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Richard JG
Participant
June 8, 2020
Answered

Exported video stuck on first frame of each clip!

  • June 8, 2020
  • 40 replies
  • 13059 views

Hello everyone, 

Probably a fairly noob question on this forum since I'm a bit of a novice at this. I have a short 2.5 minute video that I am trying to export from Premiere Pro 2020. Inside Premiere Pro, the clips play smoothly. After I export and try to view the video on Quicktime, each clip is stuck on the very first frame. There is no motion whatsoever. The track along with the sound effects are playing smoothly, just no motion in the clips.

 

The entire video was shot on a DJI Mavic Air 2. 60fps 4k with a h.265 codec. 

 

I've exported many other videos on this new 2020 MacBook Pro. This is the only one I'm stuck and puzzled with. 

 

If anybody has any insight on this, I'd love to hear it! 

Thank you. 

Correct answer Chicago Slingshot

I Have The Solution!  

I edited a long video with drone footage, screen captures, iphone video (H2.65) and even nested sequences.  It had many effects and audio & video tracks.  It all worked seemlessly in premiere pro but once I exported it in 4k H2.65, The two picture in pictures and all the effects and audio worked fine but the drone footage was frozen on the first fram of each clip.  

I tried everything, including all the solutions mentioned here and nothing worked.  I was so frustrated because I had spent hours editing this footage.  I have had things happen in the past so every so often, I save a copy of my work as it progresses just in case I make a some fatal error like this happens.  I went to several of the saved premiere files and tried exporting them.  They all did the same thing.  

I tried making a new project file with just some drone footage.  I am using a DJI Mini 3 Pro and recording 4K30 H2.65 .mp4  I can tell you confidently that it is an issue with adobe and DJI footage.  I'm sure everyone on this thread with this problem has a DJI drone.  

So here is finally what I did that worked:  

I uninstalled Premiere Pro and reinstalled it. 
Then I held the alt/control button to bring up a reset menu upon opening.  I chekced all four options.  You may not have to check all four but I did in my frustration and desperation.  At the very least check the two that say "clear media cache files" and "reset plugin loading cache".  

Once Premeiere opened back up, I also deleted the media cache files.  To do this you launch premiere but don't open any files.  Open Preferrences/media cache.  Click the delete button next to the phrase "Remove media cache files".  When the option box opens up, choose the option that says "Delete all media cache files from the system" and click OK.  

Once you have dont all that, close and open Premier again.  You can now open your saved project file and export it in Premier Pro.  It will work!  However, if you want to use Media Encoder, threre are a couple more steps you must take.  

 

Uninstall Media Encoder. and reinstall it.  
Then open it up and go to Edit/preferrences/Media/Media Cache Database and click clean.  Then click OK and close Media Encoder.  

Here is the important part.  Don't leave Media Encoder open and just send projects there to export.  Media Encoder has to be opened a new time for each project that includes DJI drone footage.  If it is open from your last export, close it.  Then don't open Media Encoder, click file/export/Send to Adobe Media Encoder in Premier Pro.  

You can batch export in Media Encoder, just don't forget to close it after that session and re-open it through Premier Pro again next time.  

I know it's a lot but At least it will work now.  I hope this helps anyone else who is having this trouble.  

40 replies

Show previous replies
sam@modo
sam@modo
Participant
July 17, 2022

Same thing with Air 2s. Even at 29.97fps HEVC

I ended up opening in Rosetta. Didn't try Media Encoder yet, but if you don't mind a slight performance hit, Rosetta is the way to go to export from within Premiere. Bummer this is still happening on 22.5.

EvanWasHere2
Participant
July 6, 2022

Has anyone figured this out?

Using Macbook Pro with M1 Pro chip with the latest updates (OSX and Adobe's)

 

Premiere was working great with Mavic Mini 3 HEVC 4K footage for weeks.

 

Then today, Premiere stopped being able to playback rendered in to out footage.  All you see is one frozen frame.  When exported via Premiere or Media Encoder, all you see is that same frozen frame.  

 

I have tried creating new sequences, used different video files, rebooted, etc.  Nothing works.

EvanWasHere2
Participant
July 7, 2022

Replying to my comment for anyone that has a similar issue in the future.

 

I uninstalled Premiere and re-installed and the issue is now fixed. 

 

I believe Premiere got "broken" when I put the Mac to sleep while it was open the previous day.  When I tried to wake the mac up, it failed and shut itself down.  So maybe a Premiere file got corrupted?

    Mwita
    Participant
    January 4, 2024

    That worked for me too! Thanks

    realistic_lark9681
    Participant
    October 30, 2021

    Nothing worked for me until I updated to the latest version (22) now the bulk export through media encoder works toghether with the regular way.

    4K dji mavic air 2s footage in 30 fps on a 23.976 timeline h264 but I dont feel this matters, but just wanted to say check that you run the latest version 🙂

    Community Expert
    Phillip HarveyCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 17, 2021

    It sounds like some in the thread have already tried some of these, but the things I would try initially:

    - Export using Software Encoding, not Hardware Encoding

    - If you have an Nvidia GPU, make sure you're using Studio Drivers (OP - this probably doesn't apply to you on a Macbook)

    - Try exporting to an intraframe codec like ProRes 422, and if that works create your H264/5 from that.

    - Be sure to view in a different video player or re-import back into Premiere to double check that the frames are being held there.

     

    HEVC is a pretty brutal codec to work with, and in the case of HEVC coming from phones with variable framerate you can end up with some pretty weird glitches that make it into the final export. It'd be the first I've heard of that coming from DJI stuff.

     

    Another thing to try is a smart rendering workflow. Set your preview files in your sequence to be a higher quality master like ProRes 422, render the timeline, and assuming all looks good there, when you go to export you can check Match Sequence Settings at the top of the export window, and also the Use Previews checkbox at the bottom. It should use the settings for your sequence - assuming that's set up correctly - and export based on those masters that you had rendered in the timeline.

    Kristin5EE9
    Participant
    February 18, 2021

    Thanks for the response. Bad news is none of these options seem to help (software vs hardware encoding, updating GPU driver, exporting to ProRes or even uncompressed AVI, viewing output file with 3 different players). It always produces a video where either the first frame is frozen for each sequence or the frame updates every 5 seconds.

     

    Good news is I finally found a workable solution! If I queue up the project in Adobe Media Encoder and then render it from there, it works!

     

    So my take is it's definitely a nasty bug somewhere inside Premiere.

      Kristin5EE9
      Participant
      February 17, 2021

      SAME THING for me! DJI Mavic Air 2. 60fps 4k. 

      The exported video is just the first frame of each clip frozen for the duration of the clip. I've tried 20 different settings (different renderer (opencl, software only), different sequence frame rates, turning on/off h.264 hardware encoding/decoding, removing all effects, removing all time warping).

      Kristin5EE9
      Participant
      February 17, 2021

      (except I'm using h.264 encoding on the drone and you're using h.265 and we're seeing the same issue...saves me one more thing to experiment with)

        David J5C7C
        Known Participant
        September 19, 2022

        Same solution for me on a new Mac Studio. I had a fresh install of Premiere but was getting the same result with a frozen first frame for each scene in an h.264 export. Uninstalled Premiere and reinstalled and the problem is gone. Not sure what the issue is, but thanks for the solution.

          tiredkate
          tiredkate
          Participant
          August 18, 2020

          I am also having this issue and very suddenly. I have footage also shot with a DJI Mavic Air 2 shot in 4K that previously exported just fine from premiere but now is frozen (one such sequence exported two weeks ago that now exports frozen on the first frame). I can export through Media Encoder but not in Premiere.

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