My ProRes proxies for my HEVC drone shots won't play smoothly

[al_camps]

I've been troubleshooting this for a while and I can't seem to find a solution.

I created proxies for my DJI drone shots. The original files are shot in HEVC (H.265) UHD, 4K and 5K, all 23.976 fps. My proxies are ProRes 540p 23.976fps, all attached to their original media file and easily toggled on/off in Premiere. The thing is, Premiere reads the original files smoothly, but not the proxies when they're toggled on.

Note that my project is pretty big (26 MB), lots of sequences and media... But this problem only affects the HEVC drone shots. The proxies playback for a couple seconds and then freeze. Also note that my computer can playback the original 4K files just fine, which is weird. Proxies were created using the same settings for other UHD 23.976fps media and those work just fine.

I'm using Premiere Pro 22.6.2 (latest version) on a 2017 iMac Pro. Here are the specs:

Processor: 3.2 GHz 8-Core Intel Xeon W

Memory: 32 GB 2666 MHz DDR4

Graphics: Radeon Pro Vega 56 8 GB

I have the same issue on a brand new Mac Studio with M1 Max chip and 64GB RAM. So I don't think the computer's specs are the problem here.

Any insight? Thanks!

[Michael Grenadier · Accepted solution]

try changing the renderer in project settings:  general to software.  Not ideal, but can make a difference in playback.   

What kind of drive is your media stored on?  Might run diskutility: first aid on the drive and if you have diskwarrior, run that.    And make sure you have at least 20% free space on your startup drive and at least 10% on all your other drives...  

[al_camps · Accepted solution]

My media is stored on an external 18TB G-DRIVE. Running first aid actually solved the issue. Thanks! I'll make sure I keep the amount of space you recommended on my disks.

[Michael Grenadier]

thanks for updating us.  I don't often think about running diskutility on a media drive.  easy to forget that it can improve drive performance.