[Paul Nicholson]

This is an extremely hard problem to solve using Google. I have spent ten hours searching so far. My project’s images consist entirely of scrolling photoshop layers that reveal lyrics in time with the backing track audio. I have been using a text editor to try to hack the pproj file but its complicated and my coding skills aren’t good enough.

The problem is simply this: Adobe Media Encoder is showing me that it is running through every single of the 470 items in the project just to export a single 4 minute song (4 photoshop image layers and an mp3 or wav).

I always select the work area correctly and the exported video is always perfect. Its the wasted time I want to fix. I suspect Premiere is doing all this because everything is inside one ‘bin’ (folder). All new photoshop layers land in their own sub-bins but the 300+ items that existed before the timeline import trick are floating around in the one bin – mostly with the same name ‘black rectangle’ – I use black rectangles for revealing lyrics from a dark opacity shield and under the titles. Also, as you can imagine, I named the chord images for each song “chords”, so there are a lot of items called “chords”. The project has no problem distinguishing between all these same named items at all. I dont intend to start again – its been around five hundred hours work so far and it could barely have been achieved any faster.

The photoshop images are simply text, black rectangles and occasional tricky chord icons. They caused no issues in export speed before the timeline import trick caused premiere/adobe media encoder to run through every single item in the project for little four minute, four file exports in a dedicated work area.

Dragging every file out of the bin and into the root pops up the warning:

………

Wait a second!

………

Instead of pressing Ctrl X on all the items in the bin, this time I DRAGGED them out. Strange how Premiere considers cutting and pasting different from dragging – thats like Apple logic. This didn’t cause any harm for a change ☺ Now I just deleted the empty bin and yes! ☺ They are all now in the root!! The project still seems completely intact! ☺

Now to run a test….

Ouch. It seems that my ‘bin’ theory was wrong. Thank Zeus its eliminated, though. Now I can move on to finding the ACTUAL reason Adobe Media Encoder is processing every file in the entire project.

I have been watching Adobe Media Encoder’s Encoding panel and I am seeing all the audio files, both mp3 and wav being processed all together with no other file types mixed in. The order is suspicious – it is not alphabetical. Upon inspection it is in the order from left to right of every song in my sequence. Yes, it appears to have gone through every audio file only from left to right through the sequence. No other files (images) were mentioned in the Encoding window. During this time, the elapsed and remaining times remained frozen and the progress bar had not begun, but after the audio files had ‘processed’, the project encoded at full speed. I don’t know what is causing this.

I’m going to close Premiere and reopen it and see if the project is still intact, and close and reopen Adobe Media Encoder and see if this happens again. It could be related to my export settings maybe?

I am rendering the work area (enter key) and this time I’ll export with ‘Use Previews’ selected…

Oops. Adobe Media Encoder froze – I had to close it with Task Manager. Just a sec…

I exported with ‘Use Previews’ and it made no difference. One last thing I can think to try – clear all cache for Premiere – there could be conflicts caused by the import timeline trick…

Edit>Preferences>Media>Media Cache Database. Clean.

Exporting…

Wow. This is taking forever. Maybe it needs to completely rebuild everything. Fingers crossed. I also enabled Project>Project Settings>General>Video Rendering and Playback: GPU acceleration – my timeline is yellow now. Hopefully thats a good thing.

Ok, I wasnt watching that time, but the export worked successfully after half an hour. Let me try again – maybe everything’s fixed now…

Adobe Media Encoder’s Encoding panel is stuck on “Reading XMP…” Elapsed 00:00:01 Remaining _:_:_

5 mins like this so far. Computer whirring.
7 mins.
9 mins…wait.
It stopped saying “Reading XMP…” and then Remaining changed to 00:00:26 and the video was exported within 20 seconds.
Great! Making progress! ☺

Now I just have to figure out how to make every project export within 20 seconds like that, without the 9 minutes of reading XMP.

I turned off GPU acceleration and cleaned the cache again to see if it would help, and now its gone back to processing every audio file in the project. Huh???

Im now going to uncheck Edit>Preferences>Media>”Enable Clip and XMP Metadata linking”
Exporting…

That did nothing.
Now I’ll reactivate GPU acceleration AND uncheck “Enable Clip and XMP Metadata linking” AND Clean Cache AND restart Premiere AND restart Adobe Media Encoder…

Adobe Media Encoder always needs to be restarted with Task Manager if I cancel an export.
Ok.
Now time for an export test.

Here are the properties for the lyrics text file for this export:

File Path: D:\Pictures\Backing The sound of silence.psd
Type: Photoshop
File Size: 3.3 MB
Image Size: 1536 x 5234
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0

Exporting with these settings:
Output
H.264 768×1024, 30fps, Progressive CBR, Target 2.00 Mbps AAc, 160 kbps, 48 kHz, Stereo
Source
Sequence, Backing Tracks 1536×2048 (1.0), 30 fps, Lower, 23:58:56:02 48000 Hz, Stereo

Profile Main Level 4.0
Render at Maximum Depth – unchecked
Key Frame Distance – unchecked
Use Maximum Render Quality – checked
Use Previews – checked
Use Frame Blending – unchecked.

Estimated file size for this 3 minute iPad video is 46 MB.

Any confusion about these settings would be related to the iPad 4 being upgraded to the iPad 6 – vastly different video allowances.

Here goes. Exporting with the QUEUE button in Premiere Pro CS6:
Adobe Media Encoder opened and ready. Play.
Its 5:06am. Reading XMP…
5:11am. Reading XMP…
5:12am I have added an extra 4 minute video to the export queue to test if Reading XMP only has to happen once.
5:14am. Reading XMP…

5:15am. Started progress bar. Completed within 20 seconds.
Next video in queue has started. Reading XMP…
5:18am. Cancelling export. Using Task Manager to shut down Adobe Media Encoder. Deleting incomplete files from all the testing.
Re-checking Edit>Preferences>Media>”Enable Clip and XMP Metadata linking” because disabling it had no effect. Leaving GPU acceleration active.

Any ideas on how to speed up ‘Reading XMP…’ encoding? It seems like three minutes of reading xmp per 1 minute of video. Thankfully I’m not seeing the audio files being processed now that GPU acceleration is active – but they might simply be hidden in this mode.

Any ideas?

[Paul Nicholson]

‘Another route is to open a new project and then import only your timeline. This method will keep the effects applied to your clips and it will import only the clips in the imported timeline.’

Thats what I did to begin with.

You recommend I research the way Premiere processes media files and that it wont hurt? And to go and Google it? Thats pretty offensive to tell someone to go and google something. Especially on a forum.

[Paul Nicholson]

I created a new project and imported the xml file and this error message popped up:

Translation Report

Please check the FCP Translation Results report (added to the main bin) for possible issues encountered during translation.

Then Premiere froze.

What made you recommend translating the project to final cut pro? Has this worked for you?

[Paul Nicholson]

I did what you said and received this error message:

Translation Report

Please check the FCP Translation Results report (saved next to the xml file) for possible issues encountered during translation.

The report file says this:
Translation issue:
Sequence at 00:00:00:00, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 00:05:08:16, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 00:09:13:12, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 00:13:16:20, audio track 1: Effect on Clip <4_Non_Blondes_What_s_Up(Custom_Backing_Track).mp3> not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 00:13:16:20, audio track 2: Effect on Clip <4_Non_Blondes_What_s_Up(Acoustic_Guitar_Custom_Backing_Track).mp3> not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 00:18:06:00, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 00:22:20:16, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 00:26:00:02, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 00:30:49:10, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 00:35:02:00, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 00:38:32:18, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 00:43:20:25, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 00:46:57:23, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 00:46:57:23, audio track 2: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 00:46:57:23, audio track 3: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 01:57:45:09, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 02:00:00:00, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 02:04:42:10, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 02:07:46:28, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 02:12:06:26, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 02:16:59:29, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 02:21:04:01, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 02:27:06:14, audio track 2: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 02:27:15:05, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 02:30:38:18, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 02:33:55:17, audio track 2: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 04:00:00:00, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 04:06:49:16, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 04:07:10:02, audio track 2: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 04:07:21:12, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 04:15:34:01, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 04:16:06:08, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 04:19:02:19, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 04:22:27:05, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 04:33:38:26, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 04:33:38:26, audio track 2: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 04:40:00:11, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 04:44:17:05, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 04:49:41:19, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 06:08:31:19, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 06:15:51:01, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 06:19:46:19, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 06:23:06:03, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 07:57:04:15, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 08:11:03:15, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 08:11:03:15, audio track 2: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 08:17:39:05, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 08:21:18:04, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 08:24:14:26, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 10:00:00:00, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 10:10:57:03, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 10:13:31:12, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 10:15:54:05, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 10:19:59:04, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 10:20:00:27, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 10:22:39:09, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 10:30:19:19, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 10:30:19:19, audio track 2: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 10:32:54:09, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 12:00:00:00, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 12:02:53:02, audio track 2: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 12:03:09:11, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 12:06:19:15, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 12:16:05:18, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 12:16:31:15, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 12:24:18:19, audio track 1: Effect <1095783218 PitchShifter2> on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 12:26:45:20, audio track 1: Effect <1095783218 PitchShifter2> on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 12:26:45:20, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 12:56:19:04, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 12:56:29:01, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 13:02:18:07, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 13:02:20:00, audio track 2: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 13:04:58:25, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 13:49:45:00, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 14:00:00:00, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 14:16:49:21, audio track 2: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 14:17:17:07, audio track 2: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 14:17:20:13, audio track 2: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 14:19:44:22, audio track 2: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 14:21:03:13, audio track 2: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 14:21:53:23, audio track 2: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 14:21:54:29, audio track 2: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 14:21:56:08, audio track 2: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 14:21:57:13, audio track 2: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 14:21:58:19, audio track 2: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 14:21:59:29, audio track 2: Effect on Clip not translated.
Translation issue:
Sequence at 14:27:51:28, audio track 1: Effect on Clip not translated.

[Paul Nicholson]

Thank you. Im using Premiere Pro CS6. The XML Export is called ‘Final Cut Pro XML’. Is this the correct export option?

[Paul Nicholson]

Anyone? The export times are excruciating. Is this forum active?

[Paul Nicholson]

I hope you don’t mind if I paste my question here – you’re talking about ‘settings’ but the end result is a faster export, which is what my question is all about. I can see what is happening in Adobe Media Encoder when it exports my selected Work Area.

My project contains about 150 backing tracks with scrolling onscreen lyrics and guitar chords that I am constantly updating.

History of the issue:
I must have had conflicting sequences in my project due to clicking ‘Import As – Sequence’ when I imported Photoshop layers. This probably led to the project not being able to load because of a conflict. So I created an untitled project and imported the broken project (Import Entire Project did not work so I selected Import Sequence) and the project was restored, thank God.

Issue:
Unfortunately, this trick put the sequence file into the same folder as every other file. This means that every time I export, the encoding runs through every single file in the entire project – irrelevant files that are not related to the Work area, causing a usually 3 minute export to take 3 hours. The exports are all perfect but they are taking forever. My guess is that if the sequence file was OUTSIDE of this folder that contains hundreds of files, it would go back to normal. But if I drag the sequence file out of the ‘everything’ folder, the entire project disappears.

Question:
How do I move the sequence file outside of a folder without losing the project?

[Paul Nicholson]

Cool, thanks 🙂

[Paul Nicholson]

I have to use iTunes to import movies into the iPad, though, and iTunes won’t allow any incompatible videos to be dropped into the iPad movies folder.

[Paul Nicholson]

Good suggestion. Ideally I would have my songs showing at the same time as a set list. Luckily iPad does have media player apps that dont cut the music when I switch between non audio apps. Also the benefit of video files is that I can store them on youtube and they are with me when i forget my ipad or it runs out of batteries or I am asked to play a song at someone’s house when theres a guitar lying around. Also, Im not sure at this stage if having the lyrics on one page is better than scrolling lyrics. I havent tested it yet. I can certainly play more songs if the words and chords are written down. I can triple my repertoire without learning it all off by heart.