Top 15 Issues/Fixes Needed in the next Premiere Pro release/update (CS6.5 or CS7)

Question

I’m excited for what’s coming next in Premiere Pro CS6.5 or CS7 (whichever update is next). As a former FCP7 user myself, Premiere CS6 was a quick and necessary switch (especially after changing the main keyboard shortcuts back to what I was used to). I’ve since gone back to FCP7 on occasion for certain things and I can tell you that I’m so glad I’ve switched. For all the headaches and serious errors that I still get daily/weekly with Premiere Pro CS6, it’s still definitely a big step up. I'm encouraged by staff members like Mitch W. that have expressed confidence that many of these issues will be resolved in the next release. Here is my personal list of “Top 15 issues/fixes” needed in the current Premiere Pro CS6…
(Adobe STAFF...feel free to print this out and hand it to the engineers responsible for making changes )
1) The infamous multicam FLAW. Needing no introduction…when you are editing your video in the multicam window and you hit pause or stop Premiere has decided that’s a great time to make a cut on your timeline and also switch angles back to the original angle whether you like it or not. You cannot stop ever while editing multicam without Premiere making these unwanted cuts and angle changes. Awful. Multicam in PPro is otherwise pretty nice, but this issue is terribly counter-productive especially when you are editing longer complex multicam sequences. Imagine if every time you hit pause or stop in the regular timeline it made a cut there and switched clips. Ugh. You get my point.
2) The audio meters/levels do not work while in the multicam window. A staff member in the forums (I think it was you) said this was a bug. Hope it will get fixed. The audio levels work in every other window and its essential to be able to keep an eye on the levels while editing multicam.
3) Ticktime.cpp-207 error. Ugh. What a nightmare. I have confidence that it will be fixed soon. Mitch W. from the forums is my new hero for taking on this error. How to replicate it?…simply have 6 (or 7) or more clips with the warp stabilizer effect added on the same timeline as a nested multicam clip and you get this error upon reopening your project. The more warp stabilizers you use, the more times you’ll have to hit “continue” to get through the error before you can open your project or export it to AME. I deal with this every single day because all my projects use these two elements. Most of my projects I have to hit “continue” on the error message upwards of 350-450 times to open my projects. Gets old fast.
4) Icon View order control. When you display all your clips in icon view instead of a list view (In the project window), there is no metadata to allow you to put the clips in order somehow (or at least maintain the order that you have in the list). There are roundabout workarounds, but c’mon.
5) Warp Stabilizer fixes…it is an AMAZING tool (far, far, far better than smoothcam in FCP7) BUT…it has it’s issues. Since I use hundreds of times/week (no exaggeration) I know it’s functions/flaws really well. The issues with Warp Stabilizer:
a) #3 above
b) Toggle OFF the effect after it’s applied and then hit Analyze again and PPro crashes. (easy to avoid but annoying bug)
c) If a clip is in the middle of stabilizing (not just analyzing…but the final step labeled “analyzing”) when Auto-save comes up…most of the time PPro freezes and crashes.
d) The DEFAULT “method” (in the settings for Warp Stabilizer) should NOT be “Subspace Warp”…it should be “Position, Scale, Rotation”. Why? It’s FAAAAARRRR better and more efficient. 95 out of 100 times it causes MUCH less “wobble” in the final stabilized clips AND most importantly 95 out of 100 times it scales the video less. Way better method.
6) The ability to open multiple projects simultaneously. As simple as FCP7 had it…or even better…as cool and efficient as FCPX does it would be nice.
7) The ability to mark a clip and not just a point on a timeline (because if you move the clip, the marker doesn’t go with it). I know you can use “Clip Marker” but it's very limiting, can't be moved, can't add notes, can't advance to the next marker (as far as I know). Also a marker list like FCPX has would be nice so you can see your markers all in a list at a glance and adjust them as needed.
8) Ability to select a clip in the Project window and find out where it’s used in the timeline. I LOVE how you can do the reverse and take a clip in the timeline and “Reveal in Project Window” but it would really help to go the other way around. Dealing with several hundred clips for every project I’ve missed this feature from time to time (FCPX handles this really well).
9) Add a through-edit indicator in timeline and “re-join clips” option. If you cut a clip but keep both clips together it’s just one continuous clip. But I really hope Premiere adds the not only an indicator of some sort (like FCP7′s way of having two small red triangles facing each other on that cut) so you know it’s one continuous clip BUT ALSO the ability to right-click and “re-join” the two clips into one.
10) When clip is double-clicked in timeline, CTI position in source viewer should match location in timeline. This one is pretty annoying and a fix would be incredibly helpful. The way it is now is very counter-productive. Definitely hope this gets fixed ASAP.
11) Better border controls for images/videos. Can’t do much with images right now in PPro. At least allow to customize the color and size/strength of it’s borders and shadows.
12) Better support for Mac/Apple's top end computers/GPU's. I'm still surprised that 2011 top of the line iMac cards (AMD 6970M) that have 2gb of ram are not supported. I’m sure/I hope 2012 iMac’s will be supported with their new Nvidia GPU’s…but I’ll hold out hope that the top iMac (up until 3 months ago) is supported at least at it’s full power. All around better Mac support would be great considering the wave of new users coming over from FCP.
13) Opacity/Transparency issues with EXPORTED videos with Cross Dissolves, etc. For some odd reason videos exported from Premiere CS6 have issues with cross dissolves or minor transparency. I’ll try to explain…in the program window of PPro CS6 cross dissolves look fine. Also, if you take a clip and stack it on top of another clip and put the top clip at say 99% opacity instead of 100 it looks like it should in PPro. But, if you export the clips you’ll quickly see that there are issues. It’s almost like the exported videos dissolve from 5 to 95. They skip the subtle beginning (0-5%) and subtle end (95-100%) of any fade. A clip in PPro as described above that is on top of another but set at 99% will look more like 90-95% in the exported file ESPECIALLY if the two clips are contrasting (eg. top layer dark, bottom layer with bright elements). It’s like the opposit of ease-in/ease-out. I have to ease-in/ease-out of every dissolve to avoid this issue…and even then, it’s not THAT much of an “ease” as one would hope. Another user in a forum once posted a video that shows how abruptly exported videos end their transparency changes…see: THIS SAMPLE VIDEO  Perhaps this is a GPU/processing issue with AME vs. Premiere Pro but whatever it is, it should be fixed so videos you export look like the videos you edited!
14) Better control in Creative Cloud over which devices are “activated/deactivated”  We have 3 computers and it would be nice if one could log in to their Creative Cloud account and see a list of which devices they have and just toggle on/off which one’s are activated/deactivated. This is especially helpful when you are mobile and forget to deactivate one of your two home/office devices so you’re stuck now until you get back to the home/office to deactivate it. This is not a Premiere thing, but just a general wish.
15) Ability to sync multicam clips automatically using the audio. Plural eyes apparently does this well. Would be nice to have it built into Premiere like FCPX does. Select all the shots you want to sync, One button click, wait a few seconds, done.
That’s my top 15. Everything else is awesome in my opinion for what I do 10 hours a day 6-7 days a week. I’ve included bug reports/feature requests for all of these at one point but if you are someone else reading this go to the following link and ask for these issues to be fixed: FEATURE REQUEST/BUG REPORT
I wish Adobe did smaller updates more often. Because even if they were smaller updates, we’d at least know you are working on fixing some of these issues that have plagued this NLE for years. Holding off fixes for one or two big “updates” every year is tough to deal with in a world of the ever updating apps we live and play with daily on our phones. I realize Premiere is a much larger scale and far more professional than a phone app, but hopefully you get my point. Here’s to hoping the next release (NAB 2013?) resolves all my top 15 issues. Here’s to hoping that these issues will be resolved sooner than later so I can stop raising hell in various forums. I’m honestly ready to start praising and defending Premiere Pro instead of griping about it’s bugs and flaws. It’s a fantastic program “on the way” to being the best. I hope.

Answer 1

Nice list, however it does seem a little bit like you may be hoping that Adobe provides the Final Cut 8 package that Apple never delivered on. Having edited primarily with P-Pro for the last decade, I hope Adobe focuses more on getting the next release to run as smooth as CS5x does, strangling and crucifying all the codec and playback bugs that arose in CS6. To me, it appeared that too many of the changes in CS6 were semantic or cosmetic, meant to give a FCP user more familiarity. Why change the name of an edit function from "overlay" to "overwrite" after 15 years? Because it enhances the product, or because that is what Apple called the function in FCP? If Adobe renames the Program Monitor to the "Canvas" with the next release, I think that I might be sick. There were nice additions to the Creative Suite as a whole, but I hope the next Premiere release reverses some missteps made in CS6, and focuses more on stability and enhanced functionality. I also really hope that they have an open ear towards criticism; Apple did not and their users ended up with FCP-X
It saddens me that the fixes I want most in a future release were purposeful changes between CS5x and CS6x.
1) Provide the options for transport controls in the source and program monitors. All of the users at my office hate that the jog and shuttle were removed in CS6. JKL was an option prior to CS6 and if we liked it we would have used it. I keep reading the justification that this change was meant to save space and streamline the UI. I can't express cordially how much this bothers me to look at the empty wasted space in my CS6 UI where the transport controls should be. The experiment has gone on long enough.
2) Restore the 3 Way Color Corrector to its previous functionality. The 3 way color corrector has been effectively neutered in CS6. Where in CS5x and earlier releases one could separately target the input/output levels of Highlights, Midtones, and Shadows, CS6 has only a master input/output level control. Why is less control better? Is it a 3-Way Color Corrector or a 1-Way Color Corrector?
3) Restore Clip and Timeline markers to their previous functionality. I don't even.... I can't. A user shouldn't have to do work arounds to create a modicum of functionality. This again was an attribute that wasn't broken in earlier releases.
4) Simplify the the task of pasting media into a targeted track. As it is now, pasted items will always go to the lowest activated track instead of the targeted track.
Lastly I would like the Adobe Premiere teams to consider what an amazing accomplishment Premiere CS5x was. Upon CS5's release, a good portion of competitor's workflows became obsolete. CS5.5 refined, stabilized, and expanded functionality.
CS6 changed the UI around, moving or deleting buttons, changed keyboard shortcuts, and renamed functions. Oh, and added hoverscrub, you know...like FCPX. In exchanged there was loss of functionality, stability issues and broken codecs.
I really hope the next release is more like CS5x and less like FCPX