Using the Source Monitor and Program Monitor

The Source Monitor plays back individual clips. In the Source Monitor, you prepare clips that you want to add to a sequence. You set In points and Out points, and specify the clip’s source tracks (audio or video). You can also insert clip markers and add clips to a sequence in a Timeline panel.

The Program Monitor plays back the sequence of clips that you are assembling. It’s your view of the active sequence in a Timeline panel. You can set sequence markers and specify sequence In points and Out points. Sequence In points and Out points define where frames are added or removed from the sequence.

Each monitor contains both a time ruler and controls to play back and cue the current frame of a source clip or sequence. Set In and Out points, go to In and Out points, and set markers. Insert and Overwrite buttons are available in the Source Monitor, and Lift and Extract buttons are available in the Program Monitor, by default. Each monitor also contains an Export Frame button for creating a still from a single frame of video.

By default, the most useful buttons are displayed along the bottom of the Source and Program Monitors. However, you can add more. To open the button editor, click "+" at the lower right of a monitor. Add buttons to the button bar by dragging them from the button editor. Up to two rows of buttons can be added. Spaces to separate groups of buttons can also be dragged to the button bar. To remove a button, drag it away from the button bar. To turn off all buttons, go to the panel menu and deselect "Show Transport Controls."

Set display quality for the Source and Program Monitors

Some formats are difficult to display in full-motion playback, due to their high compression or high data rate. A lower resolution permits faster motion playback, but at the expense of display image quality. This tradeoff is most visible when viewing AVCHD and other H.264 -codec based media. Below full resolution, these formats have error correction turned off, and artifacts are common during playback. These artifacts, however, do not show up in exported media.

Providing separate playback and pause resolutions gives you more control over your monitoring experience. With high-resolution footage, you can set playback resolution to a lower value (for example, 1/4) for smooth playback, and set the pause resolution to Full. These settings allow you to check the quality of focus or edge details when playback is paused. Scrubbing puts the monitor in playback resolution, not pause resolution.

Not all resolutions are available for all sequence types. For Standard Definition sequences, such as DV, only Full and 1/2 are available. For many HD sequences up to 1080 frame size, Full, 1/2, and 1/4 are available. For sequences with frame sizes larger than 1080, such as RED, more fractional resolutions are available.

Change magnification

The Source Monitor and Program Monitor scale video to fit into the available area. You can increase the magnification setting for each view to see the video in more detail. You can also decrease the magnification setting to see more of the pasteboard area around the image (to adjust motion effects more easily, for example).

Dropped frame indicator

Both the Source and the Program Monitor can display an icon (resembling a "Stop Light") that indicates whether frames are being dropped during playback. The light starts at green and changes to yellow when dropped frames occur and resets on each playback. A tool tip indicates the dropped frame count.

To enable the dropped Frame indicator for the Source or Program Monitor, enable Show Dropped Frame Indicator in the panel menu, or the Settings menu.

High-Quality Playback Setting

To optimize playback performance, playback quality at any of the monitor’s playback resolutions (Full, ½, and ¼) is lower than it is when pausing the video. Due to the difference in quality, users may notice a slight “bump” in image quality between playback and pause. Frames can have a slightly softer look during playback versus pause at the default settings, even when both are set to full resolution. With High-Quality Playback toggled on, the quality of playback frames will match paused frames when they’re set to the same resolution and eliminate the quality “bump” when starting and stopping playback. However, turning High-Quality Playback on can decrease playback performance, including causing dropped frames.

Choose a display mode

You can display normal video, the video’s alpha channel, or one of several measurement tools.

In the Source or Program Monitor, click the wrench icon, and choose a display mode setting.

Displays the normal video. This is the default view of a video clip or sequence.

Displays transparency as a grayscale image. If your footage has an alpha channel, this setting shows the image as a grayscale alpha matte with the dark areas being transparent.

Displays the footage of all cameras simultaneously. You can switch between cameras to choose footage for the final sequence.

When video clips have VR properties associated with them, this option is enabled. Using VR Video display, you can simulate different viewing experiences with your equirectangular video, for example, using a VR headset such as the Oculus Rift or on a desktop through YouTube or Facebook. For more information on VR video, see Support for VR workflows.

Split Program Monitor display that is useful for tasks such as matching colors between two shots or adjusting the intensity of an applied effect.

Gang Source and Program Monitor

The Gang functionality is a handy feature since it lets you see how a source clip compares to your sequence, and it is ideal for tasks like matching the look of one piece of footage with another. The Gang Source and Program button can be powerful for workflows like color correction, Multi-cam editing, or when comparing edits. 

The Gang Source and Program button gangs the Source Monitor and the Program Monitor together. Click the button to toggle the gang functionality on and off.  When it is enabled, the play heads are locked together and move in tandem. When it is off, the monitors function independently from one another.  

To gang the Source Monitor and Program Monitor:

• Click on + in the Source Monitor or Program Monitor and drag the   from the button editor to the button bar.
• Click the Settings button  in the lower right of the Source or Program monitors and select Gang Source and Program.

Use rulers and guides in the Program Monitor

Guides in the Program Monitor help you align text, graphic objects, videos, and still image clips. You can also save guides as templates for re-use, or to share with others.

• To show guides, choose View > Show Guides. To hide them, select View > Show Guides again.
• To lock guides, select View > Lock Guides.

Change the unit of measurement

Before working with guides, you need to show the rulers (View > Show Rulers) in the Program Monitor. Right-click the ruler to toggle between pixel and percentage measurement options.

Add guides

Remove guides

Snap objects to guides

Save, export, and import custom guides

You can save guides as Guides Templates, that can be exported and imported into Premiere Pro. 

Save guides

Import and export guides

You can share guides with your teammates if you have specific settings for action safe and title safe editing spaces.

Compare edits to clips in the Program Monitor

You can compare changes to clips by turning on the Comparison View in the Program Monitor.

To turn on Comparison View, click the Comparison View icon at the bottom of the Program Monitor.

The Comparison View in the Program monitor enables the following workflows:

• Shot Comparison (side by side and split view comparisons of different shots with a reference frame and a current frame). You can also use this workflow for color matching (for more information, see Color match shots). 
• Frame Comparison (side by side and split view comparisons of the same frame, displaying "Before" and "After" results of applied effects)

Toggle between the Shot Comparison and the Frame Comparison modes by clicking the Shot or Frame Comparison  icon.

You can view the changes to the clip side-by-side, horizontally, or vertically by selecting the display options shown below.

By default, the side-by-side view is displayed with the reference frame (or the Before frame) on the left, and the current frame (or the After frame) on the right. However, you can swap their position by clicking the Swap Sides  icon on the left of the Program Monitor.

If you use the vertical or horizontal split modes, you can drag the blue splitter across the image to do an onion-skinning comparison of the two shots.

Shot comparison

The Shot comparison mode allows you to compare different shots. This workflow is particularly useful for color matching.

To select the current frame: Park the playhead over a frame with the clip selected for it to appear as the current frame

To select the reference frame: By default, the reference frame is the first frame of the entire sequence. However, you can click on the navigation icons in the reference frame to a previous or next edit point. You can also scrub to a different reference frame using the scrubbable timecode. Once selected, Premiere Pro remembers that reference frame throughout the editing session until you select a different frame.

Frame comparison

This mode allows you to compare one side of a frame with a Before/After effect.

Open or clear a clip in the Source Monitor

To view and edit source clips listed in the Project panel or individual clip instances in a sequence, open the clips in the Source Monitor. The Source menu, accessed from the Source Monitor tab, lists open clips.

Navigate clips in the Source menu in the Source Monitor

You can set keyboard shortcuts for navigating multiple clips loaded into the Source Monitor. Keyboard shortcuts can speed toggling of clips, skipping to the first or last clip, or closing one or all the clips in the Source Monitor pop-up menu.

Use the Source Monitor and Program Monitor time controls

The Source Monitor has several controls for moving through time (or frames) in a clip. The Program Monitor contains similar controls for moving through a sequence.

Display the duration of a clip in the Source Monitor and sequence in the Program Monitor. Tick marks measure time using the video display format specified in the Project Settings dialog box. You can toggle the time rulers to display timecode in other formats. Each ruler also displays icons for its corresponding monitor’s markers and In and Out points. You can adjust the playhead, markers, and the In and Out points by dragging their icons in a time ruler.

Shows the location of the current frame in each monitor’s time ruler.

Show the timecode for the current frame. The current time displays are at the lower left of each monitor’s video. The Source Monitor shows the current time for the open clip. The Program Monitor shows the sequence’s current time. To move to a different time. Alternatively, click in the display and enter a new time, or place the pointer over the time display and drag left or right. To toggle display between full timecode and a frame count, Ctrl-click (Windows) or Command-click (Mac OS) the current time in either monitor or a Timeline panel.

Show the duration of the open clip or sequence. The duration is the time difference between the In point and the Out point for the clip or sequence. When no In point is set, the starting time of the clip or of the sequence is substituted. When no Out point is set, the Source Monitor uses the ending time of the clip to calculate duration. The Program Monitor uses the ending time of the last clip in the sequence to calculate duration.

Zoom scroll bars correspond with the visible area of the time ruler in each monitor. You can drag the handles to change the width of the bar and change the scale of the time ruler below. Expanding the bar to its maximum width reveals the entire duration of the time ruler. Contracting the bar zooms in for a more detailed view of the ruler. Expanding and contracting the bar is centered on the playhead. By positioning the mouse over the bar, you can use the mouse wheel to contract and expand the bar. You can also scroll the mouse wheel in the areas outside the bars for the same expanding and contracting behavior. By dragging the center of the bar, you can scroll the visible part of a time ruler without changing its scale. When you drag bar, you are not moving the playhead, however, you can move the bar and then click in the time ruler to move the playhead to the same area as the bar. A zoom scroll bar is also available in the Timeline.

Viewing Source and Program Monitor controls

You can show or hide controls from the panel menus of the Source and Program Monitors. For example, you can hide transport controls if you know the J-K-L keyboard shortcuts for playback to gain more space to view your media.

Select or deselect the option in the panel menu to show or hide the following:

• Transport controls
• Markers
• Time ruler numbers
• Dropped frames indicator

Access to many of the same commands for showing and hiding controls can also be found in the Settings button on each monitor.

View safe zones in the monitors

 
Safe zone guides are for your reference and are not included in previews or export.

Choose fields in the Source and Program Monitors

You can set the Source Monitor and Program Monitor to display the first field, second field, or both fields for interlaced footage. The settings in the Source Monitor are disabled when a progressive clip is opened in it. The settings in the Program Monitor are disabled when the active sequence uses a progressive sequence preset.

Nudge clips in Program Monitor

You can move a selected object in the Program Monitor by one frame at a time or by a large frame offset. This command is called “nudging”. You can nudge an object by moving it forward, backward, up and down in the Program Monitor. The nudge functionality is only available through keyboard shortcuts. For more information, see Keyboard shortcuts in Premiere Pro.

Select the image, text, shape, or graphic layer in the Program monitor for the nudge controls to work. Graphic layers with pinned layers move accordingly when the layer is nudged using the nudge controls. The undo action removes the nudge movement one at a time.