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The way Premiere functions when you Export Media
I’ve just run a test.
I created a clip in a certain codec (for this example it was animation codec 720p at 29.97fps) and I dragged it to the Premiere project pane.
Once it was in the project pane I dragged the clip on the new sequence icon and this created a sequence which exactly matched my clip. Same height, width, fps and codec.I then went to File > Export > Media, checked Match sequence settings and hit export.
I then watched Premiere render out the media.What I would have expected to happen is for the iFrames to simply copy out to the new clip with no rendering involved. I ran the test again using prores 720p clip on a prores timeline with the same results, it rendered. Now to me this is very, very surprising. Why? First let me explain.
Now I’m originally an FCP7 user who is migrating to Premiere and for those that don’t know if a clip on the FCP timeline matches the sequence setting then it does not need any rendering, it has a green bar above it. If a clip in FCP needs work from the processor for whatever reason, it has a red bar above it until it is rendered. Then rendered files are stored as temporary files. When its time to Export, FCP concatenates all the rendered files into one file.
So why am I running this test?
Because I had to be sure that this is the way Premiere works, I guess … or maybe I’m doing something wrong.Let me back up a bit to my real life situation that caused me to run the test.
So far I’ve been doing my longer form projects in FCP and as I migrate to Premiere I’ve been doing my shorter ‘under 5 minutes’ type projects in Premiere. All good so far. Until I attempted a longer 20 minute project in Premiere.
I go to export the 20 minute project and have to sit for hours while it renders out. Well no biggie … same in Final Cut except I would render on the timeline before the export.
But when the client asks for a small change and another export …
Well in Final Cut I would only need to render that small section on the timeline where the change was and export. But I’m finding in Premiere that I need to render/export the entire timeline again. This means waiting the whole duration of several hours wait again. This is hugely inefficient and will have an impact on the pricing / my payrate. And how I quote on my jobs – especially as most of my clients ar ad agencies who ask for many changes.
Am I doing something wrong? Or is this really the way Premiere is designed?
I really hope I’m doing something wrong as I was hoping Premiere could be my replacement for FCP7. -
9 Replies
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Jhoe…
You may be right.
Can I suggest the following:
1) Export a master File and reimport to PPro
2) Cut this to a master timeline of it’s own.
3) If there are changes: export only those sections out as clips, import them back to PPro and splice them into your Master timeline.
I’ll assume this should cut down the time on revision exports significantly.
A bit “hacky” I know….but you do what ya gotta….
Lemme know if this works…
Alex
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Jhoe, Im sharing this info since it kind of relates to the subject of how PrP functions when you export. Ive also done lots of tests and had lots of dialog about this subject. It is quite different from FCP.
And be forewarned, the time you save not transcoding at the front end of the process can be lost by the time it takes to export your project at the end of the process. Unlike FCP, which stitches together all the rendering done while you edit, Premiere renders the enter timeline when it exports. This can be humongous (hours) for large projects or projects with lots of dynamic links to AE or large format projects like Red.
An Adobe technician explained it to me this way when I asked him why PrP rendering on export seemed to take more time than FCP.“What you’re looking for is what we commonly refer to as smart rendering, and it doesn’t exist in PPro. That’s a Final Cut ‘ism, where it splices rendered data from the preview QT files into the final render. Keep in mind that’s a QuickTime centric feature, & doesn’t translate automatically to all file formats.”
A big discussion can be seen here.
https://forums.adobe.com/message/3945436#3945436
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 -
@ Alex – I thought of that as well which led me to my test mentioned at the start of my original post. Where I pushed an iFrame codec clip thru the post pipeline without an edit. So even going by your method, the pre-rendered filed need to be rendered again ! The entire of it !
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Yes. It will, but, it should be significantly lighter than rendering from the original timeline which includes FX that will have to be recalculated.
Are you saying there is no discernible difference there?
Let me also ask you this….
do you still have FCP?
Could you pass your master file and splices thru FCP as a final assembler?
I know it feels awkwards to think of that….but it’s about what will help you move the fastest….
Alex
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Alex, Wil (an Adobe employee) says in the link I sent in an earlier post, that Adobe suggests that using preview files can be problematic due to generation loss. The offical policy is to tell users not to use it. Add that to the fact that when PrP exports, it rerenders the ENTIRE sequence makes me miss the faster approach that FCP used. But that method was closely tied to Quicktime and converting everything to Prores Im told.
“The ‘Use preview files’ option in PPro is exactly that – if there’s a preview file, it decodes the frame out of it, & re-encodes it into the final file. So while it’ll help in (non-CUDA) effects heavy compositions, it also incurs a generation loss. Generally, we don’t recommend using it (hence the default to off) unless you really are sure that’s what you want.”
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 -
Nor should one use Match Sequence Setting. You could end up with the wrong codec.
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Adobe Certified Expert Premiere Pro
Adobe Community Professional -
[Tom Daigon] “”What you’re looking for is what we commonly refer to as smart rendering, and it doesn’t exist in PPro.”
perhaps it should in cs 6
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Chris, if it did happen in CS6 it would be only for certain formats and wouldnt help me with my work flow.
This is Wils response to my questions regarding Smart Rendering.
Wil – “lasvideo: smart rendering is something that we’ve been asked a lot about, esp. lately by all the broadcasting partners we’ve been working with. Specifically, their interest lies in smart rendering from XDCAM HD sources, as they’re all working with XDCAM 420 / 422 material (either camera captured OP1a MXF sources, or else material captured/ingested via Harmonic MediaDecks, Telestream, etc). Let’s just say that we’re very actively looking into what we can do here.Keep in mind though that this isn’t magic – the minute you apply any kind of effect (realtime or not) on an MPEG source, you nullify the ability to copy/paste/splice GOPs. Notwithstanding, smart rendering has a broad appeal to people in for instance news workflows, where the bulk of effects involve at best transitions between clips, so most of the edited material is ‘naked’.
I’m not sure what your workflow is, but reading between the lines, where I’m imagining you’re doing a lot of post effects (CC & the like) using CUDA, I think a different methodology might help things: I’m imagining something along the lines of hardware compression at the output of PPro, so if you have some kind of output card (ie BM/AJA/Matrox) and feeding SDI into a secondary capture device, so you could effectively get 1x output speeds; that, or else some kind of hardware accelerator plugin for Adobe Media Encoder such as the Elemental plugin for H.264 encoding…”
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 -
Thanks for your help everyone !
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