Premiere Pro CC: A Better Way to Merge

Posted on August 10, 2013 by Larry

Premiere Pro CC: A Better Way to Merge

The following write-up was contributed by Greg Popp.

I just completed editing a 10 minute dramatic narrative in Premiere Pro CC. My source footage was transcoded 4K ProRes 422 files (from Canon 1 D-C 4K Motion Jpeg footage) merged with dual system audio within Premiere Pro (as everyone teaches, yourself included).

However, I’m not sure everyone realizes just how limiting merged clips are within Premiere.

No Replace Edit functionality.
No Match Frame. That’s right. Does not work.
Marker comments are NOT retained. As soon as you click on another clip, the marker comments are lost.
No out-of-sync indicators for either linked or unlinked clips. None.
No making subclips in the project panel (using the source monitor).

That, in my opinion, is a crippling list.

Here’s a better workflow with absolutely no downside. You do need the brilliant PluralEyes 3 from Red Giant.

First you copy your video and audio into separate folders on your external drive.
Next open PluralEyes 3 standalone. Two easy steps later and you’ve selected and placed all of your media in the timeline. One click and you’re synced up.
Next, click on “Export Timeline”, choose “Other” and “Media files”, and click “Copy Video” with audio replacing the original audio.
Create a new folder (say Synced Clips), and perfect duplicate files are created with the new audio.
Open Premiere Pro and import those files. No more problems.

I verified with Red Giant that the duplicate clips are exact copies. So once you create those, you could delete the original files to avoid double the storage requirements.

Making those files and importing into Premiere takes no longer than having to select each clip within Premiere and individually creating a merged clip.

Just thought I’d share this with you Larry, as you do SO much for all of us filmmakers.

– – –

Larry replies: Thanks, Greg!

Visit our website to see Final Cut Pro Training & more!

Bookmark the permalink.

21 Responses to Premiere Pro CC: A Better Way to Merge

Newer Comments →

Chip Burns says:

September 25, 2013 at 9:10 pm

Thank you for this – as Greg stated, this truly is a crippling issue for people using dual system sound in Premiere Pro.

Thanks for the tip!

Reply
Editor says:

October 27, 2013 at 11:20 pm

This isn’t helpful if the camera has no onboard audio.

Reply
Tony Segreto says:

January 8, 2014 at 2:37 pm

Also, once clips are merged, you can no longer replace the original media. Say you want to relink to RAw data for a color session or to remaster. Nada. Horrible >.<

Reply
Liz says:

April 4, 2014 at 9:26 am

Is there any way to do this without having to create an entire copy of the original file? I’m working with Blackmagic clips and this method would take way longer to process.

Reply
Jith Paul says:

April 17, 2014 at 5:25 am

PluralEyes 3 doesn’t support R3D so you would have to transcode the video field for this particular strategy to work if you are dealing with Red footage. When you do that it would remove the ability to use the raw data from the R3D files in grading 🙁

Reply
Bill Scurry says:

June 30, 2014 at 8:59 pm

As a longtime user of PE 2.1 with FCP 7, I’ve been used to a workflow wherein Pluraleyes creates a folder with a distinct set of merged clips which have had the scratch audio totally replaced by device-captured audio. I’m trying to replicate this in Premiere CC6, but thus far, PE 3 can’t do much more than produce a synched timeline, which is impossible to edit out of. Is your suggested method of exporting media files wholesale from PE 3 with swapped-out audio the only way to do what I’ve been used to with FCP?

Reply
- LarryJ says:
  
  June 30, 2014 at 9:36 pm
  
  Bill:
  
  I haven’t use PluralEyes 3 at all – so I can’t answer this question. Perhaps another reader can help?
  
  larry
  
  Reply
Matt Pereira says:

September 2, 2014 at 5:24 am

THANK YOU!!!! I just discovered markers this morning, spent an hour marking and labelling my merged clips, only to find that I lost everything. After much searching I found this post and used PE to do exactly what you have described and now it all works amazingly well !!!

You have given me hope, where there was none 🙂

Please have a virtual Beer on me !!!!

Reply
Geoff B says:

September 30, 2014 at 9:15 am

It’s completely nuts that Premiere can’t get this right, with the merged clips. “Crippling” is the perfect word, and it seems to me that merged clips shouldn’t even be part of the software if it has limitations like this. But I’m glad to see there’s a workaround, even if it does require dropping 200 bucks to get PE.

Reply
Amanda K says:

June 30, 2015 at 7:08 am

Follow-up question:

How can I best use pluraleyes and premiere pro cc when I have a dual camera shoot with two audio recorders as well as good sound recorded into the camera? Pluraleyes helps me sync up, but if I shouldn’t create merged clips, do I just edit off of a synced timeline? I do not want to replace camera sound, some shots have the sounded recorded directly into camera. Any suggested editing workflows for this?

Working with Premiere CC 2014 and Pluraleyes 3.5

2 Cameras, both Canon C-100’s
Audio: Two sound devices with 2 lav’s each plus boom mic going into camera. Some times lab’s were plugged directly into the camera for space and time’s sake on the documentary “set.”

Thank you,
Amanda

Reply
- Larry says:
  
  June 30, 2015 at 2:22 pm
  
  Amanda:
  
  I suggest contacting the folks at Red Giant – who publish PluralEyes – and ask them. They will have the best ideas on how to use their software.
  
  larry
  
  Reply
JR says:

July 14, 2016 at 7:46 pm

Has this been fixed in CC 2015.2? Not 2015.3, as I hear there’s a bunch of issues with that so I want to stay on 2015.2 for now.

Reply