Annoying Source Monitor lag/delay

[jeffk79185465]

Hello beautiful community friends. Had a question that I can't seem to solve for the freakin LIFE of me. 

I have a new 2022 Mac Studio M2 Max. I have freakin 96 GB of Ram. I'm not editing really high res footage or anything, just simple stuff from my Iphone 14Pro. I'm running the latest Mac iOS and version of Premiere. 

I'm experiencing a frustrating lag in my source monitor whenever I insert a clip into my timeline then come back to my source. It usually takes like 6-10 seconds to play. 

My source monitor is typically fine...no lag if I'm just scrolling through and playing footage. But if I insert a clip FROM that source monitor TO my timeline, it takes a while for my source to start playing again. It's almost like it's "loading" or something.

(Also note, I don't have any heavy graphics layers or anything complicated. Just regular boring iPhone clips. I've also done literally every YouTube fix (i.e. clearing Cache files, etc. I also have nothing else open). 

I feel like it must be some weird playback setting I have? I dunno....

(I'm including a few screenshots of my settings to make sure I'm not being a dingbat).

Love and appreciate anyone who can help me with this. I will buy you flowers honestly.  

[R Neil Haugen]

Actually, phone media is normally long-GOP stuff and well ... that's often a lot harder to edit on a computer than say 8k RED media. Still, those rigs typically do pretty decently with this, so I'm hoping Warren or somenone has an idea for you.

Oh ... Preferences, Audio, make sure that 'default input' is set to "none".

[jeffk79185465]

Thank you my friend. 🙂 Oooooo. Could you tag Warren!? He sounds like a legend (like you!).

[R Neil Haugen]

@Warren Heaton  ... 😉

[Warren Heaton]

Hmmm... in no particular order...

• Which version of macOS is being used?  There was an issue with more than one monitor being connected to the Mac Studio for a while.  I think the latest version of macOS Sonoma (14.4) resolves it.  That, or enabling "Displays have separate spaces" with older versions.
• Premiere Pro 24.2 had an issue where it can become unresponsive for short periods when working in sequences using Text-Based Editing.   That should be fixed in 24.3.
• Suppose the footage was recorded as High Efficiency (h.265) or More Compatible (h.264) with the iOS Camera app.  In that case, I'd use Shutter Encoder (donation-ware) to transcode it to Apple ProRes 422 LT with a constant frame rate.  As far a constant frame rate goes, there's nothing special to do in Shutter Encoder other than pick ProRes 422 LT from the "Editing codecs".  1080p ProRes 422 LT will be about 700Mb per minute.
• Try Magnification is set to "Fit" or smaller in the Source panel and Program panel.  If Fit isn't helping, try 50% or 25%. 
  
• Double-check that the source footage is on high-speed storage as well as the Scratch Disk location for Video Previews.  For example, from the internal Flash storage (the Macintosh HD), things should be buttery smooth - even for very large, high-bandwidth ProRes files.  If somehow the clips are on a slow USB drive, that could lead to all sorts of lag.
• Even though nothing else is open, it would not hurt to monitor the Memory Pressure in macOS Activity Monitor
  
• Safe Mode to see if a 3rd party plugin is somehow causing unexpected lag, but also clearing the media cache files and resetting the plugin cache.
  
  
  

[jeffk79185465]

Warren. I really REALLY appreciate your time. You are a good human. 

-Currently Running Sonoma 14.4.1  (it says I’m up to date too. 🙂

-I’m currently using Premiere Version 24.3

-I DO have 2 monitors. I wonder if I should disconnect 1 and try to use Premiere just using one.

-I downloaded Shutter Encoder (thank you for the suggestion!)

-I’m currently set to “Fit” in the source monitor, but I’ll try going lower.

-I'm keeping my source footage and project files on a SanDisk 4TB Portable SSD. When I tried moving the source files to my CPU, it was still slow (should I keep project files...at least while I'm working on them....on my native hard drive).

-I haven't tried Safe Mode yet, but I can.

Thank you @Warren Heaton. Really really means the world

[jeffk79185465]

@Warren Heaton Included a few pictures. My playback settings, and a screen shot of my activity monitor while running premiere (but to be fair, it was just this high when it was doing the lag thing...it returned to like 40 or so after the edit was included)