Encoding stuck on Software only

[zTwiggyy]

Hi everyone,

firstly, I'm on a decent pc, RTX3060, i5-12400K, 16GB RAM and have had no issues previously with exporting with prem pro.

i had a forced app update a couple of days ago via creative cloud and a nvidia studio driver update last month (oct) too.

i have a preset saved for all my exports at H265 (HEVC) 4k (2160x3840 (UHD)), these usually go to tiktok, youtube shorts and other portrait based platforms.

I attempted to use it today and for some reason, I cannot use my Hardware Encoding. It is locked to Software only - it WAS on Hardware. It's set to VBR 1-Pass at 40mbps and I have never had an issue.

I used to crunch 8minute 4k videos in 5ish minutes and a 4minute video took almost 4 hours today.

i can't keep working like this. Any suggestions?

[title edited by mod]

[MyerPj]

There's no forced upgrades in Creative Cloud. Check the options, you may have set auto-update on.

Make sure you have the Studio nVidia driver, not the 'game' version. 

[MyerPj]

Firstly, delete the cache, hold shift down as you start PP from the normal icon. If that doesn't work, do the same, but delete the preferences. And any other items in the dialog you think may help.

#edited, corrected with 'shift'

[zTwiggyy]

can confirm it is NVIDIA Studio Driver

holding space bar wasn't working, I had to hold shift instead and then removed everything.

Even went as far as reinstalling Pr2025 and then reverted to Pr2024 - still no luck!

any more recommendations?

[Ann Bens]

Make sure you have the most current Nvidia driver installed.

If so roll back one or two versions. Do a clean install.

Does it still set to software if you set everything manually? Not using the preset.

See how that goes.

[zTwiggyy · Accepted solution]

Ok everyone, firstly thank you for your help.

Turns out, this was due to a plug-in, namely the "Fnord WebM Plug-In for Premiere Pro".

I had a lot of WebM videos that are natively unsupported in Pr and maybe the Plug-In did something in the back end that bugged my installs of Pr so I uninstalled it via the "Add/Remove Programs" in Windows and now I have access to select Hardware Encoding.

So there we go. Simple fix now looking back but hopefully we all learned something 🙂

thanks again!

[Kevin-Monahan]

There is a newer version of that plug-in available, if you need it. Here you go, @zTwiggyy: http://fnord.com/

I hope that helps.

Thanks,
Kevin

[MyerPj]

Thanks for letting us know!  

🙂

BTW: https://www.shutterencoder.com/en/

Shutter encoder is excellent for transcoding one video format to another. Like WebM and mkv (vp9). Take a look, it free/donation ware.