premiere Pro:

1. If you turn the volume of the dialog clips all the way down. If YOU can’t hear someone talking, the transcription server can’t hear it either.
2. If the volume of your sound effects or music is so loud that it drowns out the voice, the transcription server can’t figure it out either.

So, to create the best possible transcripts:

• Make sure you can clearly hear all dialog.
• Mute all sound effects tracks.
• Mute all music tracks.

Once the transcript is completed, you can turn all your tracks back on.

Sheesh. You’d a thought I could figure that out on my own.

… for Adobe Premiere Pro CC

Tip #1779: Export Caution: Match Source Settings

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

The default Match Source export settings always uses H.264.

There’s a potential “gotcha” when using the default Match Source export settings that can trip you up. The screen shot illustrates the Quick Export menu in the top right corner of the Premiere interface and the Match Source settings.

Normally, I export sequences from Premiere using my own export settings. However, while I was exploring the Premiere beta, which revises the entire export process, I discovered a problem with the Match Source setting that affects both the beta and the current shipping version.

Specifically, even though it is supposed to “match the source,” it actually uses the H.264 codec. This is fine for distribution, but NOT fine for any sequences you expect to work with again.

NOTE: In fact, H.264 is the default codec for all export presets.

Instead, when exporting any file you expect to reuse, reedit or recompress, avoid ALL the preset export settings – which all use H.264 – and select an editable codec like ProRes, DNx or GoPro Cineform. The files are bigger, but you’ll avoid image degradation and artifacting.

… for Adobe Premiere Pro CC

Tip #1681: A Cool – But Useless – Feature

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

This used to work great. Now, ah, not so much.

There’s a long-time feature in Premiere that used to be really useful. Well, at the least, it was useful. But, now, it’s essentially useless.

Most of the time, when we want to create effects, we select the clip in the timeline, then go to Effect Controls and make our adjustments.

But, there’s a hidden feature in Premiere that, theoretically, saves a step.

Control-click a clip in the Timeline (see screen shot) and a hidden menu appears. Here, you can select a setting, say “Scale,” and a white keyframe line appears in the clip (see the red arrow).

Again, in theory, we can drag this line up or down, or double-click it to add keyframes, to adjust and animate the scale of the clip.

The problem is that line, there, at the bottom, is positioned for 100% scale. We can drag it to 0, or to a minimum setting of 119%; but nothing in-between. It’s positioned too low to be useful because we can’t drag it marginally lower; except to 0. Useless.

We rarely, if ever, scale clips larger than 100%. But we CONSTANTLY need to scale clips smaller than 100%. At least for scaling, this hidden menu option totally fails.

So, experiment on your own to see which of these features work. But, for now, you are better off ignoring this menu and continue to use Effect Controls.