Adobe Premiere Pro uses CPU instead of GPU for .m4v container files.

[Guest]

Today I was doing some experimentation to figure out why Premiere Pro was bringing my CPU to its knees for some videos, but not others, even though the quality of the videos in question were similar.

I frequently use Handbrake to convert .mkv files that won't work in Premiere Pro without conversion, and the default container for the converted videos is .m4v.

What I noticed was that if the container was .m4v, regardless of quality, Premiere Pro would use the CPU for rendering, playback, etc.

If I took the same video and simply changed the extension to .mp4, Premiere Pro would correctly use the GPU.

This seems like a bug. I don't think anyone would ever want to use their CPU over their GPU for certain file extensions.

[RjL190365]

If you are on a Windows PC, .m4v is not supported via hardware acceleration. Only the Mac version of Premiere Pro supports hardware acceleration of .m4v.

[Guest]

Ok after researching .m4v, it kind of makes sense Windows programs would behave weird with them. Is this in the documentation anywhere? Thank you.

[Christian.Z]

GPU rendering or Hardware accelaration will only kick in when needed.

[Andy 1968]

ChristianZ, 

It was stated that changing the extension solved the problem. Some files extension are not supported. The video below will demonstrate this. Having said that I think Windows, Bridge and Prelude can perform batch changes to files extensions. Premiere Pro should be able to do it but I don't think it can. Last but not least Premiere Pro should be able to play the original poster's files exentsion with GPU support. Perhaps it will in the next release. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUnzq94iuJg&t=1s