Premiere Underpowered …?

Adobe Premiere Pro

Premiere Underpowered …?

Posted by Jason Jones on October 17, 2011 at 9:55 pm

Like everybody else you’ve recently spoken to, I’m making the switch from FCP7 to CS5.5 Premiere Pro. Because I’m planning to work in Davinci Resolve, I’ve done (I think!) all the stuff I have to do to get up to some kind of speed. That speed, however, seems underwhelming, and I figure I must be missing something. Here’s the kit:

Early 2008 MacPro 3,1 Quad-Core 2.8GHz, 18GB RAM, running 10.6.8, with the following cards in PCIe slots – ATTO ExpressSAS R380 in Slot3, NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT in Slot1, NVIDIA Quadro 4000 in Slot2, and a Decklink HD Extreme 3D in Slot4. That last card drives a JVC Verite ref monitor; the rest seem self-expanitory.

My settings in Premiere include using Mercury Playback Enbgine GPU Acceleration, and Blackmagic Extra for DSLR 24fps.

What am I failing to consider? My performance, especially given what I’d come to expect from 64-bit, is underwhelming for sure. Thanks in advance!

J

Tom Daigon replied 14 years, 6 months ago 5 Members · 17 Replies
17 Replies

Tom Daigon
October 17, 2011 at 10:21 pm

Jason, I am also a switcher and have a very similar system. I dont do Davinci but for all the projects Ive worked (on Prores, P2,Red, Photo-JPEG, XDCAM EX) I have had a positive experience.
You need to be more specific and detailed about what exactly your issues are. This might include the clips you are using, any external devices (Kona or BM) and a more descriptive explanation of what is disappointing you .

Tom Daigon
Avid DS / PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
Mac Pro 3,1
8 core
10.6.8
Nvidia Quadro 4000
24 gigs ram
Maxx Digital / Areca 8tb. raid
Kona 3
Jason Jones
October 17, 2011 at 10:27 pm

Absolutely: these are all ProRes422 clips from a 5D, Blackmagic Decklink HD Extreme 3D for the reference monitor only, with and without transitions, ie, dissolves. I seem to be getting a lot of stop-and-start behavior, as in FCP when you are running from a slow drive, or have a real stack of tracks. This phenomenon occurs in Premiere Pro with everything on a single track.

Is that helpful at all? Anything else appropriate to list?

I guess I’m not sure how I know, for example, that the CUDA card is working …

Thanks –

J
Tom Daigon
October 17, 2011 at 10:36 pm

BM and AJA are in process of refining their support for PrP.I find myself NOT using external monitoring and therefor building just native Adobe sequences. I get much better performance, but Im sure the hardware will get updates to address issues like the BM has. If the clips were 5D you need more processing power due to the compression (GOP) on the clip. I set my program (right) monitor for 1/2 resolution and get full speed playback.
Prores there should be no problem . Is your Nvidia 4000 CUDA activated with the most recent drivers? That can help if using Adobe accelerated transitions in a MAJOR way. Even with color correction.You can see if CUDA is working by going into Preferences and seeif the card is in Hardware or software emulation mode. Heres some info

https://blogs.adobe.com/premiereprotraining/2011/02/cuda-mercury-playback-engine-and-adobe-premiere-pro.html

Here is what I am using…

Tom Daigon
Avid DS / PrP / After Effects Editor
https://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
Mac Pro 3,1
2 x 3.2 ghz Quad Core Intel Xeon
10.6.8
Nvidia Quadro 4000
24 gigs ram
Kona 3
Maxx Digital / Areca 8tb. raid
Jason Jones
October 17, 2011 at 10:44 pm

Well, I get the appeal of using the native displays, but I’m coming from the still world, so being able to do a ton of grading on a calibrated monitor is kind of in the DNA! So letting go of the JVC is a no-go for me.

I’m updating my CUDA driver now – there was an update waiting, and I neglected to notice that …

RAM is cheap – is there a reason to consider adding another six or eight gigs?!?

J
Jason Jones
October 17, 2011 at 10:50 pm

Here’s a Blackmagic question for Tom or anybody that might know: In the Sys Prefs dialogue, should I UNcheck Use 1080p not 1080PsF? And should I keep “Select output processing – OFF”? Does either make a performace difference?

Thanks a ton –

J
Tom Daigon
October 17, 2011 at 10:53 pm

Jason, for 30 years I worked in facilities with Tektronics monitors. I know where you are coming from. But until all the ducks are in a row this is the way I solved my issues.

Are you updated to PrP 5.5? Some issues have been resolved with this version.

Sorry, Im a Kona guy. Cant help with BM, but a lot of your slow playback issues are most likely related to it.

Tom Daigon
Avid DS / PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
Mac Pro 3,1
8 core
10.6.8
Nvidia Quadro 4000
24 gigs ram
Maxx Digital / Areca 8tb. raid
Kona 3
Tom Daigon
October 17, 2011 at 10:57 pm

Jason, for 30 years I worked in facilities with Tektronics monitors. I know where you are coming from. But until all the ducks are in a row this is the way I solved my issues.

Are you updated to PrP 5.5? Some issues have been resolved with this version.

Sorry, Im a Kona guy. Cant help with BM, but a lot of your slow playback issues are most likely related to it.

Tom Daigon
Avid DS / PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
Mac Pro 3,1
8 core
10.6.8
Nvidia Quadro 4000
24 gigs ram
Maxx Digital / Areca 8tb. raid
Kona 3
Jason Jones
October 17, 2011 at 10:57 pm

Yep, I’m CS5.5, so that’s not it. I think you’re probably right, that it’s a function of either my particular Blackmagic settings (PsF versus p?) or the BM driver itself needing some improvement. Ah ….
David Cherniack
October 18, 2011 at 11:09 am

Jason, why do you have the Nvidia 8800 in the system? At this point Pr can only use one GPU. There may be a conflict with the 4000. First thing I’d try is pulling the 8800 and running the 4000 for the Pr display and CUDA. I’d also look at the issue that the AJA folks were having with selecting the audio hardware. It may be the same issue with BM cards on the Mac. The last thing I can think of to check is the version of nVidIA drivers. The latest is not necessarily the best. With Matrox on the PC we’re finding that 275.33 is working well.

David
AllinOneFilms.com
Chris Tompkins
October 18, 2011 at 11:46 am

Tips that made my CS5.5 and BMD play smooth are:

Issue
When you try to play audio or video files in Soundbooth or Adobe Premiere Pro, playback stops or loops after a very short time—from a few frames to a few seconds.

Solution
Do one of the following:
• Remove the Aggregate Devices plist file.
1. Open the Finder and navigate to /YOUR_HD/Library/Preferences.
2. Rename the com.apple.audio.AggregateDevices.plist file, or move it to the trash.
3. Restart Soundbooth or Adobe Premiere Pro and retry.
4.
Audio tracks in premiere are stereo or mono. And you can only edit like tracks to like tracks. Your A1 track is stereo and your source is 2 channel mono.

To get fcp like behavior, check your new sequence properties audio tab and change it to 0 stereo tracks and 4 mono tracks. Then go to preferences/audio and set the import clips preference to mono.

AND:

Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta LLC

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