Drop Frames in Premiere with good PC. What is happening ?

Although most of my work is web-headed, I don't pay much attention to the crowd. I've seen enough total barn slippery that I'm not that inclined to believe much of it.

There are TONS of things that can and will influence performance. One heavy user posted some time back he'd finally wiped, reformatted, reinstalled Windows, and then all the apps he'd had on his mach *except* he loaded Premiere first, Me second, and AfterEffects third. And got vastly improved performance.

The MS library file onedrive.dll has been a killer for some, never an issue for me. Why? Dunno.

Various "helper" apps like many laptops and even desktop motherboards want to install from gaming assistance to audio apps can both take huge hits of operating resources or interfere with an NLE.

So I pay more attention to the guys and gals who have serious machines and workflows and deadline needs. They only care about proven reliable reality.

And they t-code or proxy all sorts of media on machines that blow yours and mine out of the water.

Personally I just don't get the attitude that proxies or t-codes are somehow beneath one. Seriously. It's a standard part of nearly all professional workflows. I just don't get it.

Neil

I edit 4K natively but then its Canon xf intraframe. I do set playback to 1/2. Occasionaly I have dropped frames.

Kevin, thank you so much for your dedication in your response.

I only use H.264 files here despite having tested Gopro Hero7 Black H.265 files.

I set up a PC for N research-based 4K video editing. I live in Brazil and there is a production company that says quietly edit in 4K on Premiere using only Ryzen 2600 with video card up to 4GB so I was wondering how I could edit and I with my slightly better system not able to.

I wondered if it was the question of which monitor I use with upscalling since using native 4K on a 28 "monitor gets very small even though the desktop gets huge. Maybe the issue of upascalling was limiting performance as it constantly reworking the screen to show me the 175% zoom I set (I don't know if it was clear.) But finding that, I lowered the monitor resolution to 1080p to see if that was the problem and was unsuccessful, the drop frames continued.

I had heard about the file compression issue but I have never studied it thoroughly. I'm a videomaker filming music bands so 4K @ 60 fps files are pretty big ... To proxy all this is a lot of work ... I would have to leave the proxy overnight to be able to work the next day.

Another issue is that file playback within the timeline is normal if I don't apply any lumetri effects or transitions, but when I'm editing I use this kind of thing.

I heard that Intel processors for having hardware acceleration via GPU (quicksync) would help a lot in this task, but unfortunately I went from a Ryzen 2700x to an i5 9600K and did not get positive results even though Intel is most recommended for Premiere.

In case you aren't aware of what long-GOP media is, it's created in cameras by specialized chips, so it dramatically cuts down on the time and space needed to write files to card.

It works by only making a very few complete frames. It used to be a complete frame every 9-15 frames. Now, your drone may very well use partial complete frames, so perhaps it could be up to 120 frames between real complete frames.

Every other frame is only a data set or matrix of 1) the pixels that will change before the next complete i-frame, 2) the pixels that have changed since the last i-frame, or 3) BOTH.

This requires a truly massive amount of CPU/RAM work to pull up, decode and decompress, store to RAM, pull up next "frame", recall previous frame from RAM, compute new frame  rinse and repeat.

I have colorist friends with machines that make your system look like a kids toy. They routinely run 6k RED with maybe 20 nodes in Resolve. Ship them 4k long-GOP, they're gonna transcode it.

Or at the least, make proxies. So pros with massive machines routinely t-code or proxy ... I don't understand your question with it.

It's Reality.

Neil

Yes, I agree with you Ann.

Kevin Monahan

If I were you I would still consider Proxies 

Your recording devices produce highly compressed footage and that is the culprit.

If you would record intraframe opposite to avc long gop it would a much easier format to edit.

Hi Frango,

Sorry for the performance issues. That sounds frustrating. It sounds like a few issues may be causing your bottleneck, but you should also know that your expectations may be set a little too high for the system you are working with. I suggest that you might look at making a few compromises.

• Transcode the most highly compressed footage with Render and Replace; drone footage for example.
• Place media cache on a high speed drive besides the boot drive.
• Place preview files on a high speed drive.
• Purchase a more powerful graphics card ~12 GB VRAM.
  • 8GB for 4K is OK for recommended system requirements
  • That said, it is not enough for heavier workflows, highly compressed footage, high frame rates
• Run basic maintenance, such as, deleting existing media cache
• Disable High Quality Playback

The reason that I say you probably have to make compromises because playing back and working with 4K Long GOP media is extremely taxing, even on somewhat powerful systems like yours. Add on a 60 fps frame rate along with drone footage that is probably H.265 footage, some of the most highly compressed footage existing today. iPhone footage is in the same boat. These are likely the reasons for your bottleneck.

Please try some of these things in order to have a smoother workflow. The main thing I would recommend would be to transcode your files, but it sounds like you do not want to do that. Sorry.

In conclusion, you did purchase a pretty good setup, I'm afraid you need something even more powerful if you want Premiere Pro to meet your every expectation regarding performance.

We can also set you up with our techs who can troubleshoot your system, if you like. Let us know if you'd like to do that.

Thanks,
Kevin Monahan