P: Glitchy Video in Timeline

[eegriff]

After I upgraded to 24.4 several days ago, I can no longer edit MXF video files. The video in the timeline is glitchy, with pixelated blocks displayed whenever something moves in the scene. The glitches are exported in the final render, so it’s not a temporary or display-only issue. (If I render the MXF to MP4 with HandBreak, there are no glitches in the output, so I think the MXF container is OK.) My camera is unchanged and I’ve used this workflow hundreds of times. I went back to an editing session from before the 24.5 upgrade and all is fine–no glitches. I cleared the cache, rebooted my Mac, checked the sequence settings, but nothing helps.

[Aaron29726166whtz]

For about half a year now, my team and I have encountered this glitch across all 8 computers in our office.

In certain video exports, and sometimes even in the Program Monitor in Premiere Pro itself, there are visual glitches which sometimes flash up throughout the video. I have attached a clip of how this tends to look when it occurs.

It doesn't always happen, but does seem to happen mostly in longer videos or videos with Nests or Multicams.

Some of our PCs are operating Windows 11 while others are operating Windows 10. The same glitch occurs across both versions of Windows. We have also tried updating all of our Nvidia drivers and have not found this to stop the issue occurring.

We are currently working on version 25.0.0 of Premiere, but have been having this issue since probably about version 24.3 or so. Previously, when we had this issue in Premiere 2024, we would export all of our videos on my colleague's computer which stayed on version 24.2.1, and have never had this glitch occur on that version of Premiere. It only happens on versions later than this. Obviously now that we've all updated to the 2025 version, we can no longer use this solution as we cannot open 2025 projects in a 2024 version of Premiere.

We really need help figuring out what's causing this problem and how to avoid it, as it is getting in the way of our work, and nothing we have been able to find online has worked. Any help would be appreciated!

[jamieclarke]

Hi @Aaron29726166whtz - This is an ongoing issue we are looking into.  Can you provide a screenshot of your media file properties?

Also, If you go to Settings > Media > and at the bottom there is a checkbox labeled "Enable Hardware Accelerated Decoding" make sure this box is unchecked then close Premiere Pro and relaunch this should clear the glitches.

[Aaron29726166whtz]

Hi @jamieclarke

Here is a link to the media file properties of the raw footage and of the exported video: https://f.io/LifNFgWQ

Let me know if this helps

[dusttin277423553483]

When the video is played normally on my computer it does NOT look pixely/distorted/gross. but when I replay it and/or export it on premiere it looks more like the screenshot. Can I get any help with this? I'll post how it looks normally

[robb55106415]

I'm having the same issues that many people have described in this thread, and I've been refreshing this page every day, alongside this thread since August to see if any new troubleshooting tips have worked (The latter of which has been marked as solved). Unfortunately, I am still running into issues!

I've been operating on Premiere V24.6.3 for the longest time, and have reluctantly updated to V25 in hopes that there are improvements to this issue.

The Problem:

.MXF files create glitchy timelines, and more importantly, glitchy exports - particularly when exporting from Media Encoder. The glitches tend to appear when there are cuts between 2 shots, but its hard to predict a pattern behaviour for when this might occur.

Here's what feels like the most stable workaround for now:

• Turn off H264/HEVC hardware acceleration in [Preferences > Media]
• Render out proxies for every asset - and never turn off the proxy toggle
• Once proxies are rendered out, delete all media cache files in [Preferences > Media Cache > Delete..]
• Again, never turn off the proxy toggle throughout the edit - if you do, delete all media cache files again!
• Export ONLY within Premiere's native exporter, never with Media Encoder

Obviously this is quite frustrating - particularly the fact that Media Encoder is innaccessible to my daily workflow! I deliver tonnes of social media clips each day, all in square, vert, portrait and landscape - and watching the same clip in all 4 formats to keep an eye out for glitches gets quite tiring.

Stuff I've tried that hasn't worked:

The timeline glitch is annoying, but manageble for now.

So here are things I've tried in order to mitigate the export problems when exporting from Media Encoder.

• Export with ProRes, H.264 or DNxHR MXF OP1a formats
• Toggling Media Encoder's Renderer from CUDA renderer to Software Renderer
• One forum post suggested to insert a black Matte in Track 1 of the timeline before exporting
• The issue occurs regardless of whether the timeline cuts from Track 1 to Track 2, or if it cuts from Track 1 to Track 1
• Enabling/Disabling the following sequence settings: [Max Bit Depth],[Max Render Quality],[Composite in Linear Color]
• Enabling/Disable the following export settings: [Use Max Render Quality],[[Render at Max Depth],[Use Previews]
• For the above, [Use Previews] was attempted with Previews rendered out in the timeline as ProRes 422 LT

Tech stuff listed below:

My PC Specs:

OS: Windows 10 Home 64-Bit (10.0, Build 19045)

Processor: 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900k (24 CPUs) 3.2GHz

Memory: 64gb DDR5 @ 5200 MHz

Display: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti

Media File Properties (with file path redacted):

Type: MXF 
File Size: 204.23 MB
Image Size: 1920 x 1080
Frame Rate: 50.00
Source Audio Format: 48000 Hz - 24-bit - 4 Channels
Project Audio Format: 48000 Hz - 32 bit floating point - 4 Channels
Total Duration: 00:00:33:06
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0
Alpha: None
Color Space: Rec. 709
Color Space Override: Off
Input LUT: None

MXF File details:
Wrapper type: MXF OP1a (type: SingleItem SinglePackage MultiTrack Stream Internal)
File generated by: Sony, Mem  (2.00)
AVC Long GOP High 4:2:2 Profile 10-bit Unconstrained Coding
Bitstream Format: Sony
Class 50
Gamma: S-Gamut/S-Log2

And finally, for visual reference of the export glitch:

That's all I have to share for now. Hopefully the workaround I listed above gets a few people out of hot water. But this is just a bandaid fix. I really need this problem resolved, so if there's anything more I can provide the Adobe staff, please let me know.

[jamieclarke]

Hi @dusttin277423553483 -  Thanks for submitting your bug report. We need a few more details to try to help with the issue.  Please see, How do I write a bug report?

Can you try going to your preferences under Media and deselect the checkboxes that say Hardware acceleration, then restart Premiere and let us know if that helps your issue?

 

Sorry for the frustration.

[MarekMularczyk]

What are your export settings? What format/codec, how much compression, etc.?

[dusttin277423553483]

sadly this did not fix it

[dusttin277423553483]

I believe this is all of the relevant information

[jamieclarke]

Hi @dusttin277423553483 - We still need more information like computer specs, and GPU with driver version.  Please see the link posted for relevant information.  I have a couple other ideas for you but we need more information.

• In your export settings can you try  switching to 2-pass VBR, or CBR resolves the issue. 

[dusttin277423553483]

currently my GPU is a amd radeon 7900 XTX and I'm on driver 24.10.1. Also changing the passes didn't change anything as it's a bug both in export AND also general premiere usage while editing

[dusttin277423553483]

I tried reverting my drivers to an older version and that did not fix it either sadly. It's frustrating since these issues were not a thing for me a week ago with the same exact footage.

[dusttin277423553483]

Turns out this is happening whenever I disable proxies. However this wasn't an issue literally a week ago for me when I was exporting as I never messed around with this feature. I really don't want to use my proxies in the final product so if there's a solution please help!

[Aaron29726166whtz]

Hi @jamieclarke I have changed the setting as you suggested and one of the computers in our office has still had the glitch in a video export. Is there anything else we can do?

[Fleur98C]

Nope still there

[jamieclarke]

Hi @eegriff @Aaron29726166whtz @dusttin277423553483 @robb55106415 @Fleur98C - Are you still experiencing this issue in Premiere Pro version 25.1?

I'm curious if you navigate to File > Project Settings > General Then change the Renderer to Software only does the problem go away?

[jakew39230329]

Hi, Yes I'm still experienceing it in 25.1
The issue goes away when I change my export settings to Software Encoding.
Haven't been able to use hardware encoding for months now. 

[jamieclarke]

Hi @jakew39230329 - Thank you for confirming, we are looking into this.

[robb55106415]

Hi @jamieclarke 

I'm still consistently getting the same issues on V25.1.

The workaround I've posted in this thread has helped mitigate the issues, but that method means I cannot use Media Encoder in any circumstance whatsoever.

I've had a spare hour in my afternoon, so I figured I'd run some experiments for you, in hopes that it may help you in some way. 

These are 10 separate experiments conducted with a project that I can reliably re-create the issue with.

I've listed the variables in each, alongside the result:

----------

All experiments had the following in common:

Sequence Settings:
Max Bit Depth - TICKED
Max Render Quality - TICKED
Composite in Linear Color - TICKED

Export Settings:
H.264 @ 12MBps CBR
Render at Max Depth - TICKED
Use Max Render Quality - TICKED

----------

EXPERIMENT 1:

File > Project Settings > General:
Renderer - Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (CUDA)

Preferences > Media:
H.264/HEVC Hardware Accelerated Decoding/Encoding - TICKED

Export Settings:
Exported via Premiere Pro
Hardware Encoding

- GLITCH OCCURED -

----------

EXPERIMENT 2:

File > Project Settings > General:
Renderer - Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (CUDA)

Preferences > Media:
H.264/HEVC Hardware Accelerated Decoding/Encoding - TICKED

Export Settings:
Exported via Premiere Pro
Software Encoding

- GLITCH OCCURED -

----------

EXPERIMENT 3:

File > Project Settings > General:
Renderer - Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (CUDA)

Preferences > Media:
H.264/HEVC Hardware Accelerated Decoding/Encoding - NOT TICKED

Export Settings:
Exported via Premiere Pro
Software Encoding

- NO GLITCH -**********

----------

EXPERIMENT 4:

File > Project Settings > General:
Renderer - Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (CUDA)

Preferences > Media:
H.264/HEVC Hardware Accelerated Decoding/Encoding - NOT TICKED

Export Settings:
Exported via Media Encoder - Mercury GPU Acceleration (CUDA)
Software Encoding

- GLITCH OCCURED -

----------

EXPERIMENT 5:

File > Project Settings > General:
Renderer - Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (CUDA)

Preferences > Media:
H.264/HEVC Hardware Accelerated Decoding/Encoding - NOT TICKED

Export Settings:
Exported via Media Encoder - Mercury GPU Software Only
Software Encoding

- GLITCH OCCURED -

----------

EVERYTHING FROM THIS POINT ONWARD IS A REPEAT OF THE ABOVE, BUT WITH THE FOLLOWING CHANGE:

File > Project Settings > General:
Renderer - Mercury Playback Engine Software Only

----------

EXPERIMENT 6:

File > Project Settings > General:
Renderer - Mercury Playback Engine Software Only

Preferences > Media:
H.264/HEVC Hardware Accelerated Decoding/Encoding - TICKED

Export Settings:
Exported via Premiere Pro
Hardware Encoding

- GLITCH OCCURED -

----------

EXPERIMENT 7:

File > Project Settings > General:
Renderer - Mercury Playback Engine Software Only

Preferences > Media:
H.264/HEVC Hardware Accelerated Decoding/Encoding - TICKED

Export Settings:
Exported via Premiere Pro
Software Encoding

- GLITCH OCCURED -

----------

EXPERIMENT 8:

File > Project Settings > General:
Renderer - Mercury Playback Engine Software Only

Preferences > Media:
H.264/HEVC Hardware Accelerated Decoding/Encoding - NOT TICKED

Export Settings:
Exported via Premiere Pro
Software Encoding

- NO GLITCH -**********

----------

EXPERIMENT 9:

File > Project Settings > General:
Renderer - Mercury Playback Engine Software Only

Preferences > Media:
H.264/HEVC Hardware Accelerated Decoding/Encoding - NOT TICKED

Export Settings:
Exported via Media Encoder - Mercury GPU Acceleration (CUDA)
Software Encoding

- GLITCH OCCURED -

----------

EXPERIMENT 10:

File > Project Settings > General:
Renderer - Mercury Playback Engine Software Only

Preferences > Media:
H.264/HEVC Hardware Accelerated Decoding/Encoding - NOT TICKED

Export Settings:
Exported via Media Encoder - Mercury GPU Software Only
Software Encoding

- GLITCH OCCURED -

----------

In summary - Experiments 3 and 8 yielded a positive result.

All others contained the same sort of glitch.

The only difference between Experiment 3 and 8 was the [File > Project Settings > General: Renderer]

So it appears that changing that did not impact the result.

[R Neil Haugen]

The only two things I can think of are unchecking composite in linear color, and in Me, deselect import sequences natively.

No idea what that last does, but sometimes it does fix varmy behavior in Me exports

[robb55106415]

Hi @R Neil Haugen  - thanks for the suggestions.

I've re-created my set of experiments, this time with your suggestions added on.

• COMPOSITE IN LINEAR COLOR is un-ticked in my sequence settings
• Import sequences natively un-ticked in Media Encoder (Preferences > General)

And there were some differences!

Glitches occured in the following experiments:

1, 2, 6, 7, 10

Things looked fine in these ones:

3, 4, 5, 8, 9

---

Interestingly, the only difference between experiments 5 and 10 was the change to this option:

File > Project Settings > General:
Renderer - Mercury Playback Engine Software Only vs Renderer - Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (CUDA)

Where CUDA was enabled in the successful export, whilst Software Only resulted in a glitch. Now that's a headscratcher!

---

Thanks for the tip! I've never thought to investigate the "import sequences natively" option in Media Encoder before!

[jamieclarke]

Hi @robb55106415 - Thank you for taking the time to do this testing.  Would you be able to send me the file that you used for this test?  you can email it to jamiec@adobe.com

[LIGHTYEAR STUDIOS]

So what seemed to work for me was nesting ALL timeline footage into one nest. Playback since then didnt show any glitches and also after exporting there were no glitches. Weird work around, but happy it works as this problem drove me insane. Hope it will work for you all too. Happy holidays! 

[R Neil Haugen]

If nesting was the solution, the issue was how you set what effects on the clip involved. Processing order matters, far more than most users realize. 

And sometimes, as with the heaviest effect possible, Warp Stabilizer, it is necessary to Warp, then nest, then apply other effects. And wiser to Warp, render & replace, then apply other effects to the "new" clip. 

[Tommy24057098668n]

I asked Santa to buy a PC with a AMD processor and Nvidia RTX card deliver some XAVC long gop footage for Adobe. Because I'm convinced that they do zero tests on these builds as errors, slow downs and glitches exist now for a least a year.

This is one of the many threads. And if you follow this thread,  we also did some tests, a simple lower grade macbook works better than a high end pc. I don't think they get money from Apple or Intel to create a worse experience on different systems, it's probably the quality control that is very subpar. Maybe they also outsource this to cheaper regions just like they did with customer service. Or they super busy it with implementing AI and are forgetting the most important part of video editing software: smooth playback, fast response time, quick exports. 

Could this be confirmed, as on which builds are these Premiere versions tested? Otherwise could you send me the footage you are testing with as we are now sort of doing quality control with all these tests?
Or just send me the new version to me, I can say in a day if it works or not and you can release this version to the public as you guys are releasing versions every time and hoping it works (and it does not).