From the course: Premiere Pro Guru: Outputs and Media Encoder

Use a timecode overlay

From the course: Premiere Pro Guru: Outputs and Media Encoder

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Use a timecode overlay

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- Adding a timecode overlay, sometimes referred to as burn-in timecode, can be extremely useful in the post production process. Let's see how we can do it in Adobe Media Encoder. I'm here in Encoder and I've got one clip to play with. I'm gonna go ahead and click through to the export settings. And down in our Effects tab, underneath Name Overlay, we have Timecode Overlay. So we twirl that down and we've got a few choices starting with the checkbox just to include the timecode, and there you see timecode there. We have some options for position, some preset ones, bottom center, top center, stick with bottom center. We can continue to tweak that with these offsets. So if we want it a little lower, and size, depending on where we're gonna watch this that might be a little small for us. That's a little big. And then, finally we have opacity, which allows us to see a fully darkened black bar, burn-in timecode often looks that way traditionally. Or we can see it with some transparency. We'll do good dark 100% timecode. Also you can generate the timecode, either from the media file that is the source or to generate timecode that is to show the timecode as far as where it is on the export timeline. So if there is a change in the format for that timecode, you would see a change here, or if you had multiple clips strung together, you would see a difference between generating from the media file versus generating the timecode. So when we're generating our own timecode, we have the option to change the format in terms of the actual frame count and start at a different place. So when we pick up the timecode from the media file, it already was started at four hours two minutes because that's the way it was shot, however, if we choose to we can generate timecode and start from zero. And then we'll just get a full count of how long this video is detached from the timecode as it is on the clip itself. Now, depending on your workflow, you're gonna wanna be careful with these things. If your editor is identifying everything by the media timecode, you probably don't wanna generate timecodes starting at zero. That's not gonna be as effective. Having burned-in timecode on video, either raw rushes or rough cuts can be extremely useful when making notes and communicating with your team. Technically this is a great way to add that timecode in Media Encoder, but do check with your team about the exact numbers you're looking at, so you're not working with apples and oranges.

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