PrP obervations after an effects heavy project

[Derek Andonian]

When you export from Premiere Pro, the output file is built using the original footage, rather than the preview files- which adds time to the export. But there’s also a positive side to this approach, as there is only one generation of quality loss for the final output…

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“THAT’S our fail-safe point. Up until here, we still have enough track to stop the locomotive before it plunges into the ravine… But after this windmill it’s the future or bust.”

[Robert Brown]

Yeah this is one of the things I mentioned in a suggestion to Adobe. I see the benefit in how they are doing it but it’s very different from almost everything out there and on a longer project could be a major pain. I think they ought to add the option of using render files during export. I also think they need to adopt Pro Res in full like Avid seems to be doing. Clients ask for it and it’s the best codec I know of. Whatever multi-generational issues using something like Pro Res would be negligible.

Robert Brown
Editor/VFX/Colorist – FCP, Smoke, Quantel Pablo, After Effects, 3DS MAX, Premiere Pro

https://vimeo.com/user3987510/videos

[Todd Perchert]

There is an option to ‘Use Previews’ in your Video Export settings to speed up your export, if you so choose… Just need to check it on.
TC

[Vince Becquiot]

As Todd mentioned, you can use preview as part of your export.

We have a pretty good raid system from Caldigit and so, rendering to uncompressed when needed is a great option, then use the preview for export, no loss, and it’s fast.

Vince Becquiot

Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area

[Tom Daigon]

Thanks guys. Just for grins I think I will give the “use render” approach a try and compare render times. Im sure it will slow down the process during the creative phase and that might be the best reason, not to do 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 Digita / Areca 8tb. raid

[Robert Brown]

I don’t know that that will slow things down. Compressed codecs take longer to render than uncompressed. It will take up more space though but not that much.

Robert Brown
Editor/VFX/Colorist – FCP, Smoke, Quantel Pablo, After Effects, 3DS MAX, Premiere Pro

https://vimeo.com/user3987510/videos

[Keith Moreau]

Tom, I had the same observations as you. You save time on the front end, but the renders take a long time. I also experimented with using Preview files, and I set my preview files to Prores as well because the default is some time of iframe mpeg format adobe uses.

I found that using previews didn’t significantly improve output time and if you don’t need them to work with the edit, they can take long time to render, so you’ve wasted twice as much time.

One technique I did use, when I need to output a lot of different formats, was to output one good ‘master’ format, like Prores 422 once, then use Media Encoder to make other versions, such as H.264 or whatever. If you just choose to queue various output formate and queued them into Media encoder, serialized the outputs for a number of different destinations, it would use the same original files each time, and the renders would take forever. Some effects, for me it was Digital Anarchy’s Beauty Box, is extremely slow on Premiere Pro. I was on a deadline and this nearly made me late. It was pretty stressful.

Scaling seems to take a long time, so I would avoid scaling for the ‘master.’ If you are at 1080P, output 1080P. Use CUDA accelerated effects is you can, this speeds up the render.

Adobe should make Previews actually work and save time during a render, and have the option of doing previews ‘in the background’ like our favorite app, FCP X. 🙂 And they should have a more versatile way of selecting what should be previewed, it’s pretty crude and all or nothing now.

[Tom Daigon]

Keith, thank you for confirming my suspicions. My standard work flow with FCP and PrP is always creating a Prores master, then strike dubs from it, so we agree on that approach as well.
I like your ideas about beefing up preview and rendering in background. Please send in a feature request. I religiously do this since I want to see PrP get better and better.

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

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 Digita / Areca 8tb. raid

[Chris Borjis]

Is this really an issue though?

A rendered fcp timeline will export fast.

A non-rendered fcp timeline with lots of fx and color corrections will take much longer.

[Keith Moreau]

I think it’s an issue if you are used to rendering a little at a time with FCP and have a very quick render the project end, vs moving to Premiere Pro and are thrilled that you don’t have to render all the time, and then when you get to the end of the project, which needs to be output and uploaded or a Blu Ray Fedexed by the end of the day you realize the render is going to take 15 hours and you are in a very bad place.

About 6-9 months ago you’ll see some posts by me, trying to fine-tune the rendering process and wondering why it was so slow. There will be a lot of FCP editors in the same situation.

This is a very serious issue that needs to be understood by former FCP editors because of how the 2 programs work differently. I now budget a couple of days at the end to render a longer form project when I work with Premiere Pro.

Tom had a 1 minute piece which took 8 minutes to output and he was surprised. What if you had a 45 minute piece to render?

However, if you plan correctly, avoid certain rendering activities, you can make it work.