First, check out this document, which contains some good tips for improving performance.
Next, here are some tips I have for better performance and playback, regardless if you are on a Mac or PC. I assume you're likely having one of the following issues, mainly if you have imported H.264 or HEVC footage:
- The playback is halting and stuttery.
- The playhead moves, but my picture is still.
- Audio plays, but video does not.
- The video plays fine until it hits a clip with a red or yellow bar over it.
- Scrubbing video back and forth in the Timeline, Source, or Program Monitors is not very smooth.
- Scrubbing thumbnails in bins, playback is not smooth.
The problem is that many computers find it difficult to playback and handle H.264 and HEVC native formats adequately.
What to do?
- Make sure your system exceeds the minimum system requirements.
- Lower the Playback Resolution in the Program Monitor as low as you feel comfortable.
- If you have H.264 or HEVC footage, ensure that in Preferences > Media, you check the box for "Enable hardware accelerated decoding" if it is available. This uses Quick Sync to decode this footage for better playback of this footage. Restart the computer if the option is disabled.
- Ensure media is on high-speed drives separate from your OS drive. A high-speed SSD can assist with speed issues.
- Disable High-Quality Playback in the Program Monitor's Settings (Wrench) menu.
- Turn off any overlays or as many as possible.
- Make sure the Sequence Settings match your Clip Properties precisely. If not, as closely as possible.
- Make previews capable of smart rendering and better playback. In Sequence Settings, set Editing Mode > Custom.
- Change the Preview Render codec to ProRes, Cineform, or DNxHD.
- Render any clips that do not playback well or if they have effects applied to them.
- Still, having trouble? It is probably because your computer is not quite powerful enough according to system requirements and the media you are using.
- Options:
- Create Proxies. Avoid H.264 proxies. Use the QuickTime proxies instead.
- For any clips exhibiting problems, use "Render and Replace" and choose ProRes, Cineform, or DNxHD/HR.
- Transcode footage to ProRes, Cineform, or DNxHD/HR in Media Encoder.
- Transcode the footage to .mp4 in Media Encoder. If the app is unavailable for your media, use the free Shutter Encoder app.
Note: Though some of these formats play fine in certain media players, they do not play as smoothly in Premiere Pro. It turns out that playing back a non-performant media type in a simple media player is not as difficult.
At the heart of these issues is the problem of what I believe to be"Non-performant" media becoming the dominant media source."
- Highly compressed media formats like H.264 and HEVC are the dominant formats for mobile devices, screen-capturing software, webcams, and drones.
- This kind of media performs worst in non-linear editing systems. Video from an editing codec does not have this issue; it performs much better at the cost of much larger file sizes. You can later delete these intermediate files to restore the drive space.
- Video editors worldwide face the challenge of H.264/HEVC source of media being the most dominant one in certain key workflows.
- Video editors, especially those new to the trade, expect H.264/HEVC video footage to perform as editing codecs when the fact is that some footage is much harder to decode and playback than others.
- Quick Sync-enabled CPUs by Intel with more cores and other features can bring relief to these editors.
Let me know the steps you take to get better performance in Premiere Pro.
Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community & Engagement Strategist – Pro Video and Audio
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