Desperately need to improve performance in 24.1.0

[Nick37271566goom]

Hi Folks.

I desperately need to find a way to improve performance in 24.1.0 on Mac.

I'm working on a feature doc, and getting horrible performance in PP 24.1
Any action (marking in/out, zooming on the timeline, editing a caption in the text panel) gives me 2-3 seconds of the spinning beach ball before anything happens. I'm working to a very tight deadline over Christmas and this is killing me!

Specs:
- Mac Studio 2022 (M1 Ultra, 64GB Ram) Ventura 13.6 OS

- Network Storage for Media & Project file via TigerSpaces

- Speedy USB-C SSD for media cache

- 2.8K Arriraw MXF for the majority of media, but using attached 1080 ProRes Proxies

- Project file size: 110MB

I've tried all of the usual fixes:

- Restarts of Mac & Premiere

- Deleting & Rebuilding Media Cache

- Global FX Mute, 1/4 Playback Resolution

- Allocating 50GB Ram which feels plenty

- Proper allocation of GPU for Video rendering as per Adobe recommended specs

At this stage in the pipeline I don't want to update the software. The network storage is centrally managed so I have no ability or say-so to change that, but it is fast with other tasks. What's confusing is I will get crappy performance even on very basic timelines (i.e a timeline with ONLY caption track on it). Could it be the Project size? 100MB seems big but not ludicrous. Any help or thoughts greatly appreciated.

Full disclosure, I'm more often an Avid editor, less familiar with PP, but good-GOD this is making me miss Avid, whcih is not something I say all that often.

[R Neil Haugen]

@Warren Heaton @Richard M Knight @Kevin-Monahan 

[PaulMurphy]

It sounds like your project size is impacting performance—110MB is indeed quite large and could lead to performance issues. Here are some steps you can take to improve your workflow:

1. Use Productions to Break Up Your Project

The first step is to divide your large project into smaller, manageable projects using the Productions workflow. Think of it like Bins in Avid. This allows you to work on smaller sections of your project while keeping everything organized and connected. The process is straightforward and should significantly improve performance.

2. Edit in Shorter Segments

Another recommendation is to cut your edits into shorter reels, about 10–15 minutes in length. This can reduce the strain on Premiere Pro and make the editing process smoother. Once all the edits are done, you can compile everything into a single sequence for final output.

3. Follow Best Practices for Longform Projects

I also highly recommend reviewing Adobe's guide on best practices for longform and episodic workflows. It offers excellent tips to optimize performance and manage complex projects effectively.

[R Neil Haugen]

Paul's advice would have been my thoughts exactly. Premiere stand-alone projects are simply not suited for long-form and episodic workflows.

They're not even the best option for those of us with multiple clients and smaller projects. Productions is even better for us.

In a Production, Premiere creates an actual Productions folder. Within that, in Premiere, you create subfolders to organize your project. Like Media, Sound, Graphics, Sequences, whatever works best.

Perhaps using subfolders in those to more clearly delineate storage of stuff.

Within the appropriate folders you create Project files to hold those assets. Like in Media, maybe organized by day of shooting, or media type.

It's built to have multiple projects open and interacting without bloat, duplicates, all that mess.

So you go to you Sequence project, and drag selected media files from their project panel to the timeline panel of your Sequence project and start cutting.

Things won't drag and slow down on you.

[Nick37271566goom]

Thanks to all of you for offering smart, well considered suggestions.

Because of the stage of post we're at: essentially final implementation of GFX before Turnover to Davinci / Online. Building a new Adobe 'Production' and transfering the Project into it doesn't seem smart.

I presume if I were to import just the Picture Locked sequence into a new Project it would only bring in the clips I was using, and thus reduce the Project size considerably - giving me better performance? I'm much more inclined to do this at this stage in our post than rebuilding in the Production architecture. Thanks!

[PaulMurphy · Accepted solution]

If you’re at picture lock and don’t need any additional assets, the easiest option is to create a new project and import your main sequence into it. However, if there’s even a chance you’ll need something outside that sequence, repeatedly importing assets from the old project can get tedious fast.

Breaking your project into a Production might sound daunting, but it’s actually quite simple and straightforward. It’s just a matter of splitting your single project into multiple smaller ones, and Premiere creates a small data file that tracks everything across the projects.

If you aim to split your project into three smaller ones (around 30–40 MB each), it should only take about 10–15 minutes. A good approach is to use your main project as the “media” project, since that probably contains most of your assets. Then, move your sequences and perhaps any backup sequences to separate projects within the Production.

[Warren Heaton · Accepted solution]

For the captions work, assuming that the picture is locked and this is not text-based editing, I would consider exporting a 1080p ProRes 422 LT movie with stereo mixdown and import that into a separate project with one Timeline.   Take care of the captions work there and then bring the captions back to the corresponding, fully editable Sequence if needed.  

[Averdahl · Accepted solution]

I noticed the size of the project file as well.

Do you use Warp Stabilizer in Premiere Pro to stabilize clips? All data WS creates is stored in the project file and has caused issues very similar to yours before since the size of the file blows up significantly.

To solve: Render out those clips to new clips and import them and use them and remove Warp Stabiliser from the original clips. If you now save the project the size of the project file should go back to a more "normal" size.

- Project file size: 110MB

By @Nick37271566goom