CS5 exporting using preview files – confusion

[Keith Moreau]

At least in my experience with a 8 Core Mac Pro with an Nvidia Quadro 4000 and 24GB of RAM there is no difference in export/encoding using the ‘use preview files’ option when exporting. In fact for me exporting is almost unusably slow except for the setting which using the sequence settings, in which case for me it’s about 2x of realtime. This may be partially because I’m doing multicam with very long files and 3-4 tracks at a time.

My pretty fast workflow is to use Prores LT as the timeline format, the export using the sequence settings to a prores file. This takes about twice as long as realtime and can create a huge ‘master’ file. Then I can use Media encoder or various Quicktime encoders to produce my final output. The time taken for this workflow is about 3-4 times the length of the sequence. Not the fastest but I can live with it. Media encoder is pretty fast if it has a Prores file as the master.

I’m not sure if the encoding performance is different it Windows or not. I have’t heard much about encoding times anywhere other than my threads.

That being said, as a current and former FCP user PPRo saves me a bunch of time in the workflow, other than this point so it’s worth it to me. If anybody has advice about how to speed up encoding please feel free to provide advice.

[Ann Bens]

General advice is: do not use preview files they are of lesser quality.

[Tim Kolb]

I answered your original post that you tagged onto a 3 month old thread:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/3/909582

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Jon Barrie]

I’d be interested to know if your workflow overall time to export to a single ProRes file is and the encode that master file to other is any quicker than just sending the export directly to AME and exporting to your formats immediately?

You can duplicate the export queue to setup multiple export types. It will save you a massive amount of hard drive space. Exporting to a separate drive from OS and media can make a difference too.

Cheers, JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
Jon’s YouTube Tutorial Page
follow Jon with twitter

[Keith Moreau]

This is a reply to Jon:

Especially when downrezzing, it’s like 6-10 times the length of the sequence to use the file directly from PPRo Project to Media Encoder, and it takes that long for every instance of the file, so if I wanted to make, say a 270 (ipod-sized) encode, and a 480P (dvd sized) and 720P (AppleTV/iPad Sized) it could take 30 times the length of the original sequence. If I just make one master 1080p file that takes about 2x, then each encode is about 1 -2x, so this way saves me a lot of time. If I can just do one or 2 encodes overnight, I don’t care, however, because of strange artifacting in chroma-key’ed material in the downrezzed encodes I don’t trust it much so if I need it to be done I’ll just output the full rez prores. I can also inspect it a lot better than in PPro when it’s output at full rez and rendered.

Maybe other’s experience is better, and believe me I’d like mine to be but it’s not so I just have to make it work as best as possible for me. Again if you have further suggestions please let me know. I could try using separate media but I don’t’ think that’s the bottleneck, but who knows. I just upgraded to a SSD boot system and things at least cosmetically are really speedy, maybe this will help PPro encoding. Thanks for your interest.

[Todd Kopriva]

I’ll quote myself from a recent article about rendering in Premiere Pro:

“Note: Rendering of previews is only for preview purposes. Preview files will not be used for final output unless you have Use Previews option checked on output—–which you should not use except in the case of rough previews. Using preview files for final output will in almost all cases cause a decrease in quality. It can speed things up in some cases, so it may be useful for creating a rough preview in less time.”

This advice comes from the people who wrote the code, too. When I first wrote that paragraph, one of the software engineers asked me to make it even stronger.

———————————————————————————————————
Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
Technical Support for professional video software
After Effects Help & Support
Premiere Pro Help & Support
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[Kris Koster]

Thanks very much for clearing that up.

I didn’t mishear what the guy from Adobe said at the London BVE Adobe stand last week. It surprised me because I always thought that using previews for output are for rough previews only.

When he said he couldn’t think of any reason not to use the rendered previews for final output I was actually considering changing my workflow!

I just assumed something had changed in CS5, which is why I questioned it here.

Thanks again,

https://kriskoster.com

[Pierre Conti]

So why state in the same article that preview will be full quality (as render are NOT full quality?

green: This segment of the sequence has a rendered preview file associated with it. Playback will play using the rendered preview file. Playback at full quality is certain to be in real time.

premiere pro is a mess in my opinion. Exporting a small timeline can take ridiculous amount of time even though you don’t apply effect. I find it nerve racking not being able to export a timeline at 100% of its quality of its native codec in just a click.

[Jessica Vecchione]

Is this still true….? I’m using CS5, mercury playback?
Thanks.