Getting transcripts for Premiere Multicam Sequences

Using Transcriptive with multicam sequences is not a smooth process and doesn’t really work. It’s something we’re working on coming up with a solution for but it’s tricky due to Premiere’s limitations.

However, while we sort that out, here’s a workaround that is pretty easy to implement. Here are the steps:

1- Take the clip with the best audio and drop it into it’s own sequence.
Using A.I. to transcribe Premiere Multicam Sequences
2- Transcribe that sequence with Transcriptive.
3- Now replace that clip with the multicam clip.
Transcribing multicam in Adobe premiere pro

4- Voila! You have a multicam sequence with a transcript. Edit the transcript and clip as you normally would.

This is not a permanent solution and we hope to make it much more automatic to deal with Premiere’s multicam clips. In the meantime, this technique will let you get transcripts for multicam clips.

Thanks to Todd Drezner at Cohn Creative for suggesting this workaround.

6 thoughts on “Getting transcripts for Premiere Multicam Sequences”

  1. I have simply been right clicking on a multicam sequence > Open in Timeline.

    Then use transcriptive as normal with all tracks except for one muted (if you have multiple audio tracks).

  2. I have come up with one multicam work-around, although it is sub-optimal, and is limited in how many cameras can be used. After syncing the two cameras and audio sources, I render them together as one large frame, with one image above the other (like in stereoscopic footage), and then cut that clip into a normal 16X9 sequence. Instead of changing views through the normal multicam way, I use the position of the clip to show either one camera view, or the other, sliding it up or down. In this way, I’ve created a new clip, the timecode of which matches the transcript, and can be used in clip mode, but which has two separate angles built in. And the audio is always production audio. As the resulting clip is 2X normal frame size, then this process needs a fair amount of processing speed and throughput (my 2XUHD footage is 3480X4320). But so far, it works, taking advantage of the clip mode, without losing the advantage of multicam.

  3. I wrote the above multicam work-around, and after a month of using it, I wanted to come back, and alter my recommendation. Yes, that solution works, but the file slows down my Mac too much, making it very hard to see the edit, without exporting first. Perhaps a faster system would be able to handle it better, but I also lost a generation in the footage. Meanwhile, Transcriptive 2.0 works just fine with a sequence full of multicam clips. I thought from the above blog entry that it would not work, but it works fine. I’m able to use transcriptive as a short-cut to go to the bit of dialogue that I want, just as with normal clips. So, in hindsight, with the advantage of experience, I recommend just following Paul’s advice (the commenter above me), and just not using clip mode for multicams. What I don’t recommend is what’s mentioned in the blog. Because instead, all you have to do is open the multicam in the timeline, and then request a transcription of that. That ensures that the multicam timecode will match the transcript, which the blog procedure does NOT. Now, if only Transcriptive didn’t arbitrarily move my timeline indicator around, while I’m trying to work, then it would be perfect.

  4. Hi Matt, Thanks for the update. We probably need to revise the blog post, it was written a while ago. Can you reach out to me about TS moving the Time Marker around? It shouldn’t be doing that, so I’d like to understand what’s happening. Email me at jim@nulldigitalanarchy.com

  5. Is there a way to get Transcriptive to recognize a transcribed sequence (or multicam clip, ideally) when it’s loaded into the source monitor?

  6. Hi Dexter, Sorry for the delay, missed this question. Adobe finally gave us the ability to work with a multicam sequence. It’ll be in the next version coming out this week or next. If you want the beta, just email cs@nulldigitalanarchy.com. Again, sorry for missing this originally.

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