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Prem CS5 H264 usage issues
Using Premiere Pro CS5. (System: Core i7 920 / 6GB RAM / Gforce 9800GT 1GB)
I loaded some 720p H264 (avc1) footage into the timeline of a 720p project.
Before playing or caching anything I see a yellow line above the footage item in the time line which I believe indicates this items does not need to cache as it will play real-timeWhen I do play or try to cache and then play from the timeline the resulting playback within premiere is really terrible.
* Major blocky pixelation
* hanging or randomly stuck motion
* pixels is areas of contrast look like they are being left behind.If I play the same footage in bridge CS5, VLC player, AE CS5 it works perfectly.
Within Premiere > Sequence settings > Video Preview area at bottom:
* Preview file format and codec options are all greyed out
(set to I-frame only MPEG and MPEG I-frame respectively)* I can check/uncheck the Max bit depth/Max render Q though, but it doesn’t fix anything.
I also tried fiddling with, Sequence settings>playback settings:
* Changed aspect ratio conversion from Hardware to software or even off and changed the 24p conversion method and external device options. Nothing makes a change.Any ideas on how I can get this working would be great!
ThanksGraham Macfarlane
3D animator and VFX specialist
London UK -
5 Replies
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Hello,
Which camera was this footage filmed from and which Adobe Prmeeire pro preset are you using?
Leo
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I have seen blocky playback of AVCHD using the default 1/2 resolution setting in the Program Monitor. Right-click in Program Monitor and select FULL for playback resolution and see if that helps.
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Like Jeff mentioned, H264 AVCHD can be pretty rugged looking on playback using the half-res decode setting for playback.
Yellow indicates that the footage SHOULD play back…but that status is not calculated based on any in-depth system assessment. It doesn’t mean that your system is actually capable of playing the footage.
As far as the playback frame dropping is concerned, I’m wondering if the pixel aspect is correct for the sequence settings…? 1280x720p square? Correct framerate?
What happens to the framerate if you drop to quarter res for playback?
Do you seem to have issues with any other formats playing back? XDcamHD? DVCProHD?
Half res 1280x720p AVCHD shouldn’t be a problem for full frame rate playback (pixelation for this format is common in sub-full res mode) in one stream…multiple streams will likely stress your single-socket processor, even with HT enabling 8 threads…and effects will immediately slow you up (is CUDA enabled on your display card?).
In my experience, AVCHD/DSLR footage seems to run much smoother with multiple physical processors.
For AVCHD, multiple physical processors trump multiple cores…and actual cores trump virtual (hyperthreading) cores for productivity…(since you work in visual effects, you’re probably quite familiar with this concept).
If the material came from a DSLR, the data rate increases to 50 Mbits/s and the decode is a bit more stressful and that could slow things down a bit…
Either way, these formats shouldn’t require a massively fast hard drive for the data rate, so it’s doubtful that’s the problem, even if you only have one 7200rpm drive, one stream should be no problem without effects.
…but H264 is a CPU load relative to almost anything else.
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions, -
Drag a clip to the new sequence icon. This will create a sequence that matches your footage (you won’t need to play with pixel aspect ratio, etc)
Right click and change your Program monitor so the playback resolution is 1/2.
If it’s struggling there, it’s mostly likely because of your processor. If you have to, set it to 1/4. It’ll be blockly but playback.
Best,
Jeff G
Apple Master Trainer | Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC
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Leo Baker & Jeff Greenberg:
The footage and premiere project settings definitely all match. I dealing with stock footage so I don’t know anything about the camera used (no meta data either).Jeff Pullera:
I used to edit on Premiere all the time back in the pre-CS days but rarely do editing now as I focus on motion graphics in AE. As a consequence I didn’t notice the playback resolution option which I believe is new to CS5, until you mentioned it!
It was set to 1/2 and when I set it to 1 (full res), everything plays absolutely perfectly and scrubbing is not too bad either! Thanks!!Tim Kolb:
I realise now that the dropped frames only looked like dropped frames. They were in fact extreme artifacting (reminiscent of video with too few key frames and low data rate). Action appears to swim and slip or get stuck on screen. In my case because the whole picture was in motion, everything was jamming up.I also looked into CUDA for premiere and since my card does support it (according to Nvidia) I found the procedure to get Premiere to recognise my card (which by default it doesn’t)
Within the Premiere Pro install folder I opened the file:
cuda_supported_cards.txt
and added my card to the bottom of the list of supported cards as it is written when one runs GPUSniffer.exe (also in prem install folder) from command prompt (on PC)Now with CUDA enabled in premiere I get Hardware mercury playback instead of just software and it scrubs like butter!
Overall very pleased now, Thanks guys!
Graham Macfarlane
3D animator and VFX specialist
London UK
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