25 Minute Renders Slowing To 8+ Hours

[Yogscast Alex]

I've been working for the last few years with editing and rendering 15-20 minute videos that have take around 25 minutes or less to render out with H264. The type of footage I'm working with hasn't changed at all but, all of a sudden, the renders are taking 8+ hours. I tried updating from Premiere 2015 10.4 to 2017 but it stopped recognising all of the audio from my video files and I had to revert back to 10.4 and re-save/replace every individual file (30+) out in MPEG Streamclip to get it to recognise the audio on them again.

After this, I rendered one video and it seemed to render out at normal speed. I started rendering the another one a few hours later and the render time has jumped  to 12 hours.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as the video delivery is very time sensitive!

[Jeff Bellune]

Are you using GPU accelerated rendering and playback (File>Project Settings>General>Renderer)?

Do you have Max Render Quality or Max Bit Depth or Composite in Linear Color selected/checked for export?

[Yogscast Alex]

Hi Jeff,

I have GPU accelerated rendering and playback enabled and I always check the 'Max Render Quality' box. I do this for every video I export. Thanks,

- A

[Jeff Bellune]

Okay, then try variations of those settings.  Specifically, switch to Software Only rendering and uncheck Max Render Quality.  Since the problem appeared suddenly, it's possible your project settings got changed inadvertently.

[Yogscast Alex]

Thanks, I'll try this and report back!

[excited_Genie16B8]

Max Render Quality will only add time when using GPU acceleration.  It actually forces the render off the GPU and onto the CPU, which is often a LOT slower.

Stop using Max Render Quality.  You don't need it.

[Yogscast Alex]

Hi Jim, thanks for the advice - I'll take this into account and change it but it's not what's causing the long render times as I've used these exact settings to render 1000+ videos, so it's likely to be something else. Thanks for the advice though!

[excited_Genie16B8]

Have you actually run this export without that settings yet?

If not, do so and report back.

[Yogscast Alex]

Hi Jim, just tried it - no difference, unfortunately.

However: I left 5 files stacked up to render over the weekend and the first one was predicting a 13 hour render but, when I checked 24 hours later, all renders had completed. It's as if something just kicked in and got it working at some point. I'm clueless!

[excited_Genie16B8]

It does sometimes go that way.  PP's estimate is assuming the same level of difficulty for the entire program.  So a rough spot can drastically up that estimate, which drops back down once the rough spot is past.

[Yogscast Alex]

After a few days of being fine, it has now gone back to 8 + hours. I haven't changed anything!

[Peter22310328n5g0]

This is an ooooold thread, but I had the same problem in 2023, then I discovered that in Adobe Media Encoder, my "Renderer" had been switched to "Mercury Playback Engine Software Only" instead of "Mercury Playback Engine GPU Accelerated (Metal) - Recommended". Once I switched it back it went from 8 hour render to 15 min render for my YouTube video.