Keystroke questions about Premiere.

[Patrick Janka]

1.) I used to use Vegas. I'm now on Premiere CS5. I've gone through the Classroom in a Book for Premiere. I still have questions about certain things. First off, is there a way to cut the video as it's playing? In Vegas the video would be playing and if you hit the 'x' key it would split all the highlighted tracks right there. Likewise, in my Reaper audio editing software, hitting the 's' key does the same. There doesn't seem to be something like that in Premiere. It seems you have to manually click on the razor tool and find the spot. Also, even if I control click or lasso all the video/audio tracks the razor tool still only cuts one track at a time. This makes it difficult to cut the video and audio at the same exact spot to keep them in sync.

2.) Next, everything stops playback. If the video is playing and hit ctrl+s to save it stops playback. I have two monitors. If I click on something in the other monitor it stops playback in the original monitor. So on and so forth. Is there an option to disable that?

3.) In Vegas ripple editing meant if you cut a track and deleted the section, everything shifted. From what I've seen in Premiere you have to manually right click the black space every time and hit "ripple delete". Is there an option to where you extract a section of video everything moves over? I'm not talking about using the ripple delete tool, either. That only works if you trim. I'm talking about making a couple of cuts, and then deleting the section.

4.) I built my system. Win 7 64 bit, Intel i7 930, ASUS P658XDE, 12GB triple channel RAM, Samsung Spinpoint 7200rpm 1TB system drive, 2x1TB RAID 0 scratch and render, GeForce GTX 470 video card, Cooler Master ATCS 840 Full Tower, 850W power. I've run a performace test and burn-in test, and everything seems to be functioning correctly. In Premiere I've set the RAM for 9GB to be used for Adobe, and 3GB for other tasks, although it's never really used more than 6GB during work. My problem is editing even basic stuff in Premiere seems to sputter. I'm not doing anything very complicated, but the program seems sluggish. I'm primarily working with HDV mpegs with minimal video effects. I built this system thinking it would be blazing, but it doesn't feel like it at all. Even my DVD drive is slow. What am I missing here?

Thanks!!

[Battle Vaughan]

Select area between cuts: shift-delete = ripple delete ; delete=remove section.

Click on timeline with Razor cuts linked tracks, shift-click razor tool cuts all tracks. You can find tool tips like these at the bottom left of the screen when you select a tool, btw...

[Patrick Janka]

Very cool, thanks.

Also, in relation to the stopping problem I have, is there a way when the clip is playing to click the cursor somewhere else on the timeline and have the video immediately continue playing, but from that new point? As of now it just stops, and I have to hit play again.

[Kevin Currie]

For cuts, I prefer to use ctrl+K over the razor tool. It will work on all highlighted tracks at once and is more accurate than the razor.

Sometimes I would like it if the playback continued while clicking on other panels. But for now, I just work with 1 thumb hovering over the space bar to stop & start playback. Doesn't take more than 1 second out of my day.

Edit > Keyboard Customization. See all of the keystrokes and change them to suit your needs.

[Patrick Janka]

Thank you, Kevin. ctrl-k is what I was looking for! Is there a way for it to work while the clip is playing, or does the clip have to be stopped first?

[Peter Manojlovic]

Hit the asterisk button anytime you want a point of cut (this creates a marker)....

Then simply Ctrl+left,right arrow to the timeline markers, and Ctrl+K for your cuts at those markers....

[Kevin Currie]

I don't think I would want to be playing when using ctrl+k. By the time you see the point you want to cut, and you press the keys, the frame has passed. You would still have to go back and adjust the cut position. If you don't need it to be exact, use the razor.

[Patrick Janka]

Kevin, I see your point, but in Vegas you could make a quick cut, then go back and adjust it by stretching it back out. It seems in Pr you can't, because once you make a cut, that's the absolute end point. I was hoping to treat it like the multi-cam monitor, where you click on the various shots as it's playing through, then later adjust to get the switch point precise.

[Battle Vaughan]

Another way to do what you want is to edit in the playback window, setting in and out points on the fly, which you can fine-tune after you stop playback; then use the lift (equates to delete) tool or the extract (equates to ripple delete) tool to effect the edit. You can move the in and out points on the timeline by grabbing the borders in the grey area they create in the time bar at the top of the timeline. But you can only do one in-and-out at a time per clip.

[Adam Gold]

Originally Posted by Patrick Janka

...in Pr you can't, because once you make a cut, that's the absolute end point....

No, you can easily stretch the clip back out to its original form after you razor it, no problem. It's only if you create a subclip that you can't restore the original length.

Try this: Razor a clip anywhere in the middle and delete the new second half from the timeline. Now grab the end of the first half and drag it back to its original length. Voila! Like it never happened.

You can also use the Rolling Edit tool to adjust where your razor point is.

[Kevin Monahan]

Hi Gang,
Keyboard shortcuts are at the root of editing more fluently, so take note of the advice on this thread. You can customize the keyboard if you are in need of more shortcuts, are coming from another NLE or both.

This thread also had a lot of information about other techniques including razoring tracks, using the rolling edit tool, as well as, lift and extract functions.

Still confused? No worries. I've combed through Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 Help to provide you more details on these subjects. Take a look at the following pages and see if they don't answer further questions you may have.

Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 * Keyboard Shortcuts and Customization
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 * Splitting Clips with the Razor Tool
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 * Rolling Edit Tool
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 * Lift and Paste Frames
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 * Extract and Paste Frames

[Patrick Janka]

Thanks, Kevin!

[Kevin Monahan]

No trouble, Patrick. I know about the frustration of Vegas editors coming to Adobe Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro or even Avid. It lies in the way that Vegas works.

All other NLEs besides Vegas will usually stop playback when clicking around in the timeline. Unfortunately, you will just have to get used to this outside of Vegas. I'm not saying the way Vegas works is wrong, it's just a bit different, I think. Vegas was born as an audio tool and audio folks like to click around and make adjustments as the sound plays back. As Vegas got video capability, a lot of these "click around during playback" behaviors remained. To the old schooler, it's kind of hard to visualize the way you like to work as Vegas is kind of a different beast.

Keep asking these workflow questions, I think they're great.

[Patrick Janka]

Yeah, I actually come from a music background. Been a musician far longer than a videographer. I use Reaper for my DAW, which also lets you click around during playback. I just wish Premiere had an option to enable that, giving the choice to the user. Perhaps it could be written into an update?

[Kevin Monahan]

If that's something you really want and you think that others would benefit, feel free to file a feature request. You can file a feature request here: http://www.adobe.com/go/wish . More on how to give feedback: feature requests, bug reports, crash reports, and sending feedback After Effects region of interest

Best of luck!