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.

For details about changes to the Source monitor, Program monitor, Timecode, and Timeline panels, see this video by Todd Kopriva and video2brain.

By default, the most useful buttons are displayed along the bottom of the Source and Program Monitors. However, you can add more. Click "+" at the lower right of a monitor to open the button editor. Add buttons to the button bar by dragging them from the button editor. Up to 2 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."

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.

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 descrease the magnification setting to see more of the pasteboard area around the image (to adjust motion effects more easily, for example).

In Premiere Pro CS6, both the Source and the Program Monitor have the option to display an icon (resembling a "Stop Light") that indicates whether frames are being dropped during playback. The light should start green and change to yellow when dropped frames occur and reset on each playback. A tooltip will indicate 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.

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.

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 popup menu.

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.

In Premiere Pro CS6, you can show or hide controls from the panel menus of the Source and Program Monitors. For example, you may wish to hide transport controls if you know the J-K-L keyboard shortcuts for playback to gain more space to view your media.

Select or deslect 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.

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

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.

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