2015.3 Enable accelerated Intel h.264 decoding - Root of many problems?

[Gordon James McDowell]

Disabling "accelerated Intel h.264 decoding" may address some problems with 2015.3.

Preferences - Media.

On my very small test project (for which I submitted a bug report) this feature kept a multi-track (2x MTS and 3x WAV) sequence from playing back responsively, sometimes taking a full minute to begin playback.

With my large project (600 MB) I can not confirm 2015.3 is working well enough regardless of the setting, but it was previously unable to load all assets, having leaked my 64GB of RAM before finishing loading (in contrast with 2015.2 which loaded into 48GB of RAM). So it is working better than before, although I dunno if "good" yet. (And yes, there's another bug report for that problem too.)

Anyone having trouble with 2015.3 should look at disabling this feature to see if it helps.

(If Adobe gave us bug-report IDs I'd include them in this email so Adobe could more easily update the bug-reports.)

[excited_Genie16B8]

I'll be testing this as well after the holiday to see if this handles some of issues I've been having with 2015.3.

[KevinAGI]

I don't see this option on my MAC. is this PC only?

Kevin

[Vinay Dwivedi]

Hi,

Yes this functionality is available on PC only.

//Vinay

[Bill Gehrke]

Vinay, any logical reason why Adobe enabled that as the default condition for 2015.3 on PC's?

[Ann Bens]

I think it should be default off.

that was the first thing I turned off in the Preferences.

[excited_Genie16B8]

The logic behind enabling it by default would be to make sure that people get the benefit.

The only problem is that PP is trying to use the feature even when it's not available on the CPU.  That is where the error lies.  PP should be coded such that it knows whether or not the CPU has Quick Sync capability, and to disable the feature for CPUs that don't, in the same way that you can't enable CUDA if your card doesn't meet specs.

[Vinay Dwivedi]

Hi,

This has already been reported and hopefully be fixed in the next update.

//Vinay

[Bill Gehrke]

Jim, Ann and Vinay

Why does my i7-4700HQ which does have Quick Sync require me to uncheck the option, is there some other factor that is required to allow Quick Sync?  For instance does the fact that this laptop has and is using a CUDA GTX 765M cause Quick Sync to act up with these memory problems?

[excited_Genie16B8]

I think the memory issue is secondary.  The primary issue is that when you have the option checked, but you don't have a Quick Sync CPU, then PP slows to a crawl.  It seems to be trying to decode every single frame of every single clip using a feature that is not available, and it takes forever to get through that process.

[Bill Gehrke]

Jim,

How does that explain my laptop situation where I do have a Quick Sync enabled i7-4700 HQ CPU but I cannot operate with it checked it uses all the RAM (even more than the 18 GB out of my 24 GB in the preferences) and it slows down and some time even stops generating PEK and CFA files.  I just went back and checked it and deleted the Media Cache Files and the Media Cache Database Files and here is what happens.  I have let it go on like this for 30+ minutes without completing regenerating this simple 22 files.

Once I go back and uncheck the Intel h.264 acceleration it and completes everything in ~7 minutes

[excited_Genie16B8]

That might be yet a third issue.  Even without that feature turned on, I've had that very problem you describe with neverending .pek file generation.

[Ann Bens]

I have seen that endless making PEK files for proxy files. I let it go and it was doing so for a couple of hours. Then it stopped.

[Bill Gehrke]

I just went back to 2015.2 and performed the media cache generation procedure.  Above in Premiere 10.3 it was ~7 minutes to complete the process with Intel h.264 unchecked.  In 2015.2 the same task takes ~4minutes!  Should I report this as a bug?

[excited_Genie16B8]

I'm thinking something is not quite right with cache files in 2015.3.  I'd consider it a bug.