My troubles with Markers in Premiere

Question

I’m editing a feature documentary in Adobe Premiere CC (latest update) on my MacBook Pro 2014 w/ Mavericks.
I have about 100 hours of source footage that I’m logging using Comment Markers in Premiere.
The problem I’m facing in this workflow is dealing with multichannel audio files. Our sound engineer recorded sound using a Sound Devices 644 6-channel mixer/recorder that saves to 24-bit multichannel .WAV-files. I sometimes have 5 mono tracks with wireless microphones and a boom. I need to sync these audio files to the footage first, before I’m able to properly spot and log what I have. The camera scratch track is insufficient to do this properly, since it sometimes only contains camera-audio, or a mix of different channels, with people being in different locations at the same time. So, I need to be able to mute channels to reveal the content of each audio track separately.
Unfortunately, I’m unable to use Prelude for the logging process, since that program does not give me the option to synchronize my external audio with the footage first, using the embedded timecode in both video and audio files. I also don’t want to transcode, re-wrap or combine audio and video
originals into new (intermediate) files.
So, my conclusion is that I have to use Premiere Pro’s Marker functionality. First, I made sequences for each day we recorded footage. On those sequences, I synced the footage with the corresponding multichannel audio tracks. Then, I decided to make markers in the source clips of either the video (description of what we see, like insert shot, or listening shot, or an event) or the audio (description of what we hear / what people say).
Having worked this way for a couple of weeks, the following bugs / annoyances pop-up:
1 – If I add a comment marker to track 3 (out of 4) of a multichannel audiofile, that comment is also visible in tracks 1, 2 and 4. It doesn’t matter if I unlink the audiotracks first. The comment will stay visible in all tracks. This is not useful, since sometimes, different things are said in different audiotracks of the same file. I suppose this has something to do with the way Premiere handles multichannel audio-files and the fact that they are saved in one file. I guess the workaround has to be the hassle of splitting all audio into separate files, without losing the original timecode, but tt would be much better if Premiere just gave me the option to create separate markers for each individual audio track of a multichannel file.
2 – It’s hard to create overlapping comment markers. Sometimes a part of a clip needs to be logged/commented in two different categories and then it would be nice to have overlapping markers in the same clip. I believe this is possible in Prelude and transports well to Premiere, but Premiere does not really give a good way to do it itself.
3 – When I create a marker (M), I have to alt-click on it in the Source-window to be able to expand the range of that marker. I can then add comment text in either the Markers Panel, or in the pop-up window when I double-click the marker. This works well with shorter clips, but the problem starts with longer clips, like a 30-minute interview. At some point, when I alt-click and then drag the handle to expand the marker, the playhead of the Source timeline jumps back to a position somewhere in the middle of the clip. It does not stay with the marker I just created/expanded. This is a really big annoyance, because then I have to scroll back to that part I was working on. Is there some way or setting to stick to the place in the source clip I’m working on?
4 – Eventually, the Markers in my clip (either in the video or audio clips) show up in the Markers Panel. I now have a scrollable overview that can also be searched. But now the following problem arises: If I search for a specific marker and want to jump to that marker in the content, I click on the marker in the list. It will now nicely go to that place in the Source window of the corresponding audio clip. But how can I reveal exactly that position in the corresponding clip in my sequence? Because only there, it is synced with my video… Of course, I can visually see the markers and the beginning of their text content in my sequence too, but it would be really nice to have a „reveal in sequence” button somewhere. Working with Sequence Markers as an alternative would look problematic to me. I want to be able to pancake sequences and copy clips from a sequence of selects to my main edit, with all comment markers transporting nicely. Furthermore, I like the idea of comment markers being saved in the XMP of the source clip. I have selected this option in the Preferences.
5 – For some strange reason, sometimes comment markers are not saved in the audio file. I have a multichannel .WAV file, which contains 4 mono channels of audio. I added markers to this clip, closed my sequence, opened it again and the markers were still there. But when I saved my project,  closed Premiere and re-opened it again, the markers were gone. This happens not with all multichannel .WAV-files, but it happens sometimes and I haven’t discovered the reason yet. On this specific example (T22.wav) I can recreate the error. I checked the file and it’s not read-only or something. So, it just feels like a total random thing and not a very reliable function of Adobe Premiere.
6 – This brings me to other usability issues regarding Markers in Premiere. As I have understood, there is no proper option to globally search for (comment) markers in the entire project. To me, in 2015, this appears very silly and I’m sure Adobe is working on a solution. My workaround now is to export the markers in each clip to a .CSV-file and combine those in Excel. Then, I have a complete overview of all markers in my project. What I feel lacks is that the .CSV-file does not export the Marker color. I use the colors to make visual indicators of categories. For example: a red markers means: important! An orange marker is a question etc. It would be really nice to have an additional column in the CSV indicating just the name of the color. I would be better of course, if Adobe seriously fixes the global search thing.
To conclude, many of the problems I’m facing originate from the fact that I work with double system audio, where the audio is saved in multichannel audio-files, that need to be synced using timecode. Although this is a pretty standard procedure, it feels like Adobe Premiere Pro CC has some issues that I would like to see resolved in future upgrades. I hope my post could benefit to this.
Furthermore, If anyone feels that I’m using completely the wrong workflow and has useful suggestions, I’m all ears! I’m still in the beginning phase of the edit. It took me a while to ingest all files, create the file structure and sequences and properly sync all the audio, but if I’m doing something wrong, I rather hear it now than at the end.
Thanks and my apologies for this exhaustive post.

Answer 1

Meanwhile, I have found a workaround for this problem:
9. – When I have finished adding Comment Markers to a file, I export it's audio to a WAV from Prelude. This WAV-file will also contain the newly created markers. Then I send the WAV to my co-editor and he places the WAV under the original audio in his timeline. Now the extra .WAV-file will function as a 'guide track' which shows the markers. The audio channel can be muted.
It would make much more sense if Premiere always checks if a .XMP on the disk has been updated or added, when it is mounting the media upon opening the project file. Or even better: Premiere should update the Markers in the timeline in realtime, when the .XMP has changed.
Having said this, we found the following behavior of Premiere, when media and .XMP's on the disk are replaced:
– Sony F5 / Sony PMW-100 / Canon XF200 .MXF + .XMP, only .XMP with new metadata is replaced on co-editor disk: Comment markers are MIXED with markers that were already present in the clip. Some markers get lost, because of conflicting timecodes?
– Canon C300 .MXF + .XMP, only .XMP with new metadata is replaced on co-editor disk; Comment markers DO NOT show up in timeline. Re-import and re-placement of file in timeline is necessary (including syncing with external audio)
– .MOV Quicktime container (entire .MOV has to be replaced on co-editor disk, since metadata is saved in Quicktime container): Comment markers are MIXED with markers that were already present in the clip. Some markers get lost, because of conflicting timecodes?
– .WAV-files: Comment markers properly update on timeline.
I'm curious to see if the upcoming 2015 update contains improved functionality and bugfixes regarding .XMP metadata (e.g. Comment Markers) and sharing media. I'm especially curious about the new Adobe Anywhere functionality for small teams.