New GPU issue with Premiere Mac / Red Files

[schmollywood]

Unfortunately the GPU issues with Premiere never really stop.

OpenCL and Metal renderer will cause a problem with Premiere Pro CC 2017 (Latest version) on Mac Sierra (10.12.3)

when using Red footage (.R3D files). If you apply effects from their Lumetri color panel the exported file will flicker strangely. Its most visible when using the vignette effect.

Heres an example with OpenCL:

A005 C001 03022K 001 1 on Vimeo

And this is the render with Metal:

A005 C001 03022K 001 on Vimeo

Its only visible on the rendered files NOT in Premiere preview.

Ive testet it on two machines (MacBook Pro Late 2013 and MacBook Pro 2016 with Radeon 460 card) . It happens on both machines when using OpenCL or Metal with Premiere. It doesn't happen when I set the render engine to CUDA (which I can of course only do on the 2013 Macbook with an NVIDIA card) or "Software only" mode.

Ive contacted Apple support over this, but they seemed very indifferent. The senior support guy I talked to didn't even know Premiere Pro....Any suggestions ? Thank you

[RTHiggins]

I can remember a long time ago on a rented machine, I had the same issue when I used the masks feature in the opacity section in the effects panel. What was happening was that I had GPU acceleration on. When I went software only, as you mentioned, it fixed the issue but at that time while using the rented machine the GPU was crap. If you have GPU acceleration on the GPU needs to be pretty beefy these days because of how much premiere utilizes the GPU.

Here is a list of GPUs adobe recommends. I don't see the Radeon 460 there. - Premiere Pro System Requirements for Mac OS and Windows

Other than that,

Are your drivers up to date?

Have you tried to recreate vignettes in other ways?

Hope this helps.

[schmollywood]

Hi Taylor, Believe me if I say it has all worked before. Ive done this and other Lumetri effects a thousand times on red footage (4k 5k, 6k...) no problem at all even on my older MacBook Pro with Nvidia card 750GT. It just worked. Suddenly it stopped working.

Unfortunately I dont know if it was the latest Sierra update or the latest Premiere update after which this started happening. And yes, other vignette effects done with third party plug-ins work fine, also any color correction third party plugs work fine. Other footage than Red footage works too, even with Lumetri, but Red footage does not. As you can see in the examples I postet on Vimeo it flickers heavily. This is just a very visible example. Its also other Lumetri effects that do this but more subtle.

Of course Im being told by Adobe support its the GPU driver. Then again Apple will claim its a software issue with Adobe. So basically its the old "blame the other party" game Im stuck in.

[R Neil Haugen]

Have you tried going back a driver release on your GPU? Sometimes an earlier driver works better than the latest one.

Sucking issue to have, sympathies ...

Neil

[R Neil Haugen]

"I've contacted Apple support over this, but they seemed very indifferent. The senior support guy I talked to didn't even know Premiere Pro..."

There's a goodly part of your answer, unfortunately. First, they're not at all "into" desktops anymore, it's been five years since they actually rebuilt the mobo's for the major Mac. It's "devices", now, that the Apple heads are interested in. Which is why even colorists are beginning to migrate to PC's running Win or often Win/Linux dual-boot rigs.

And the second part, well ... Apple has their own NLE, FCPx, and being the jealous kindergartners they are, they are pushing that, and I wouldn't expect them to be very interested in how their gear performs with a 'rival' program. These ain't the good ol' days of Mac being proud to be THE computer for all graphics work.

There seem to be a lot more of this sort of rendering issue on the Mac side lately. And I know it's a frustrating situation for the engineers, as the ones I've talked with at NAB are gee ... basically Mac in preference. So I know the team does work on nailing the Mac issues ... any one they can replicate.

[RTHiggins]

I would lean towards the GPU on this one, however, I know the pain you speak of. You seem to have troubleshooted enough to understand that red footage may be part of the problem. Again, my issue was resolved when I opened up my feature film on my beefier Mac Pro 5,1. The CPUs and RAM were nearly the same specs across the machines, with the GPU however, there was a stark difference.

Beyond this, I understand editing is happening more and more on laptops. I just moved from Brooklyn, where nearly all my director friends working for ad agencies were rockin their macbook pros and FCPX because of the speedy workflow and compatibility of various types of footage like RED. I think if I was on a laptop fcpx is a better bet tbh. That being said, I will take my premiere workstation most days overall.

If you can get to a desktop machine with a beefy gpu try opening the project on the machine and see if that fixes it. If you can't, it seems like Lumetri just requires too much power or is just buggy. 

-T

[schmollywood]

@Kevin-Monahan You seemed to be helpful with other issues like this. Could you try to get behind this and check whats going on please ?

[R Neil Haugen]

I think the Kevin Monahan (Digital Video/Audio Apps Product Support Manager) you want, is "here" ... and as Product Support, he's not 'within' the PrPro team, but does have constant connection so he can get answers on some things.

Kevin-Monahan​

Neil