Premiere Pro, Lag and Lag everywhere, WHY ! Please aid me in optimizing my System.

[Alberto Bedin]

some suggestions:

– disable antivirus when working
– Premiere program files, source files, project files and export location should be on 4 different SSD.
– you should use a different SSD for caching and you must set it in premiere preferences
– 5400 HDD are useless for video editing. Also 7200 should not be used due to performance reasons.

[Jeff Pulera]

Agreed to remove or disable anti-virus, number one killer of performance, and no to 5400rpm drives. However, there is nothing wrong with a 7200rpm SATA drive if it’s a performance model such as WD Caviar Black or Seagate Barracuda. Do not use “green” drives!

You didn’t say what Premiere Pro version you are running – make sure that you have GPU hardware acceleration enabled, makes a very big difference in performance.

And where did you get H.264 files that are 55mbps – Source?

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Sibel Zivy]

Thanks I’ll do my best !

[Sibel Zivy]

Alright Jeff here’s the deal..

I record Gameplay @ the highest quality that’s why it’s a HBR of 55Mbs !
version of PP is 8.0.1..I don’t know how to manually upgrade.
Yes I have GPU render selected!
Although the Caviar is Green!

So what do you suggest with these terms ?

[Ht Davis]

55mbps?!!!! Yikes that’s high!!! Try creating a Proxy with a lower Bit rate dude!!!!!

Make a proxy only for editing purpose, then use a bulk or full format video for the output stage.

Put your clips into premiere, begin placing into sequence, then offline them, and relink to a smaller file (faster playback, lower resolution and MBPS), and then interpret the footage to your sequence settings, and edit away.

ALSO:
Keep Caching on internal disk, make sure you’ve got at least 40gb free space.

Keep audio and video previews on the same drive. This will allow faster in-line access when playing back rendered edits.

If you are creating a proxy, I suggest a proxy mpg or h264 with a 20-25mbit rate. You might also turn off the rendering on your graphics card. Most systems win7 and above look for the processing on the main CPU first, and when there is a GPU present, will find it, and use it as well, compounding the power of your CPU rather than trying to send an allocation to GPU, then the data, then process only what it can handle, then pass an allocation back, then back to memory and write out for use in app. No, man… …Send an allocation request for graphics to CPU, which allocates for GPU as well, and then pass the full weight to both and process, then send both back out along the same operation pipe, to memory and then drives for use, while polling cpu and gpu again. Two processors for the price of one and faster.

[Sibel Zivy]

Davis could you explain how I could do that ?
I’m fairly new you know.
I mean I can make smaller versions of the videos, but the cpu/gpu assessment… Could you walk me through ?

[Ht Davis]

Cache:
This goes back to an old technology called PAGING. Adobe stores some extra info (basically cloned from your RAM) for quickly copying back to ram and running. On MAC’s this needs specific permissions to be able to run, and I believe on PC as well, with Win7 and 8. It’s a logical assumption since your memory holds everything you are running, including some of your operating system. Set it to a location on your internal, main SSD or HDD by going to your premiere preferences, under media. Do not set it to save a copy next to originals… …this doubles the amount of space you need, and can fail when on an external drive. Under that, you should see the setting for media cache database. Make sure it is on your main drive, in a location you have access to (I chose Documents folder, so I could empty it manually if necessary). Click ok.
Previews:
Now… …In your sequence settings, you need to select where to put your preview files. I keep them with my project file on a “Disk Image”. *(This is a binary file that a system will see like a Hard drive. I can create it anywhere, and format it just like a hard drive or a CD\DVD, etc. I use the Mac, so I go to Applications, utilities, disk utility. This application will allow me to select the icon for “New Image” and save a blank “Image” anywhere. I suggest you look this up and research a little, then try using a “Sparse” image. I’d like to talk more about that with you, but maybe we can do that by email.)* But you can save your previews anywhere you have the space, so long as you keep them together (they are split into stream transport if you set your preview to the standard i-frame only mpeg); they are played back best that way.

CPU\GPU:
Check your preferences for OPENCL and CUDA. Most often, this will be detected for you, but sometimes it won’t. Check the specs of your system again. Do you have a separate graphics card or is it built in to the system? IF so, OpenCL will be the way to go. IF you are on Windows, and have a newer add-on card for graphics, you may have an advanced processing technology called CUDA. It’s super fast, and very powerful. If on windows, turn it on in your system, and in your premiere preferences under graphics. On a mac, turn it off. Macs currently have trouble with it for the following reason:
When I spoke of graphics before, I was trying to point out that newer systems work differently to maximize the power across both your main processor (intel core 2, i5, etc) and a discreet graphics card (an added graphics processing unit with it’s own processor; e.g., nvidia, Radeon, ATI) at the same time. Older systems would use one or the other, limiting the power you had to process. Older systems would pass the command to the processor, which would pass it back with a list of what to do through the driver for the graphics card, to the memory and processor of the card, where it would work, then pass it back through the processor to the memory and out to the drives. Now it just passes it out to the processor in the same language as the gfx card would get, and the processor decides if the GPU is needed, then fills it when necessary, while processing part of the video itself. Mac computers make use of a Double-buffer in their underlying graphics driver, so it conflicts with CUDA, and many cards are having a problem with it.

[Jeff Pulera]

Going to have to disagree on proxy editing. That is typically used when the source footage is very heavy, such as RED camera footage, then the workflow may support a proxy situation. I’ve been editing NLE since the late 90s and have NEVER had any need to use proxies, seems like a whole lot of unnecessary extra time, fuss, drive space.

First, do NOT use the Green drive for video capture/editing, they suck. Get a Caviar Black instead. Turn off Indexing on the video drive.

Next, H.264 is very highly compressed, so for playback/editing, it takes a lot of processing power to decode each frame. I don’t know what you use for capture, but if you can capture as an .avi instead, that may solve the problems. The files will be larger – however, being less compressed, they are much more edit-friendly. But don’t use uncompressed, you do need a compressed codec.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Ht Davis]

I work on a macbook pro (2008) with 4gb ram (maxed out) 2.16ghz intel core2duo, 256mb gfx. All 1080 video is heavy. HEAVY can be ANY video that your system has trouble with in the editing workflow. PROXY reduces the requirements of the playback so you can edit and render without so many snags. You use full on formats at the END to ensure an output quality, then you can compress and all that to your hearts content. What about that doesn’t fit?

[Sibel Zivy]

Jeff it might be a while until I can get a new drive, But I’ll turn off indexing .
Could you spare some advice concerning how I should arrange and keep my files between my SSD(APP) and HDD(Video), I fairly certain that I’m not properly arranged with this.
What does indexing has to with it though ?
Yes I’ve also updated to 8.2 yesterday.

Thank you very much Jeff!