Why do my premiere pro cs6 renders take so long?

[Joey Sperber]

Yes I do have the mercury renderer turned on. My computer meets all the system requirements for premiere pro

[Tom Daigon]

When you say render do you mean just rendering the timeline so you can play it OR do you mean export to a file when you have finished the project.

Rendering time varies depending on how many and what kind of effects you have assigned to the clips on the timeline.

Exporting involves rebuilding each frame to the output format you have chosen while also processing any effects.

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPrG3WUyz8
(Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Joey Sperber]

Both of those actions take a long time

[Tom Daigon]

What CPU do you have? Do you have a Nvidia cuda card? How much ram do you have? These are important factors influencing Rendering Previews and Exporting times.

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPrG3WUyz8
(Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Walter Soyka]

[Joey Sperber] “I have recently switched to premiere from fcp, but I have noticed that my renders are taking much longer. I was rendering a 3 minute clip and it took 2 hours. Also premiere has just been sow overall. Am I doing something wrong. I am working on a 2010 21.5 inch iMac, with a intel i3 processor and 16gb of ram.”

Joey, you’ll have to give us a bit more information.

In addition to the questions Tom posed, I’d ask the following:

Please describe your footage (file type and compressor), your sequence settings, your storage, and when exporting, your export format and settings.

Please also describe your workflow (how you got the files in, what effects you’ve applied, what you’re trying to achieve overall).

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Joey Sperber]

I am working with dslr footage 1920 1080 24p footage. I put that directly from the camera into premiere pro. When I export I use a QuickTime format using h264.

[Walter Soyka]

[Joey Sperber] “I am working with dslr footage 1920 1080 24p footage.”

Ok.

[Joey Sperber] “I put that directly from the camera into premiere pro.”

Are you copying the card’s contents onto your hard drive first, then importing into Pr via the Media Browser, or you trying to edit off the card while it’s still loaded in the camera?

What else are you doing to the footage? Any effects?

[Joey Sperber] “When I export I use a QuickTime format using h264.”

Consider using the H.264 presets instead of QuickTime with H.264. The encoders are significantly faster and higher-quality, and the resulting .MP4 files play beautifully on both Macs, PCs, and the web.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Joey Sperber]

I do copy the contents of the card to my hard drive first and then import them via media browser. The only effects I applied was brightness and contrast and unsharp mask

[Martin Rose]

Take off the unsharp mask and then see how long it takes to export.

Martin

[Joey Sperber]

I’m not sure extactly what defragment means I am working on a mac platform