[Xavier Bonet]

Just to let you guys know this is an on and off issue… it happens about 80% of time while I’m editing and then I have to close and reopen PPro. Sometimes not even that helps and I have to restart the computer. Anyway, it’s made it impossible to use Frame Blending. Which is a bummer, because I know have a lot of sped-up footage that doesn’t look as smooth as before. I don’t know how to solve it. I have the issue while previewing but also when exporting the final material. And there’s absolutely NO online resources that I can find about the issue. Anyway, hope someone out there has had this issue and has found a solution. I would really love to know what it is!

[Xavier Bonet]

Hello again, Joe Clay (and everyone else looking into this discussion),
So I’ve prepared the test project. And I went ahead and tested it fully myself, and for the sake of thoroughness I also tested out the project in my old, rickety 3-year-old HP ENVY dv4 with 12Gb RAM, which is the PC I’ve been editing on up to know, and is definitely on its last legs: program crashes at least twice during every edit session, slow, slow, slow while editing… but… sadly, I guess, because I’ve just spent 2569 euro, it did better than the new MBP at rendering and exporting. Is it an understatement to say I’m underwhelmed? Don’t get me wrong, it does out-perform my old, rickety PC in many, many things… but for 3-times the price I would expect faster rendering and exporting.

Anyway, these are the facts:

Small clip worked on AE of 2560 x 1440 footage off a GoPro-ish camera. Added a black solid and CC Rainfall. Then imported into PP, changed the speed to 2000% and applied Frame Blending. That’s all. So in the end, it’s a 154-frame comp, 5:04 seconds. I tried the exact same project on both computer and both media exports where at my normal settings, that is: 1080p, 29,97 fps, VBR 2 Pass, Target and Max bitrates 25 Mbps. The results:

Brand-new MBPro with 16Gb RAM:

• Timeline render: 7:45 minutes
• Media export: (100% and completely ready) 16:47

Old, rickety PC:

• Timeline render: 6:50 minutes
• Media export: (100% and completely ready) 13:23

Is it fair to say I feel ripped off? Or did I get a lemon? I’m sort of stuck with a Mac now, so should I return this one and get the one with the AMD Radeon graphics included? Will it make a real difference or are these the rendering/exporting times I’m to expect?

Well, here’s the link to the trial project: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/frbpuzo0noshve5/AAD-OqKw5DZXpas6WmJK2_Rta?dl=0

Thanks again for all your help!

[Xavier Bonet]

Hi, Joe Clay,

[Joe Clay] “If you have a project that would be easily transferable to me through dropbox or something I can render it and tell you how long it takes if that helps.”
You’re very kind to offer rendering a sample to tell me how long it takes! I take it you have the same model MBPro I have now? The one with the 2.8GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 4.0GHz Processor and no AMD Radeon R9 M370X with 2GB GDDR5 memory? Anyway, I don’t want to take up too much of your time, so what I’ll do is send you a 4 second clip I worked on in AE and imported into PP, sped-up and set to frame blend. Let’s see how long it takes you to render it right on the timeline. Because it’s taking me 8+ minutes… which is, to me, the absolute opposite of impressive from a 2569 euro one-day-old computer that should be up to the task! Anyway, I’ll get the clip up and post a link (I guess to my Dropbox) for easy downloading tomorrow morning. Again, thanks a million for your kindness and help!

[Xavier Bonet]

Hello, everyone! Thanks a lot for all of your input!

Let me be a little more specific on why I’m gravitating toward a Mac now. I’ve only worked on PCs and have had more or less success. The thing is that a couple of years ago I moved to Paris and have been out-of-video-work ever since. Until now, that I’m getting back on the horse and, to top it off, I’m working a daily vlog of sorts. So, as one of you guessed it, the portability is a must. I’m moving around rather a lot and I need to edit on the go. Plus, maybe you guys know how SMALL everything is in Paris. I’m afraid that in order to make room for a desktop computer such as I would need I would have to evict the refrigerator or the washing machine from my apartment!

Plus, there’s the budget issue. Having a primary and secondary computer is out of the question. I had the opportunity of getting a Mac and I went for it. As I said, it was rather a recommendation from a couple of vlogger friends that are editing pretty good vlogs. But being the AE junky that I am, I need a little more juice, and that’s why I’m thinking if maybe I should get the other MBPro with the Intel Iris Pro Graphics + AMD Radeon R9 M370X with 2GB GDDR5 memory.

My doubt is whether it’s worth it or if I’m better of or just as well with the slightly better processor of this one, although it doesn’t have the AMD Radeon.

(I might have to exchange the MBPro anyway, at least for the same model, as I feel it’s not as fast as it should… It’s just slightly faster than my PC laptop with 12 Gb Ram that’s about 2-3 years old. Final video export is about the same or just shaves off a minute or two. So rather disappointing in that sense.)

Again, thanks a million for all your input!

[Xavier Bonet]

Hi, everyone!

Thanks a lot for all your input, and for taking the time to help me out. I still can’t find what happened. Nor can I find anyone else in the virtual universe that has had or is having this problem. So I guess I should feel lucky… not really. Anyway, it seems to have sorted itself out, or perhaps I aided a little.

This is what I did:

I contacted Apple to see about perhaps returning this computer, as it’s not as fast as I expected (perhaps I should’ve gone with the slightly less powerful processor but the discrete GPU AMD Radeon included), and it froze on me last night! Something you don’t want to happen on a computer that’s a-couple-of-hours-old. Plus, the right speaker buzzes somewhat. Anyway, they said if I didn’t want to try and Reset the System Management Controller (SMC) and see if that sorts out any of those issues, so I did. For that, I had to reset the Mac and then do the SMC reset (which I’m not sure if I did correctly, because nothing special happened). Anyway, when the OS reboot, I went into PPro again and the first thing I tested was this issue and now it worked fine.

So! What happened? I guess that’s between PPro and my MBPro… but I hope it doesn’t happen again in the future. If anyone else gets an issue like this, it’d be nice to know what’s causing it and if there’s a permanent solution.

Cheers!

P.S. When I quit PPro and AE to reboot the system, AE gave me and error, something about couldn’t being able to find the “dir”. I wasn’t able to read it, because I accidentally clicked OK.

[Xavier Bonet]

[Duke Sweden] “he only thing left to do is scour the dumpsters outside of ILM ;-)”

Hahaha! Let me know if you find anything interesting! 😉

[Xavier Bonet]

Hi again, Jeff,
I’ve tried several different source clips. One comes from a GoPro, the other from a Canon G7X, and the third is a time lapse from my Nikon D610. The first two are mp4, the last is mov; all three are 29.97. I use media from all three cameras every single day and I’ve never encountered this issue. Today, with the new computer, I have the same issue with clips from all three sources.

[Xavier Bonet]

Hi, Duke Sweden,

[Duke Sweden] “You shouldn’t have to resort to turning off hardware rendering”

I agree 100%. Resorting back to software defeats the purpose of buying such an expensive computer!

[Duke Sweden] “no problem rendering sped up footage using frame blending on my crappy little consumer PC”

Up to yesterday, on my “crappy little consumer PC”, I’ve never had issues with this… I’ve had issues with most everything else! But never this. So I’m stumped. I’m doing nothing differently, except that now I’m using a MacBook Pro…

[Xavier Bonet]

Hi, Jeff Pulera, thanks for your reply.

[Jeff Pulera] “What other effects might you be applying?”

No other effects. Just sped up the clip to about 1000%. Exact same settings as I used on yesterday’s clips and those of the day before on Premiere Pro CC on my PC.

[Jeff Pulera] “Seems unreasonable that a new machine would take that kind of render time…”

It really does. Which is why I’m going to contact Apple to see what may be going on. But that VERY slow render time was after I changed the Mercury Playback Engine to software, as recommended by a previous answer.

[Jeff Pulera] “Can we see a screen shot of your export settings please?”

I’m actually having this issue also while previewing. I just need to select frame blend and the image goes dark. I haven’t even exported the video yet. But, when I do, I’ll be doing it using H.264 with the preset YouTube HD 1080p setting.

[Xavier Bonet]

Mmmm… as I feared: to render a 4 second clip is taking me about 8 minutes… 🙁