Re: CS6 Premiere Pro choking on mundane stuff
 

Mike, many of us that I am aware of have had difficulty creating unique file names with AVCHD, because the file structure doesn't lend itself to simple renaming (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Renaming is needed especially if you have to recreate your project in some way, because Adobe and FCP cannot find a unique file based on higher level folder names (C:\FOO\FOOroll1\AVCHD folder structure\File001). To be clear, Sony Vegas does a much better job of helping you relink lost files. Don't know why Pr has such a hard time with them. Many people I know have taken to stripping out the MTS files, which normally play fine and can easily be renamed.

When I talked to Adobe tech support the other day, the person was adamant that this was a *bad thing to do* and he claimed could lead to problems with the product. I don't know if he really knew what he was talking about or not. Now if Premiere is expecting, as part of it's ability to read multiple formats without transcoding, to find a specific type of folder structure to identify the filetype,maybe there is something to this issue. Again, I don't know, and the Adobe Tech Support person could not specify to me why he was saying this, but that he strongly advised against it. And my timelines that are corrupted did have B camera roll stuff done on a Panny TM900 using an AVCHD structure. My other timelines are fine.

I think that I'm going to see if there is a tool that can leave the AVCHD structure whole, and rename the MTS files inside it. That would be a start to determine whether this is an answer to this corruption business. Also to be clear, while clearing the media cache is a good idea I suppose at times like this, it made no difference to my timeline corruption and it's stalling out while doing playback.

By the way, when this happened, I got a red X in the lower right hand corner of the screen, alerting me to errors in the playback log. The tech wasn't really interested in those errors. He cleared the cache.

Hope this was a clear explanation.

Re: CS6 Premiere Pro choking on mundane stuff
 

Al, thanks for the explanation, that helps. You basically mean copying the MTS files out of the AVCHD folder structure and putting them somewhere else?

Yes, you can have 14 files all called 0001.MTS. I generally have one sub-folder per camera or shooting session, so I don't have too many problems with names clashing.

To be perfectly honest, I've always just copied the MTS files out of the this\that\the other folder on the SDHC card and put them in my own folder. I've found absolutely no difference ever in doing it this way rather than importing complete cards. Purists will come along and tell me off - but it really doesn't make any difference, and doesn't help at all with my current predicament (I've tried it).

I've tried importing the complete card by copying the whole card to a hard disk then ysing the media browser to add it to my project. Absolutely no difference at all in performance. Yes, I did try this with my current camera and current problems, it didn't make a jot of difference.

I understand that the card will have additional meta data, and you will cope better with files bigger than 4GB, but it's never, ever given me a problem putting the files somewhere else.

Clearing media cache and other files makes no difference to me either.

To backtrack a bit, I'm just happy I have a fix (applying a simple effect to the clips on the timeline and rendering). Oddly, I can scrub the clips just fine in the preview window, scrubbing back and forth as usual, it's only when they go on a timeline that the problems happen.

Re: CS6 Premiere Pro choking on mundane stuff
 

Al says: Me too. It doesn't happen with MXF or MOV based timelines. Go figure.

Re: CS6 Premiere Pro choking on mundane stuff
 

This is a reason I always use the Sony software with my cameras to transfer to the PC. This converts the mts files as clips and creates m2ts files named by the date and time the clip was taken automatically placing in a directory named the date the transfer takes place. If the clips are long it joins the mts files together as a single clip again named at the date and time the clip was taken however long that was such as 20130324130820.m2ts. ie 24th march 2013 at 8 mins past 1pm and 20 frames. Transfer time to the PC is the same as a copy so I see no reason not to use the utility and solve all the confusion. Panasonic must have a similar utility. The m2ts files are then easy to archive as the dates are unique and there is a record of when the files were transferred. I normally shoot multicam events with 4 AVCHD cameras all Sony's but 2 consumer and 2 NXCam versions, so having good clip management is important. I then archive my files before editing. Also these files will of course work in Vegas, Premiere and Edius with no issues. I realise this is really a PC only solution.

Ron Evans

Re: CS6 Premiere Pro choking on mundane stuff
 

Thanks Ron. Having worked a lot with Vegas I should have understood that idea, but didn't. I'll work on finding this type of solution. It's probably in the software with the camera, but I didn't think to look there.

Re: CS6 Premiere Pro choking on mundane stuff
 

Exactly the same situation occurs with Canon Legria files, again the Canon transfer software solves the problem.

I believe that there can be problems with spanned clips if the metadata is not copied over with the .mts files, but again the proprietary transfer software does the job.

Over on the Adobe Premiere forum, the purists regularly argue vehemently against using the camera manufacturer's transfer software, but I cannot see there is any solid justification for their attitude.

Re: CS6 Premiere Pro choking on mundane stuff
 

Yes the purists amuse me at times. They will often complain its the manufacturers fault that something doesn't work or they cannot do something having totally failed to follow any of the manufacturers instructions or very often not even read the manual.

Ron Evans

Re: CS6 Premiere Pro choking on mundane stuff
 

Well, I won't take the comment personally, but will make a small debate out of it to help us figure this issue out...While I don't think of myself as a "purist" I never remember, in two years of using an HMC150, that there was any software from Panny that actually stripped out the MTS files from the folder structure and renamed them, the way that Canon does in their XF Utility for MXF based files. (it's called Export to MXF). Is there software that ships to do this now with that model? Or with the C100? In fact I was thrilled to find that Canon MXF worked that way (as does Sony I believe). There is no warning from Premiere that those files (nor stripped MTS files) don't work, or cause a problem, nor is there any online material that I've seen that would say that. The fact that the stripped MTS seem to play just fine is an indicator that it's not the MTS file fault, but likely Adobe's way of mapping those to the project. If their tech support people are saying it when you call in, I would certainly like to know if it's true, or whether the one person I talked to didn't know what they were talking about. Having worked with tech support in the computer world, I know that they do learn things that the PR people may not want publicized.

This is important, because I am a person that has, as my business has grown, have needed to migrate files from one drive to another. While I try to keep things named properly, I have experienced every single editing suite choke on moving files from the original drive they were stored on. The dreaded linking in FCP 7.0, Vegas and Pr is solved by the software's ability to find the filename. In Vegas, they do a very elegent search that finds all known names of the same file, and displays all the known files with their folder structure, so if you do have a repeating named file, you can see which folder it's in and Vegas then asks if you want to find the rest you are looking for the same way. Adobe could do with looking at this for their method, which is far too manual and time consuming...

The OP of this was wondering why CS6 was choking on his AVCHD files, while he says he doesn't have the problem with CS5. So I don't think this is about whether folks are reading the ****in' manual, as we used to say. Would be good to see Adobe step up and clear up the issue. Maybe at NAB someone can ask them this. The booth guys usually are pretty good about leveling with you if you don't use their name (G).

All in good cheer...

Re: CS6 Premiere Pro choking on mundane stuff
 

Sorry if anyone took my comments personally that was certainly not my intention at all. I am sure we all have had experiences of very vocal people who blame everyone but themselves for what is happening to them. Anyone who asks for help and then participates in a helpful way certainly is not in this category.

Although I have CS6 Production Suite I don't use Premier but mainly Edius and sometimes Vegas and those two will transfer correctly from the camera directly, however doing this looses the file renaming etc that is so useful for archiving. I still like to separate the transfer and archiving from the editing process. The equivalent of capturing from tape and then storing the tape.

Ron Evans

Re: CS6 Premiere Pro choking on mundane stuff
 

Steve Wolla:

Tha fact that CS5.5 works and CS6 is an issue makes me wonder if you may need to update drivers on the display card?

That can have an effect...