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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Premiere Pro CC performance

C

Charl Senekal

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Hi everyone.

I've been editing R3D footage ranging from 4K - 8K on my first edition iMac (4 GHz i7, 32Mb RAM, 4Gb Screen card) and needless to say it was not ideal for editing (not using proxies, still brand new at higher res video editing). Rendering took especially long though browsing clips using media browser was acceptable

I decided to invest in a better setup and switched to Win10 PC editing on Premiere Pro 2017 with following specs:
  • Intel i7 6900 8 core (3.2 GHz, overclocking to 3.7GHz)
  • 128Gb DDR4 RAM
  • 2x GeForce 1080 Ti 11Gb SLI bridged
  • 2Tb SSD for OS and software
  • 3x 3Tb 7200 RPM set up in RAID 0 (cache and scratch disk) USB 3.0
  • 2x 8 Tb 7200 RPM in RAID 0 (main storage) USB 3.0

Loading thumbnails in Premiere Pro 2017 is a nightmare. It takes up to 20 mins to list files and generate thumbnails for a single folder taken on a 480Gb card. My iMac with much lower specs loads thumbnails faster from the same drive. When browsing between folders, the files and thumbnails need to be loaded afresh, resulting in another long period of waiting. I turned off cursor scrubbing for what its worth and automatic cache deletion was switched off too.

File loading and thumbnail generation in CineX is near-instantaneous, and much faster in DaVinci than PP (downloaded DaVinci BETA as waiting time on PP drove me nuts). Playback in CineX is perfect at 1/4 res, but in PP I will often struggle with 1/16 with anything I work with.

When using media browser in PP the CPU and HDDs run at 6-8% and 10-30% respectively according to Task Manager. No other software runs simultaneously. I had a long chat to an Adobe representative and after sharing computer access was told that this is just the way it is and there was no workaround. I will disagree with this as mentioned, my older iMac's media browser is just so much faster though rendering was much slower. I scoured several forums resulting in me splitting cache, scratch and OS drives and nothing works. Advanced Intel H.264 decoding was also unticked as apparently it helped many others experiencing the same problem, but no change on my side. I dedicated 108 of the 128 Gigs or RAM to PP but still no difference.

Rendering final 4K output is beautiful and much faster, with CPU's and HDDs running near full speed, so super happy with that. The slow browsing is killing me though!

Any suggestions what I can do to up speed media browser and thumbnail generation in PP 2017?

Any assistance would be much appreciated

Regards

Charl
 
USB 3.0 RAID.

If you have a speedy internal RAID controller and drives to support you will experience a whole new world.
 
Charl Senekal said:
Hi everyone.

I've been editing R3D footage ranging from 4K - 8K on my first edition iMac (4 GHz i7, 32Mb RAM, 4Gb Screen card) and needless to say it was not ideal for editing (not using proxies, still brand new at higher res video editing). Rendering took especially long though browsing clips using media browser was acceptable

I decided to invest in a better setup and switched to Win10 PC editing on Premiere Pro 2017 with following specs:
  • Intel i7 6900 8 core (3.2 GHz, overclocking to 3.7GHz)
  • 128Gb DDR4 RAM
  • 2x GeForce 1080 Ti 11Gb SLI bridged
  • 2Tb SSD for OS and software
  • 3x 3Tb 7200 RPM set up in RAID 0 (cache and scratch disk) USB 3.0
  • 2x 8 Tb 7200 RPM in RAID 0 (main storage) USB 3.0

Loading thumbnails in Premiere Pro 2017 is a nightmare. It takes up to 20 mins to list files and generate thumbnails for a single folder taken on a 480Gb card. My iMac with much lower specs loads thumbnails faster from the same drive. When browsing between folders, the files and thumbnails need to be loaded afresh, resulting in another long period of waiting. I turned off cursor scrubbing for what its worth and automatic cache deletion was switched off too.

File loading and thumbnail generation in CineX is near-instantaneous, and much faster in DaVinci than PP (downloaded DaVinci BETA as waiting time on PP drove me nuts). Playback in CineX is perfect at 1/4 res, but in PP I will often struggle with 1/16 with anything I work with.

When using media browser in PP the CPU and HDDs run at 6-8% and 10-30% respectively according to Task Manager. No other software runs simultaneously. I had a long chat to an Adobe representative and after sharing computer access was told that this is just the way it is and there was no workaround. I will disagree with this as mentioned, my older iMac's media browser is just so much faster though rendering was much slower. I scoured several forums resulting in me splitting cache, scratch and OS drives and nothing works. Advanced Intel H.264 decoding was also unticked as apparently it helped many others experiencing the same problem, but no change on my side. I dedicated 108 of the 128 Gigs or RAM to PP but still no difference.

Rendering final 4K output is beautiful and much faster, with CPU's and HDDs running near full speed, so super happy with that. The slow browsing is killing me though!

Any suggestions what I can do to up speed media browser and thumbnail generation in PP 2017?

Any assistance would be much appreciated

Regards

Charl
Click to expand...


I have the same problem since the 2017 update. It kills me, everything works super slow in the adobe workspace. Importing R3D's and making proxy's take a lifetime. I always wondered why grading in resolve worked so flawlessly. So I edited my last project in resolve it was amazingly fast. I really hope adobe picks up what they have dropped since the 2017 update. Because else I will have to switch to resolve.
 
Phil Holland said:
USB 3.0 RAID.

If you have a speedy internal RAID controller and drives to support you will experience a whole new world.
Click to expand...



I doubt that is the problem. I have a pretty beefed up raid running internally. When importing and asking premiere to que things the software just takes ages to comply. Task manager shows no percentage of usage on CPU or Disk speed or RAM increase. Videocard no usage either. I can edit 8K material of a usb 3 external single HD in resolve with no hiccups. It's a strange phenomenon.
 
Thanks for advice Phil and Solomon, any suggested hardware I should consider? Anything should be affordable when compared to what I currently spend on coffee whilst waiting for thumbnails to generate
 
Thanks Jaimy, just saw your post now. As mentioned, thumbnail generation and playback in CineX and Resolve is almost instantaneous but takes forever with PP 2017. Willing to try anything at this stage
 
Charl Senekal said:
Thanks Jaimy, just saw your post now. As mentioned, thumbnail generation and playback in CineX and Resolve is almost instantaneous but takes forever with PP 2017. Willing to try anything at this stage
Click to expand...

Same here. Just got the new premiere update in. Going to try if it's better already.

Edit: Nope still the same. Maybe a little bit faster when importing. Did you tried it already?
 
Last edited:
Jaimy Soares said:
Same here. Just got the new premiere update in. Going to try if it's better already.

Edit: Nope still the same. Maybe a little bit faster when importing. Did you tried it already?
Click to expand...

According to Adobe I am on the latest PP update, unless another one was released in the last 2 hours. Still frustratingly slow
 
Internal RAID really helps things, but I am also noticing the same slowness a few others are. I was pleasantly surprised when I looked through the specs for my mobo and found it had a great, separate raid controller. It was a huge jump.
 
Jaimy Soares said:
I have the same problem since the 2017 update. It kills me, everything works super slow in the adobe workspace. Importing R3D's and making proxy's take a lifetime. I always wondered why grading in resolve worked so flawlessly. So I edited my last project in resolve it was amazingly fast. I really hope adobe picks up what they have dropped since the 2017 update. Because else I will have to switch to resolve.
Click to expand...

The current state of shoddy software development given the revenue increase to Adobe from the subscription model is at least a mystery if not a shame. I'm so looking forward to the new version of Resolve when it gets out of beta.
 
I am experiencing the same issue with Premiere Pro and Helium footage (not sure if its necessarily linked though). Being read off internal 1TB SSD that I can pull ~450MB/sec off of. Takes the media browser more than a minute to generate thumbnails for about 40 clips.. Totally unworkable! Also -- no luck with improving the speed in the new release (6/14).
 
Charl Senekal said:
Any suggestions what I can do to up speed media browser and thumbnail generation in PP 2017?
Click to expand...
I'd vote to use transcoded proxies for the edit, and then relink to the camera originals at the end of the project for the final conform.
 
Marc Wielage said:
I'd vote to use transcoded proxies for the edit, and then relink to the camera originals at the end of the project for the final conform.
Click to expand...

Yes that's the fastest way if you shoot proxy's in camera. Premiere is also really slow in queuing R3D's to media encoder for proxy creation. The making of the proxy's is fast but the queuing is even slower as opening a redmag folder in media browser.
 
It seems as though Adobe changed the caching behavior significantly in the recent builds (CC2017), I think it might have to do with that. They shouldn't be touching any more of the clip than is required for generating the preview thumbnail, but i have a nasty feeling it is attempting to a bunch of clip caching assessments under the hood. Is there anyone who can put me in contact with an Adobe engineer? Happy to work through this with them.
 
There is an Adobe guy who posts here infrequently, though I have not seen his posts for some time and he may not work for Adobe anymore. I don't remember his name.
 
I just did a quick test by copying 12 clips onto my main SSD drive (Samsung 960 EVO M.2) and opening the folder in CineX, Premiere and Resolve. Just tested the drive read speed averaging 702 MB/s using HD Tune Pro. All parameters were obviously the same as it is the same PC, same drive and same folder.

Time for all thumbnails to open in CineX was 7,04s. Resolve also excellent at 9,04s. Time in Premiere 1:01,45.
 
Charl Senekal said:
I just did a quick test by copying 12 clips onto my main SSD drive (Samsung 960 EVO M.2) and opening the folder in CineX, Premiere and Resolve. Just tested the drive read speed averaging 702 MB/s using HD Tune Pro. All parameters were obviously the same as it is the same PC, same drive and same folder.

Time for all thumbnails to open in CineX was 7,04s. Resolve also excellent at 9,04s. Time in Premiere 1:01,45.
Click to expand...

Yes. That test is a perfect demonstration. Well done! Thank you!

I'm an businesses level Adobe CC subscriber, and the completely inept customer service rep I am talking to is excruciating. Even in the face of Charl 's evidence, as well as highly detailed descriptions of what I am experiencing he doesn't even seem to want to try and understand the problem we're experiencing in CC2017. Iv'e asked for ticket elevation to another tier and he agreed, so stay tuned, I will report back. In the mean time, I think others should open tickets, and if anyone has a real Adobe engineering contact, please put me in touch.
 
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