Background rendering

Well hopefully it will inspire you to do the equivalent on Mac OS. It's really just a series of keyboard commands. eg:

1. render work area
2. save project
3. switch to next open sequence
[repeat]

I added some extra stuff to overcome little issues I was catching, but I'm pretty sure if you had 15 minutes and a willingness to learn, you'd be able to throw that together in Automator or the new "Shortcuts" app and share it with others.

Your other options are: (1) wait for someone else to do it, (2) wait for Adobe to do it, (3) install Windows and use my solution, (4) live without it. 🙂

Good luck!

@380603 this is great but I'm on a mac!

[##updated to reflect pc-only]

This will only address a small subset of the needs expressed here, but I got so fed up with this not existing that I created a script I run any time I leave my desk that renders all open sequences. Probably inspired by FCP7's "auto-render after no activity for "x" minutes" feature. I guess it's Windows-only, but would hopefully inspire a Mac equivalent using automator or shortcuts if you have a similar need.

I'm often working on multiple versions / deliverables at the same time and can have lots of sequences open at once. Rendering them all gets me real time playback on complex timelines, and is a good prep for non-deliverable exports using the "use previews" workflow for instantaneous exports.

If you're looking at this and thinking, "come on, man! I'm not a programmer!" - don't worry. It's written for something called AutoHotKey which is actually super easy to install and create scripts with. Just download it (free), create a new script and paste this in. https://www.autohotkey.com/
-----
#NoEnv
SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir%
CoordMode, Mouse, Window
SendMode Input
#SingleInstance Force
SetTitleMatchMode 2
#WinActivateForce
SetControlDelay 1
SetWinDelay 0
SetKeyDelay -1
SetMouseDelay -1
SetBatchLines -1


#IfWinActive Adobe Premiere Pro
F16::
Loop, 10
{
Sleep, 1000
WinActivate, Premiere Pro
Sleep, 500
Send, {LControl Down}{s}{LControl Up} ;save
WinWaitNotActive, Save Project
Sleep, 500
WinActivate, Premiere Pro
Sleep, 500
Send, {LAlt Down}{Enter}{LAlt Up} ;render
Sleep, 1000
WinWaitNotActive, Rendering
Sleep, 500
WinActivate, Premiere Pro
Sleep, 500
Send, {Escape} ;esc
Sleep, 1000
Send, {LControl Down}{s}{LControl Up} ;save
WinWaitNotActive, Save Project
Sleep, 500
WinActivate, Premiere Pro
Sleep, 500
Send, {LShift Down}{#}{LShift Up} ;switch to next open sequence
Sleep, 500
Send, {Escape} ;esc
Sleep, 500
}
F19::ExitApp
Return
#IfWinActive
--

NOTES / ISSUES:
0. In case this forum messes up the formatting, you can copy it from here: https://pastebin.com/NYyCXKJi

1. Scanning through the commands, you can see you start it by pressing F16 and it loops 10 times, meaning it renders up to 10 different open sequences (you can change those to whatever you want)

2. It assumes your keyboard commands match the script commands. Change the script or change Premiere so the buttons the script is telling your computer to press actually do the things you want. For example, shift+3 cycles through open sequences. alt+enter renders "entire work area"

3. It assumes you're not messing with the computer while it's running. If you're writing an email in another window, it'll likely start sending the commands there and not Premiere. There are ways to improve this so it can grab Premiere and issue commands even if it's not the active application, but it looked a little over my head and this takes care of my needs just fine for any time I get a call or break for a meal or at the end of the day.

Its usefullness will only scale so far with other workflows, but for the way I am often working, I can't imagine losing it now that I'm used to having it. Hopefully it'll help others as well until Premiere can implement it properly.

@James I don't even need it to render while editing... but what about when I leave my desk for a few minutes with premiere open in the background?

James Kolb. Why do you say that background rendering can't happen while editing? My knowledge of programming while not extensive leads me to believe it could work by locking the part being rendered so that it can't be edited, which should prevent most errors? Rarely does editing use the entire CPU / GPU / RAM so there's a buffer that can be used for background rendering.

Render entire sequence in background:
- rendering an entire sequence could work by locking that particular sequence and any nested sequences.
- select a sequence, click to render in background, that sequence locks up and I can continue working on other sequences while that one renders for me to review shortly.

Render selected area / workbar in background
- Again, the select length of timeline could just be locked if this causes a problem and I can render a part of a sequence while working on another part.

RAYG (Render as you go)
- Like After Effects. In PPro, every time I stop on an unrendered frame, it will render it after a second or so. Why not save that rendered frame every time so that it doesn't have to be rendered again? That's what After Effects does, and it reduces render time by a good chunk.

3 years and nothing. They grab money from all the subscription models and Adobe put mostly useless features at the work but resists to improve very basic core features like this. Same as Autodesk. I feel that I'm wasting my money.
And please Adobe, If you don't want to improve such things please bring back the perceptual licenses then I won't complain.

I gave up on Adobe. Been suffering without this for 3 years and made the decision to sell all my PC's and change them over to iMacs and use final cut pro. Sorry Adobe but youre taking way to long for a basic feature.

And this is just such a no brainer issue… why wouldn’t you want to save our time and dramatically improve timeline editing? It makes no sense whatsoever. Three years is insane for a feature like this.

I'm going to chime in real quick as it seems a few of the users might have some misconceptions about background rendering.

Background rendering won't be able to operate while you are editing. How it works in other applications is you set a preference for how many seconds of idle time need to pass before the render begins. As soon as you make an action in the application the render pauses until the set idle time again.

While I really would like this feature across the board for importing, rendering, etc. When ever I have to operate FCPX the first thing I do is turn off background rendering. You'll still find yourself manually starting renders for certain clips as you want a preview ASAP.

I think the focus of our request is in not seeing the pop-up and locking the application whenever we render, import, autosave, save. For me, background rendering is less important as it only really helps when you walk away from your machine and forget to start the render. And with how Pr always losses render files and you constantly have to re-render, you'll find your cache jamming up right away,

Side note, I also would not be surprised if Apple has a patent on a lot of these features.

How come it takes 3 years to "look into something"? Maybe it would be better to take some time out to "look into" creating a decision-making progress that would address how user feature requests are handled? At the very least, have the decency and respect for your customers to give us a regular (monthly?) update on major requests like this even if there's no change. Nothing says "I want your money and not you" more than an unresponsive business.