Premiere Pro and 5K Perfect Playback

[AlexJones]

Hi Guys so I need to ask, why is Premiere so loved? If it worked, it would be a great tool but it sucks and I'll tell you why... In FCPX, I've been cutting my epic footage at full 5K 3:1 with no problem at all. All I do is transcode media and start working. Once I'm done, I just hit a button and bam! Everything is online. With FCPX I get zero and I mean ZEERRO playback issues because everything is transcoded to pro res proxy. This is great! Even any changes I make to picture size and anything at all doesn't get affected. Now, I would love to use Premiere. I really would but when I import the clips, they're all online and give me bad playback issues and even at 1/16th. I don't want to watch my cut in a blocky image anyways because you can't see anything. So I transcode everything in Red cine X to proxy at 5k res. I do this because I push in a lot for macro wildlife films. Then, when I import, it still gives me lag!?!?! I don't get it. I was super excited to find out that the latest update finally transcodes but it can't even handle it's own go pro cine form codec lol and it can't handle pro res LT. Whats up with this? When I import what PP transcodes into fcpx it works completely fine. Now listen, I don't have the most powerful mac...

Processor 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6770M 512 MB

but if that was the case then why does fcpx work so smoothly? I've heard PPCC has issues with playback and it's such a stupid business model that they use to say, "you can edit anything" no you can't. Not really. That's like saying, "you can be a pro baseball player" well yea but not really. Unless I'm completely missing something! Thats why I'm here. No one seems to be having my same issues but I've been a fcpx/fcp7 user for a long time so I understand things are different for this. Can you help me understand and troubleshoot the situation? I must admit though, The update makes Premiere Pro CC look super sexy.

 

[Phil Holland]

That's a fairly under powered setup in my mind for 5K proxy playback in Premiere Pro. What sort of disks are you working with?

RAM, Processor, GPU and GPU processing power and memory all come into play here.

One thing you might try is a different proxy codec. Cineform has been suddenly added very well into the Adobe mix. Really looking forward to Avid's DNxHR when it's out as well.

 

[AlexJones]

Hi Phil. I don' know what you mean by disks? If you mean Harddrive space I have 1 TB. That's my point though. You say it all comes into play but at the same time, I run 5k epic media perfectly in FPCX... and to be honest, I think X is better anyways but still jumping around just to catch up on things. DNXHR? woop! Avid finally got the picture? lol

 

[Joseph Coleman]

So just for clarification, Your rendering out proxy files at full 5k? or are they 1080P proxies?

Either way your statement "In FCPX, I've been cutting my epic footage at full 5K 3:1 with no problem at all" is just misleading. Your using an offline workflow, not sure how that can be viewed as cutting 5k 3:1 with no problem. Can you cut fullres online (meaning no transcoded poxies) 5k 3:1 footage in FCPx with your machine? I have heard that FinalCut X does a really good job with playback, but I would be very surprised if you can play fullres 5k .r3d's on the system that you are using.

Assuming that your machine can't playback fullres 5k 3:1 .r3d's in either program. What you seem to be missing is Premiere does have an offline workflow, It just is not as easy as FCPx's. You should do a search online. There are some tutorials to show you how.

To get the most out of Premiere. Your going to have to invest in a more robust machine. I would suggest starting with a quad core or hex core i7. 64gb of ram and a gtx 780 gpu. You should have no problem playing back 1/4 or 1/2 res .r3d's on that system. Especially with 2014 CC's gpu debayering. I personally have not transcoded media in 3 years because of Premiere. The ability to dynamic link between After Effects and SpeedGrade is just awesome! My last project required no rendering until the final colored output with titles and effects! I love it!