After Effects Render taking 40+ Hours!

[Brettn64]

I have a simple project I have rendered in this way many times before but as we all know Abobe products love to randomly stop working and cause irreverable trouble. I have a roughly one hour video that is 4k and has a green screen. I know this sounds big but I have rendered this exact thing the ecaxt same way with half the render time. Below are my comp specs and project settings. Please advise how to lower this render time. I can provide any additional info needed.    

Device name Nero
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core Processor 3.70 GHz
Installed RAM 31.9 GB
Device ID 4C4F7644-281F-439E-A164-3D639611BACD
Product ID 00326-10000-00000-AA906
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Pen and touch No pen or touch input is available for this display

[Mylenium]

NVidia CoDEc? Doesn't exactly make sense, given that by choosing this option you would nix all optimizations of the regular H.264 encoder and relegated all the hard work exclusively to your GPU instead of also getting the benefits of your multicore system. Unless this is realyl your intention, this would have to be the first thing to change. beyond that of course the usual applies: Your system may need a graphics driver update and some checking of the hardware acceleration options. some of that stuff has changed in the latest version.

Mylenium

[Brettn64]

This is very interesting to me as I have been editing for years and still am quite ignorant to the proper codecs to use and when. Could you explain this a bit further if you have the time? I always though with my new graphics card it would always be better/faster to use the GPU acceleration? Also when I set the format to h264 where would I change that codec?

[Warren Heaton]

The subject of compression type can be a really long answer.  Big picture, you can separate CODECs into those that are good for editing and those that are good for delivery.  

CODECs that are good for editing:

• Compress within the frame (intraframe compression)
• Higher color sampling (422)
• Adequate peak signal noise ratio (PSNR) to minimize or elimiate compression generation loss
• Quick compression/encode times with software only implementations.
• Examples include Apple ProRes, Avid DNx, GoPro Cineform

CODECs that are good for delivery:

• Compress between frames to reduce file size (interframe compression)
• Lower color sampling to reduce file size (411, 420)
• Encode times tend to be longer with delivery CODECs due to the processing being done to compress between frames and reduce the colors space; however, hardware acceleration has become fairly common.  Also, a 1st generation movie file created with a delivery CODEC may look great to the eye, but with all of the information that's been removed (or compressed), the file does not hold up well to editing nor to recompression.
• Examples include H264, H265, MPEG2

Even though a CODEC is meant for delivery, it hasn't stopped people from using them for editing.  It also hasn't stopped manufacturers of recording devices from making what would otherwise be a delivery CODEC the one used for recording footage in the 1st place.  We see this in tapeless recording devices like consumer camcorders, small point-and-shoot camers (like GoPro), and mobile phones.

All that said, what you choose to use for your workflow largely depends on the type of content that you're creating.  Is your edited master a feature film going to a distributor or streaming service? A television commercial/ad campaign being trafficed for broadcast?  A weekly (maybe daily) social-media review or commentary going to a social media platform?  Bacisally, what you need for your edited master asnwers all of your other questions about what CODEC(s) to use, what type of hardware might be needed, what cameras and microphones might you use, etc.  For what it's worth, your job tends to be a lot easier when you're using the same CODEC straight across.  So, for tv commercials, shoot ProRes, edit ProRes, master ProRes, then delivery whatever's needed (Blackmagic camera, Red camera or field recorder that records ProRes; Premiere Pro on Mac or PC that edits ProRes very quickly via Smart Rendering, master to ProRes, transcode to various delivey formats).  For daily social media updates, shoot H264, edit H264, publish H264 (all do-able with an iPhone or iPad).  There are many variations, though.  Maybe you're doing skateboard videos with a lot of footage shot on some GoPro cameras?  Shoot H264, transcode to ProRes, edit ProRes, export direclty to your delivery formats via Adobe Media Encoder.

[Brettn64]

This was quite the response! Thank you for taking the time to explain all this for me, I greatly appreciate it!

[Warren Heaton]

To work faster, transcode MP4 to a CODEC that's good for editing like Apple ProRes422, GoPro Cineform, or Avid DNxHD.  Key that and then render to whichever CODEC you chose.  Then, convert the edited master to a delivery CODEC like H264 or H265.

[Brettn64]

I appreciate you taking the time to answer thank you!

[Rick Gerard]

If you want to dramatically speed up render times use a background rendering system. I have five. RenderGarden is my favorite and it cuts my render time by about 70%, gives me a lossless production master and an MP4 for client review at the same time, and I can keep working in After Effects without any noticeable slowdown. If I had a 40 hour render in the Media Encoder, RG would render it in about 10 hours. 

If you want help with your comp we need workflow details and screenshots showing the modified properties of what you think are the problem layers. I've never made an hour-long movie that was one shot, but if you have to do that and there are any other effects you need to add to the movie I would strongly suggest that you render a lossless with an alpha master of the greenscreen footage and then do the layering in Premiere Pro. Unless the key requires a lot of cleanups, edge control, light wrap, color correction, and other effects I would use the keyer in Premiere Pro. It does as good a job as the hardware keyer tv stations use for the weather and renders a lot faster than you can render in AE.

[Brettn64]

I will definitely check out endergarden thenk you!