EXTREMELY SLOW EXPORT/RENDER TIMES DUE TO LOW CPU USAGE AFTER 2020 UPDATE.

[Saad20114]

I recently started working on a new video, editing it in Adobe Premiere Pro. I’m using Helios 300 2019 model (PH315-52-78VL), I7 9750H, GTX 1660Ti, 16GB DDR4 ram. I have been using Premiere Pro since Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018 in my PC (not laptop). Up to Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2019 I didn’t encounter any rendering issues & CPU usage (and in between GPU usage as well) used to be very high (40% - 100%) during rendering (even in laptop, no issues). However, my recent project (in laptop) & I think my first project in Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2020 is rendering very slow, same is the issue with rendering previews. I noticed CPU usage is very low (max 24%) and GPU is barely ever used. I’m using CUDA for rendering engine (I tried openCL & Software only as well). I have tried several tutorials on this and tried several optimisation settings, even tried rendering in Adobe Media Encoder CC 2020 with different settings but none helped fix the problem. Interesting thing is that when I render old project in laptop which was created in Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2019 using Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2020, I don’t have any such issues, so it seems the issue is specific to the new projects created using Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2020. I also tried rendering same new project in my PC using Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2020, but even that achieved same poor rendering results with very low CPU usage. How to fix this and maximise CPU usage? Resources are definitely available it’s just that the newer Premiere Pro projects created using Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2020 do not use those resources fully.

[Houde]

Hello,

it seems that I have the exact same problem.

I'm using the latest version of Adobe Premiere Pro CC on macOS. I have an i7 7700 with 16GB RAM and an AMD RX570. When I start the rendering process (FHD h264, RAW footage from a Canon 90D), the CPU is for about 10-15 seconds maxed out at 100%. However, after the 15 seconds, the CPU suage stays constant at about 25%. My GPU (RX570) usage is between 0 - 50% and the iGPU (HD630) is used between 0 - 40%. I've tried the export in both, Premiere Pro and Media Encoder and got the exact same result.

When encoding my screen records with Handbrake my system is always maxed out (not sure if this information is helpful).

Would be nice to get a feedback or tutorial how to fix that issue. 

Thanks,

Tim

[Saad20114 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

For me issue was very specific to that Premiere Pro project and I knew this for sure after extensive testing with different projects and pc. I’m certain now that this was caused due to different format/encoding of the video that my screen recorder outputs in.

Screen recorder outputs WMV file instead of MP4, not sure about the codec. Either way, when I worked on a new premiere pro project with footage that wasn’t from this screen recorder, it worked perfectly fine with high CPU & GPU usage. So, I think that either use footage that is in MP4 format & H.264 codec (I’m not sure which all formats and codecs allow for same performance by skipping additional encoding) or otherwise you won’t get same performance.

In your case it could also be due to footage being raw (in that case render it beforehand with whatever colour grading, exposure, contrast etc. you want and then start editing with the new pre-rendered (to MP4 H.264) footage but I’m not 100% sure about this.

If you can’t record in different format & codec, I’d prefer to use Adobe Media Encoder to convert footage to MP4 H.264 first, it will also take very long time but at least during editing and rendering from Adobe Premiere Pro you won’t encounter same issues again.

I hope this will help you & all the best for your work.

-Saad

[Kartikey007_YT]

Bro...

I've tried everything but nothing is working.. nothing ! please help me out...



CPU usage is approx 2-3% while exporting ... soo? now? 

please helpppp!!!!

[Saad20114]

That is way too low cpu usage. Is this from the beginning or randomly happening now? If its from the beginning then it's possibly a hardware bottleneck? I suggest you create a new thread where you ask your specific question in this forum. As with my case it seems to be different issue than yours, I had low CPU & GPU usage but it was still above 18% (CPU). Also, for me it was due to format & codec of video that my screen recoder was outputting in. 

[Phillip Harvey]

Good suggestions. I would just say that if you're transcoding prior to editing in Premiere you should transcode to a good editing codec rather than h264. Something like DNxHD/HR or Quicktime ProRes. These types of intraframe codecs are made for editing and give a much better experience. 

[rmexpress22]

This is now Premiere Pro has always been for me and it seems to be very common for most, or at least, many. I'm on a Windows 10 PC with a 3900x and RX 5700 and 32 gigs of ram. Although, the new hardware encoding does seem to work pretty well and it uses ~50% GPU usage. It takes rendering from about 5-10 minutes to 1-2 minutes for the kind of small 3-minute projects I do. I find that every other version is broken for me. Every since 2020, without fail, every other update breaks hardware encoding, or something else. 

I've tested using all SSD with my media on a NVME drive and it makes no difference whether I use a mechanical drive, SSD, or NVME.

[Lee Manor]

I had the same problem after updating Premiere, but here's what worked for me: before you export the video, scroll down until you see "Encoding Settings" Change the option from "Hardware Encoding" to "Software Encoding". Also, checkmark "Use Preview". Hope that helps.

[MeghanMurray]

This solved it for me- took my half hour video that was taking 6 hours to export down to 1 hour. Thank you!!

[craigartzner]

I'm having the same or similar issue. It seems to have started with Premiere Pro 2021. When I start encoding it takes a ridiculously prohibitive time to complete. Like 20+ hours for a 1-minute video. Never had this issue with older versions (2019-older, not 100% sure if 2020 does this). I work on two PCs, a home laptop PC which remotes into a work PC. Both are Windows 10 and have plenty of RAM to do low to mid-level video work.

The work PC is the one that essentially doesn't encode now. I can still render/export just fine on my home laptop PC, but the work PC is the one I really need to be able to work with and export with as I work with another videographer and we share the projects/video files on a server. It's no fun pulling down large video files to my home laptop (which also takes forever) in order to edit video.

[Ann Bens]

Turn off hardware encoding in the export settings.

[Ajed]

It's 100% Adobe's failure to utilize ALL cores.  If you're using plug-ins, you're almost guaranteed single core performance.  GPU?, pft, it never and i mean never goes over 50% on my current 1070.

It's the terrible engine Adobe uses according to one of their own engineers.  Nothing will change until they spend the time and money to modernize.  I don't even care about compatibility any more, it's rarely dependable anyway from projects from the past that aren't even that old. 

No hardware you upgrade to will change this much at the average users level.  I've been with Adobe for 2 decades and had it on a half dozen top of the line machines (current 5950x, Gen 4 SSDs, 64GB DDR 3600) and it's barely faster than my five year old intel six core, why? becuase it's only using ONE core, which makes it roughly 1gz faster and it checks out.  There are times when I see it utilize all cores, but it's rare and of course there is no information that's easily found on it or explained.

I shoot with a GH5 heavily, 4k 60 8 bit mostly, and it requires "RENDER IN/OUT' constantly just to preview raw footage.  EVERY and and i mean every other software can play 4 of these at a time no problem, but Adobe can't even preview it without taking all that extra time.  Add your edits and effects and it doesn't really slow down that much at all showing it's the engine, but plugins definitely guarantee single core for me and I have all the Red Giant, Boris, etc that many of us use) so my life is spent waiting more than working every single project.

It's the engine.  An engineer finally admitted no amount of hardware will fix that, it may run a little better, but not efficiently and the evidence is right in front of your face every time you use it.  Adobe is making a fortune on the new subscription model and competition is gaining, but it's still not there and they know it. 

All the great new features are exciting to use and yet take things like rotoscoping that isn't optimized and actually crashes  half way through consistently making it useless (large project admittedly). 

The customer service and support is this "us" and paid by the post "contributors" that always offer "check your blinker fluid" level advice or just the old dependable "it must be your system" I wish I could block them as they just frustrate people more than help at anything above novice levels.

The fact that these forums are packed with ignored issues is all the evidence we need that they couldn't care less about fixing important problems and are focused on introducing more features to lure in new customers. 

The day I can completely migrate is a happy day...but I'm really rooting for Adobe to miracuously fix all this as I really do like the way all this COULD work in theory together.  but for now, as any pro house, they NEVER use dynamic link etc. because of of all the issues so why would you?  

Rant over.  Sorry I'm writing this as I'm waiting for a simple project to render with my fingers crossed I won't get an error.

[Bob5C09]

I read the threads and tried all of the suggestions. Changing the Hardware Encoding to Software Encoding did not help me.  My 1 hour 30 minute wedding video will still take 52 hours to export. Are you kidding me?  As a Adobe Premiere user for over a decade, this is dissapointing and unacceptable. I never had an issue like this in the past. UGH!