My Premiere XML workflow

Flame Tips and Tricks
1

I think i by now have a decent grip on conforming premiere XMLs , fixing most of the issues - meaning I can usually get both timewarps and reframes to come across.

I just want to write it down so maybe others can benefit from this workflow

  1. The Premiere side matters

You will need a few pieces of information that will help you down the line!

Proxy Resolution and reframing

Now thats the most important piece of information, but just asking for the Proxy resolution is not enough - you also need to know how they where resized and if the Proxys where linked against the raw media in premiere or just loaded in as is , as there are many workflows here, lets look at some common ones:

For a goopd example lets always say our source is 4.6K Arri Opengate so 4608x3164 and our timeline resolution is 1920x1080.

One way , I call this the Avid way is to put them with a Letterbox into 1920x1080 proxies and these are loaded into usuaully a 1920x1080 timeline, so when you drop thee clips in they will be in the premiere timeline with 100% or 1.0 scale and will be letterboxed.

The editor then will probably put 1.28 or whatever scaling on every clip to remove the letterboxes and then move the clip up/down for the desired framing.

The second way, is to use half or quaterres proxys so 2304x1582 proxys directly loaded into Premiere , dropping those onto a 1920x1080 timeline, premiere is going to default to doing no scaling , think like a resize set to crop.

Now the editor has 2 options to get them to cover the full width, either scale them down to fit manually - so you will have things like .85 or whatnot on every clip (note: this value is what gets pulled into the action node you get later, so it really matters!)

Or the editor can hit a button in Premiere called ā€œscale to frame sizeā€ which will again take the resolution and scale it to the framesize which means ā€œfitā€ into a letterbox 1920x1080 , this scale value will NOT be put in the XML, its now jsut like case 1 the Avid way !

The option ā€œset to framesizeā€ sets the keyframe for scale to the right amount to letterbox the material just the same as scale to framesize.

The Third way, or the best way imho is to load the raw material(or fullres proxies) into premiere and then link half/quaterres proxy media inside of premiere that way the scale setting is still relative to the source resolution of the raw!

If the editor then uses set to frame size, the value will be exactly what flame needs, a factor relative to the source resolution

on ā€œscale to frame sizeā€ everything is exactly back to case 1

When I say set to framesize, the new scale methods of premiere 2025+ or whatever - they can now to a few scale methods like fit with crop and others. they all are setting these absolute values into the transform attribute.

So now you know how these transform values relate to the action tlfx you are getting - great, well need that info later!

No we navigate to the xml in flame and run this gold nugget of a script Accurate XML repos from Premiere into Flame, Fixed by Python

where we are now asked for the resolution if the proxy media ! cool we know that! - neat!

I reccomend running the script for each set of resolutions the XMLs have! so if you get a few 1920x1080 and a few vertical XMLs , do them in sets.

then load the newley created and scaled XMLs into flame, now - if flame likes to crash while loading XMLs in general please submitt a ticket to the flame support.

So now XMLs are there, we conform against the raw media or graded files or whatever else - and you are greeted with a super broken timeline , all tlactions are corrupted or broken - ugh! dont be afraid we can fix these too! Premiere sizing (again) - #38 by finnjaeger with the power of the community we can fix the corrupt actions bug! this script exports each action as a text file into a tmp directory and then reloads it onto itself which fixes all corruption! - NEAT. The only other thing I wish it would do is remove the annoying light nodes and garbage thats in these Actions for no reason, i really wonder why these XMLs create lights and so much other bloat ?!

And thats it now you have in many cases a 1-click conform

The same cleaned XMLs also work well in davinci resolve btw, just be aware of its own scale methods!

12 Likes
2

Are you maybe referring to the default Action behavior in the timeline? When you enable Action there, it automatically adds a light, multiple axes, and a shadow. As @MLandon recently pointed out, this is holdout compatibility with the old Smoke DVE setup. Not sure it should be there, either.

3

i am talking about the extra stuff that gets put into actions created from fcp xmls, there are keyframe on the surface, animated lights and soke other stuff iirc, a bit bloated and just conpletely unecessarry.

its rather annoying to have to select the right axis when changing transforms too

1 Like
4

@Slabrie is this something on your radar? i know we have talked a lot about improvements to importing XML, and I think you are aware of the bugfix we did regarding corrupt actions? (the save as a file and then reload the actions from the file fix as well.

Also i would love to see the premiere fix script integrated, we really need scaling for different sized proxy files!

(I have just put all this in proper feature requests too)

5

We do have opened defects for Adobe Premiere XMLs but frankly, the quality of these files are often causing issues even when Premiere reimports it own exported XML as we have seen in our Logik event at NAB 2023. So it is not not clear we should spend a lot of time on these issues.

1 Like
6

from
my standpoint premiere xmls make up 99% of timelines we import.

Idk if thats something to pick with adobe, but apparently there are ways to deal with it better (see davinci and the xml fixer script)

so i would really like to see flame improve here, does not look like adobe will

2 Likes
7

That seems problematic.

If Premiere XML were an exotic thing that position would make sense. But itā€™s a major source of conform inputs, and just judging by the amount of discussion, tutorials on fxphd, scripts on Logik Portal to deal with this mess - this is a major issue.

Deeming it a thing better to be forgotten seems like leaving the users to fend for themselves.

It may not be a fun thing to solve. But it seems Black Magic has done a decent job working around Adobe bugs. Hence the existence of the path of ā€˜washingā€™ Premiere XMLs through Resolve before importing into Flame. I guess if you prefer Resolve to do your dirty laundry first, than thatā€™s ok.

This is not excuse Adobe from making shitty software. They own that. But thatā€™s not something we can influence, nor can we control which NLE editors will keep using. So it is what it is.

Alternatives to Premiere are Avid, which is in decline and will continue to slide. At NAB 2025 they made it very clear that their sole remaining focus is News, not general editorial. Of course some long from will continue to use it for the time being. FCP-X is already niche. And then thereā€™s Resolve itself picking up more NLE share, at the risk of those folks just staying in Resolve/Fusion for everything.

4 Likes
8

agree.

Flame should be THE machine to 1 click conform Premiere XMLs, hands down, its a commercial finishing software that cant properly deal with the number 1 - by far - source ?

thats just not right.

made this too , maybe we are just a premiere island and I am mis-judging how common these are.

3 Likes
9

I have to agree with @finnjaeger and @allklier in regards to the XML problem. Honestly, Iā€™d rather see a fix for this than some new ML tool in the newest release. XMLs, and their inherent issues, are something we deal with daily at my shop, and every other shop Iā€™ve worked at. Although youā€™ll always have to QC your conforms and fix editorial anomalies, It would be nice to have XMLs imported into Flame properly.

3 Likes
10

Would also be cool, if the fix would use ml:

  • Train a model ā€œReference to Rushesā€ from all of the available Autodesk Database.
  • Let it learn to get a difference as black as possible.
  • Reduce key frames.
  • Profit.

Then we could just ignore these xmls forever. :smiley:

1 Like
11

afaik filmlight is looking into this

12

All of you having Adobe Premiere XML conform challenges must open Support ticket with content and detailed explanation. Without that it will be very difficult for us to investigate, replicate the problem and fix the issues. Ideally, you would provide us:
-The XML showing the issue
-Notes about the section where there is a problem (timing + issue)
-The media files for the problem area
-The offline reference
-The Adobe Premiere project could also be very useful.

Make sure to also reference this thread since I expect the discussion here to continue and we need to keep a link between your ticket and the thread.

.

3 Likes
13

Beyond the repo and sizing problems, the main problem for me is that sequences imported from a premiereā€™s xml has the timing totally messed up. Segments are wrong slipping and wrong timing. I have always relied on the ā€œfix adobe premiereā€ python hook, to whose authors I will never be grateful enough.

But, by chance, these days I have received some xml that canā€™t be fixed. I donā€™t know if things are getting worse. I could fix it by opening the xml in resolve and re-exporting. Because resolve opens the premiere xml correctly, which makes me very angry.

1 Like
14

I think this deserves emphasize. It clearly is possible to enumerate Adobeā€™s bugs, work around them, and produce a workable conform. Where there is a will there is a way.

Someone commented earlier that Adobe hasnā€™t made any significant changes to the actual XML structure from what FCP started with. Thatā€™s probably correct. The problem is not the format of the XML, but the quality of the data Premiere stuffs into the file.

This has now been a few years ago - but I had a project where I was trying to manually rematch timewarps between Premiere and Resolve. And inspecting TC values after a source frame match on a timewarped clip. It became obvious that Premiere was inventing TC values that didnā€™t exist in the source clip, very different from how Resolve was treating source TC in the context of timewarps.

It doesnā€™t seem Adobe cares much of what people make of their files outside of their ecosystem. Resolve bit the bullet out of necessity. Weā€™re waiting for others to follow suite.

For the time being Resolve has become the Laundromat.