Premiere Pro Multicam Clip Not Showing Audio Waveform

 Premiere 22.5.0 on macOS Monterey.

One thing that has been plaguing Premiere for years: audio waveforms snafus. Last in a row of a long list of aggravation, Multicam Clips not showing any audio waveform in the Timeline.

In this example, the first Multicam Clip shows the waveform, the second does not:

Why? You'd rightfully ask. Well it's because of the way the Mulicam Clip is panned. I kid you not.

The fist Multicam Clip is panned as follow:

The second Multicam Clip is panned as follow:

Do you see the difference? Track A1 is not panned all the way to the left to -100%. It's at -98.8%.

And that is enough ladies and gentlemen to trip Premiere and cause it to not display waveforms in the Timeline for any Multicam Clip that's not panned 100% left or right.

macOS Monterey Finder Refuses To Sort Files By Name

 What on earth is going on with the Finder Apple? Sorting Files by name does not work properly?!?

Seriously, what is this mess?

macOS Monterey QuickLook Bug

 There is a bug with QuickLook on Monterey. QuickLook works by selecting a file and hitting Spacebar, which opens a previewn of the file so you can have a look at it right  in the Finder. Very useful to quickly scan through documents, videos etc.

On Monterey though, QuikLook can go bezark and instead of opening a preview version of the file, it just opens a dumb window with a small thumbnail and generic file info.

If this happens, open Activity Monitor, Search for "QuickLook", select all that apply. Example: QuickLookUIService (Finder), QuickLookUIService (Quicktime), QuickLookSatellite, quicklook, com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailAgent, etc. With these selected, click on the Stop button to stop the selected processes.

Re-launching the Finder seems to be working as well for some users.

QuickLook should work fine again. Until next time... Repeat this workaround while Apple is working an a fix.

Avid ProTools and Media Composer Pricing 2022

 Here is an update from Avid in 2022. We love to hate Avid because we are forced to use Pro Tools and Media Composer, so each time they change things or jack up their prices we cringe.

As always I will only reference the month to month prices for each app as anything else is just a discount on the base price. And then we will compare 2022 offers to 2019 prices, fun!

Pro Tools is now declined in three version: Artist for $9.99/mo, Studio for $39.99/mo ($31.99 is a discount), and Flex for $99.99/mo.

Compared to 2019 prices: Free $0, Pro Tools ("vanilla") $34.99/mo, and Pro Tools Ultimate $84.99/mo. We are seeing an increase of $5 for the grown-up apps, and a new offer at $9.99 that replaces the useless Pro Tools Free... For a fee. Good riddance.

Artist is OK for simple stuff with a limited amount of tracks and features. Studio is fine for most workflows that don't involve conforming, or need "Advanced audio post toolset", or want to use expensive Avid Hardware, most of it. Little devils!

So for the Hollywood elites it's $99.99/mo now baby!

For non elites it's $39.99

And for peeps that don't know what Pro Tools is, they have to fork $9.99 for the privilege.

Avid also offers a $99.99/year Studio version to Students and Teachers.

Of course Avid is not doin that with Media Composer, just to mystify us even more.

MC still has the familiar free First version, MC "vanilla" for $34.99, and MC Ultimate for $74.99. Same prices as in 2019! MC Enterprise is still available for an undisclosed amount, which is the only way to get access to Nexis/Edge hardware and associated cloud collaboration.

So Avid is still milking audio post people to death by jacking-up prices on Pro Tools even more, while prices on Media Composer stay the same. Talk about a captive user base...

How To Prevent Free Download Manager To Launch At Startup

Free Download Manager is a handy little app, but it automatically launches by default when you start your computer which is annoying and unnecessary.

To turn FDM autostart off, do the following:

1. Click the Main Menu button on the upper left of the FDM window.

2. Click Preferences in the drop down menu.

3. Click on the Advanced tab, or scroll down to Advanced preferences.

4. Uncheck the box "Launch at startup (minimized)"

That's it!

Vimeo Direct Links Look Crappy, Display Self-Serving Banner And Button

 Vimeo has decided to force promoting itself on the back of its users by displaying a huge banner and a "Join Vimeo" button on every shared link.

Look at this crap. I share these links with clients! It's ugly! Instead of a clean display, we get a self serving prominent banner that actually OBSCURES the title of the video! What is this Vimeo?

As this was not enough, you have to add a "Join Vimeo" button on top of it? Do you really thing it's the way to get new people to sign for your services Vimeo?

There is no way for me to turn off this banner and that button. The viewer/client has to click on the banner to make it disappear, after seeing how ugly and invasive it is...

In addition, there is no way to turn the "Like" button off either, even though there is a Player setting to turn it on or off, the direct link disregards the off preference.

 I've complained to Vimeo already, some doofus pretended to not understand my email, and instead sent a long answer about embed code, which this is not.

Vimeo direct links now look like a sack of balls. Thanks Vimeo! Well done!

Adobe Auto-Update F%$#@ery

 Adobe is shoving auto-update down our throats at every turn. Again today CC app is STUCK in update mode because it turned auto-update on BY ITSELF and decided to start the updating without me knowing. Only I turned the computer off as it was doing it, and since then has been stuck. Stupid Adobe, when will you let the user decide what s/he wants to do?

Idiotic Adobe trying to sneak an auto-update and FAILING! Which by the way #$cks-up Activity Monitor as well, just to make sure that you cannot see what's happening.

All right, next I go to Adobe Creative Cloud folder and run the Uninstaller. Because the only thing that has worked in the past when Adobe CC is stuck is to do that.

Only now Adobe is a bit more savvy and offer to repair the stupid installer that get stuck each time it's interrupted. Fine, I'll run the repair.

And so it goes, great.

Almost there.

Ah! Not so fast! Adobe needs to update first...

Finally we get somewhere.

You can see here that I am turning the freaking CC auto-update OFF, like I always do. It does not matter because sure as hell Adobe will auto update CC anyway next time, count on it.

And here is an additional fu%$ery by Adobe as soon as you hit any app's update button:

Ah! Ah! Ah! Really Adobe? I see, trying to force users to auto-update apps at every corner!

Do yourself a favor and click CANCEL. Adobe, NO ONE WANTS TO AUTO-UPDATE APPS, or auto update anything really. It's a recipe for disaster when you are in the middle of a job, at best you're gonna loose precious time to cancel/stop/install a previous version. Auto-update is  BULLS%^t!  Don't do it! Make sure to go to Preferences and double check that it is turned off.

See, after clicking Cancel the MANUAL update goes through.

Again, make sure auto-update is OFF, else turn it off here (in Preferences / Apps.)