Dip to Black - start at 50%

Question

I always start my fade ins at 50% and end with 100%.  Meaning it gradually transitions from black to the clip throughout the entirety of the transition selection.  By default, Premiere sets the fade in at 0% and ends at 100%, hereby making it black for the first half of the clip then transitions into the clip.
The problem is that even though I start the transition at 50%, the clip still remains at total black until halfway through the transition, hereby ignoring my controls.  In fact, if I set it to start at 50% and end at 50%...it still plays the default transition.
Is this a glitch I need to live with?  Basically I'm having to double my transition sizes to compensate, which is silly.  Any advice?

Answer 1

Ann,
What you're witnessing is not the glitch; that's actually correct in how Dip to Black should work. The Start and End values are not degrees/percentages of opacity, but are rather the percent of "completeness" of the transition. Since Dip to Black goes from 0% opacity to 100% opacity back to 0% opacity (relative to black, not the outgoing or incoming video), 50% in the transition completion SHOULD be 100% black. Here's a graphic representation (I didn't have time to paint it or build it to scale):
The white represents 0% opacity of the black of the transition, where the black represents 100% opacity. Think of the transition as a black solid that has the duration of the transition. By default, the transition starts with 0% opacity of that black solid, ramps up to 100% opacity halfway through, and then ramps back down to 0%. That's why, typically, if you start the transition at 50% (as the OP is doing) you are effectively creating a fade from black. By it's nature, Dip to Black (or White) is a double-sided transition, and therefore requires this reassignment of the Start or End value to achieve the effect.
Personally, I would never use Dip to Black for this purpose, even if it worked correctly with hardware MPE, as it's just too fiddly. However, regardless of the practicality of the technique, it does reveal an issue with hardware MPE.
To the OP: as Craig (shooternz) suggests, the following creates a fade of multiple layers without altering each individual layers transparency (which is a common issue, since a lot of people just throw dissolves on each layer to fade in/out):