HDCAM HD422 8 channels of audio in Premiere CS5.5 timeline

[Anthony Trotter]

After dragging clips shot on brand new Sony PMW-200 camera into an Adobe Premiere CS5.5 timeline, there are be 8 channels of audio on the timeline by default. Four of the channels I can account for, but there exists 4 completely empty phantom tracks. What's up with that? Is anyone else experiencing this? Is it normal? If so, is there a workaround?

[Robin Probyn]

Hi Ant

I believe the Sony UDF MXF file has 8 audio tracks by default ? think I read that before.. anyway below was an answer from another forum about this..

If by 'exporting different audio channels' you mean having more control over what channels get imported (for example, if you don't want all 8), this depends on the editor. Currently Avid and FCP 7 can do this but Premiere cannot. In Avid it requires a traditional import instead of using AMA. In FCP we tell the Transfer plugin to 'only import monitored audio channels' and then click the channel pairs we want in each clip's audio panel.

[Anthony Trotter]

Thanks for that research, Robin. It looks like Premiere users are stuck with four empty tracks. So, I guess there’s one more step, deleting those empty tracks before one can start editing. Here’s what I’m doing. Drag all clips into a timeline, then select tracks 5 through 8. Delete them. Then I’m left with four tracks of audio. Then I’ll delete tracks 3 and 4 (the channels that I have set to record auto-level camera mic) if they aren’t necessary for the edit. Can anyone recommend a better solution?

[Doug Jensen]

Anthony,

Don't worry you're not stuck dealing with a bunch of unwanted audio channels in Premiere CS6. In fact, there are quite a few ways that you can customize how the four channels of XDCAM audio are handled after you import clips. I don't have time to explain every step in the process, so I'll point you in the right direction and assume you'll be able to figure it out from there, okay?

First of all, if you go to the Audio Preferences panel, you will see see that there are tons of options. I'm not a Premiere expert, and I'm not even sure what the default settings are, but I have the Default Audio Tracks settings configured like this:

Mono Media: Stereo
Stereo Media: Stereo
5.1 Media: Use File
Multichannel Mono Media: Stereo

With those settings, when I bring in clips, I get four stereo tracks. Channels 1 & 2 create a stereo pair on track 1. And channels 3 & 4 create a stereo pair on track 2. Unfortunately, I also get two other stereo tracks that have no sound. As Robin says, the specifications for XDCAM UDF audio require 8 tracks. So I get a stereo pair ( 5 & 6) on track 3 and a stereo pair on ( 7 & 8) on track 4. None of the XDCAM camcorders can actually record 8 channels, so these two stereo pairs are always empty. But don't worry, it is easy to strip them off before you drag the clip into your sequence. In fact, it is really easy to strip off ANY or even ALL of the audio tracks from all of your clips in one step.

Try this:

Import a few XDCAM clips into a new bin that you can experiment with. Now, right-click on one of them and choose MODIFY > AUDIO CHANNELS. A dialog box will appear with dozens of changes you can make. You can mix and match the eight channels of audio in many different ways. For example if you only want Channels 1 & 2 (and don't need channels 3 - 8) and you want them to be treated as a stereo pair, then choose:

Number of Audio Tracks: 1
Channel Format: Stereo

Or if you want to keep channels 1 and 2 as two mono sources on two separate tracks:

Number of Audio Tracks: 2
Channel Format: Mono

Sometimes when I shoot b-roll I don't need any audio at all. So I set the Number of Tracks to 0 and strip off all of the audio tracks so when I bring a clip into my sequence I only get a video track. Fortunately, you don't have to do this one clip at a time. You can select all the clips you want to change . . . right-click on on of them . . . and any changes you make will affect them all.

I hope this is enough information so you can fill in the missing details, because once you see how it works, you really have an amazing amount of control with Premiere. Just one more reason I'm happy not to be working on FCP7 anymore. Play around with the settings and you'll get a configuration that works for YOU.

Mastering the PMW-200-160-150-100 Camcorders

Doug

[Anthony Trotter]

Doug, thanks for all of that info. I'll test it all out on Monday. I'm on Premiere 5.5 but I think those audio settings in 6 will work.