Are my files too big for Premiere Pro?

[Brandy35558378p7ve]

Hi! I'm editing a documentary short (roughly 20 minutes) and everything had been going fine until a few days ago. I go to open the project and it won't playback, when it does play back it's stuttering, out of sync, and any action I try to do ends up timing out. I go into trouble shoot mode and I think I've figured it out but I want to make sure I am raising the right flags to the producer/I've exhausted all of my options. I'm editing on a Macbook Pro 2021 with the Apple M1 Chip, 32gb RAM. Footage is a comprised mostly of 4K A7Siii & C200 but there are a handful of h264 news clips. I'm working on the Lacie d2 Professional 20tb drive. I didn't add or change anything before the crash happened but the project has slowly ballooned over time.

I double check that I was working in a Proxy Workflow.

I check storage on drive, noticed that we're using 19tb. I offload about 600 gb of footage just to see if that helps. I was also, already working across 2 drives b/c of overflow so now having to work across 3. Still getting stuttering and delayed playback.

Check the activity monitor and noticed that Premiere was using 90gb + of memory. 

I cleared the Media Cache, removed any extraneous extensions.

I created a new project & imported the old one into it. Still getting playback issues & notice that it's using 26gb memory.

I create a new project and import just the last 2 sequences that I was working on & it plays back mostly better & is using signifcantly less memory about 5gb.

It seems to me that the there are a few issues a play.

1) I need to get a bigger drive that can house all of the footage in one place.

2) I need to work on a faster system (post house is supposed to be getting a new computer in a few weeks).

Is there anything else that I'm missing/that I should try?

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi @Brandy35558378p7ve,

Thanks for writing in with your problem. Your media is heavy, but you say you use proxies, right? Have you watermarked them to ensure that you are actually working with those files? I like to do that and just use the built-in ones. Sometimes, you think you are using the proxies, but there is something going on, such as they are not attached, etc. Are these ProRes Proxy format or H.264? I recommend ProRes Proxy. The other issue is your media storage situation needs to be considered. Are these high-speed drives all connected via Thunderbolt? Let us know. How full the drives are is another thing to look at. Daisy chaining drives is never a great idea, as the speed of other drives can bring performance down. 

Your one step in "rebuilding" your project seems to point to corruption in the project file. That (rebuilding the project) may be, ultimately, what you will have to do. As long as your sequences are intact, you might want to explore that. You inherited the project, so you probably don't know what that project file has already been through. 

Many of us have been in your shoes before. Please keep us in the loop. I hope the community can assist. I'm really sorry for all the frustration.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Brandy35558378p7ve]

Hi Kevin! Thank you for the suggestions. I double checked and the proxies are 422.

I decided to go into my project panel and turn on proxy media file path & proxy media file name to see if the proxies were attached. Both of the colums were blank. I'm assuming this means that the proxies aren't actually attached? I have the proxy button selected blue but I also inherited this project so I'm not sure how they were originally set up. Is it possible to re-attach proxies or attach them after the fact?

[Kevin-Monahan]

Right @Brandy35558378p7ve,

It looks like your proxies are not attached. Right-click on the clips in the Project panel and choose Proxy > Attach Proxies. See if things work as expected once you perform that step. Let us know how it goes.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Brandy35558378p7ve · Accepted solution]

Thanks, Kevin! I went through and attached the proxies and also created some new proxies after I realized that some had never been created for a few of my footage folders. Between this and creating a new project, the project is working a lot smoother now! I also had the producers buy a new drive so that I can slowly start to transfter everything on it, so it's all in one place. Thanks for the help!

[Kevin-Monahan]

Cool, @Brandy35558378p7ve,

I'm so glad you are back on track again. Take care!

Thanks,
Kevin