Optimizing Intermediate Codecs for 4K 60fps Editing in Premiere Pro on Windows

[DJ24715962q35k]

Hey everyone,

For a while, our editing workflow has included editing multiple layers (tracks) of 4K 60fps footage using full-resolution Cineform files. Our editing setup includes a PC with a 14900KS processor, 96GB of high-performance RAM, an RTX 4090, and we're editing directly off of a NAS with 8 high-performance Seagate Exos drives in a RAID 5, along with SSD caching, over a 10Gbit network. Despite having a top-of-the-line setup and optimized Premiere Pro settings, we encounter significant lag as soon as there are a lot of edits.

To clarify, the lag becomes apparent after making a lot of cuts (probably in the hundreds or more), and this is even without any effects applied. When it gets to this point, playback becomes extremely sluggish. Hitting play often results in long delays before playback starts, and sometimes pressing the space bar results in no response at all from the application, leaving us unsure if the key press was registered or not. This makes the process of continuing the edit very frustrating and time-consuming.

Given our performance issues, I've been trying to optimize everything to the best of my ability to narrow down the source of the lag, and one thing I want to do is ensure that we are using the most performant intermediate codec possible to rule that out. Specifically, I am interested in any personal benchmarks or tests comparing timeline performance between Cineform, ProRes, and DNxHR in recent versions of Premiere Pro on Windows systems. Export speed is also appreciated, but the absolute best editing performance within the timeline is what I am most interested in, and storage space isn't a concern in this case. I realize that switching codecs may not fully resolve our issues, but I aim to optimize every aspect of our workflow.

Additionally, I've noticed that a recent beta version of Premiere Pro includes export performance improvements for ProRes and I'm curious if these improvements have any impact on editing performance within the timeline as well.

I've searched extensively for relevant benchmarks but haven't found concrete comparisons, only people saying you should have good timeline performance using any of them, and in every comparison I've found, they typically are more concerned about file size. I feel as though this is a pretty unique case, so even if it's a small performance difference, every little bit helps.

Also, I've considered trying to do my own tests, but I'm not sure how to properly perform the tests to ensure I'm getting accurate results, so any insights, benchmarks, or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

[T-Sal]

Hello @DJ24715962q35k, Despite your high performance setup, the lag issues you're encountering in Adobe Premiere Pro after numerous edits indicate that the bottleneck may be software related rather than hardware based.

Codec Performance Insights

Adobe's ongoing optimizations for ProRes, DNxHR, and Cineform, particularly in smart rendering and as intraframe codecs, are confirmed to potentially improve timeline performance.

Choosing the right intermediate codec can significantly impact your editing performance. Here’s a detailed look at Cineform, ProRes, and DNxHR:

Cineform:

• Efficient and high quality, using wavelet compression that is less taxing on the CPU during playback.
• Might be slightly less optimized for Adobe Premiere Pro compared to ProRes and DNxHR.

ProRes:

• Industry standard, offering an excellent balance of quality and performance.
• Optimized for macOS but performs very well on Windows too.

DNxHR:

• Developed by Avid, known for strong performance and high quality.
• Often preferred for Windows workflows due to excellent performance on this platform.
• Designed to efficiently handle high resolution content, beneficial for 4K 60fps footage.

Testing Methodology

To determine the most performant codec for your workflow, follow these steps:

Setup a Test Project:

1. Create a new project in Adobe Premiere Pro.
2. Import a set of 4K 60fps clips and convert them to Cineform, ProRes, and DNxHR using Adobe Media Encoder.
3. Ensure consistency by making all clips the same duration and content.

Editing Workflow Simulation:

1. Create multiple sequences, each using a different codec.
2. Apply the same number of edits in each sequence to simulate your typical workload.
3. Avoid applying effects to isolate the codec's impact on playback performance.

Performance Measurement:

1. Monitor playback responsiveness, lag, and delays after numerous cuts.
2. Measure the time taken for playback to start after hitting the play button.
3. Record any unresponsiveness when pressing the space bar or making edits.

Export Performance:

1. Export a sample sequence from each codec to compare export times.
2. Note differences in export speed to identify better codec optimization.

Proxy Workflow

Incorporating a proxy workflow can greatly enhance performance:

Benefits of Proxy Workflow:

• Improved Performance: Proxies reduce the demand on your hardware, resulting in smoother playback and faster editing.
• Easier Multitasking: Work with multiple layers of footage without significant lag.
• Seamless Switching: Easily switch between proxies and full-resolution files for detailed work and final output.

Setting Up a Proxy Workflow:

Create Proxies:

• Import Footage: Import your 4K 60fps footage into Adobe Premiere Pro.
• Proxy Creation: Select the footage in your Project panel, right-click, and choose Proxy > Create Proxies.
• Preset Selection: Choose a lower resolution preset that matches your editing needs.
• Destination: Set the destination for your proxy files.

Edit with Proxies:

• Toggle Proxies: Use the Toggle Proxies button in the Program Monitor to switch between proxies and full-resolution media.
• Edit Normally: Perform your edits using the proxies for improved performance.

Switch Back for Final Output:

• Disable Proxies: Before exporting, disable proxies by toggling off the proxy button in the Program Monitor.
• Export: Export your project using the full-resolution media for the best quality.

Smart Rendering Support

Smart rendering can improve output quality by avoiding recompression when the source codec matches the export settings. Supported formats include:

Codecs in an MXF Wrapper:

• AVC-Intra in MXF (MXF OP1a & AS-11)
• DNxHD & DNxHR in MXF (DNxHR / DNxHD MXF OP1a)
• XDCAM HD (MXF OP1a & AS-10)
• XAVC-Intra in MXF (MXF OP1a)
• And more.

Codecs in a QuickTime Wrapper:

• Animation
• DNxHD
• GoPro CineForm
• ProRes 422 (all variants)
• ProRes 4444
• And more.

Special Cases:

• DV/DVCPRO/DVCPRO HD in any wrapper
• QuickTime XDCAM to MXF OP1a XDCAM

[DJ24715962q35k]

Thank you for the detailed breakdown of the different codecs and the testing methodology. I appreciate the insights and will definitely try out the suggested approach.

Just to clarify, as I mentioned earlier, I've tried a proxy workflow using very low-resolution Cineform files. Unfortunately, this approach almost always results in basically the same performance issues as editing the full-resolution clips and sometimes it almost seems like incorporating proxies into the project might actually make things a bit buggier sometimes, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and test the other codecs as per your suggestions when I find time and see if there are any improvements. Thanks again for your help!

[Averdahl]

...and we're editing directly off of a NAS with 8 high-performance Seagate Exos drives in a RAID 5, along with SSD caching, over a 10Gbit network. Despite having a top-of-the-line setup and optimized Premiere Pro settings, we encounter significant lag as soon as there are a lot of edits.

By @DJ24715962q35k

Have you benchmarked the NAS to see if it can sustain the data rate needed for CineForm files @ 4K 60 fps? CineForm comes in 5 variants and even if you set it to 1 the files are very large, so the NAS needs to keep up.

Have you tried to put the files on an internal drive as a test, such as an NVME disk? (if you have one)

I would start there by downloading the Desktop Video 12.9 from Support Center | Blackmagic Design and installing it. When done you can find Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. (See image below)

[DJ24715962q35k]

Thank you for the suggestions!

I have benchmarked our NAS using the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test (with it set to the default 5GB setting), and the results are attached below. I could be looking into it wrong, but it appears the read and write speeds should be sufficient for handling my footage, however I guess it complicates things a bit that we have multiple tracks of these clips stacked on top of eachother in the timeline.

By the way, I realized I downloaded a different version than you suggested. Is there a reason you recommended getting Desktop Video 12.9 instead of the more recent Desktop Video 14.0.1?

In the past as one of my troubleshooting steps, I actually have tested editing the files off of my secondary local NVMe drive as you suggested (Samsung 980 Pro), but unfortunately, I'm pretty sure I encountered the same or similar performance issues there as well. I might test this again just to be sure though because it was less of a test at the time and more of an attempt to get the project to a state that we can manage so we could finish editing it in time, so since we were in a rush we may have missed it if it actually was performing better.

I appreciate your help and suggestions. If you have any other ideas or recommendations, I would love to hear them.

Thanks again!

[MyerPj]

Here's a couple of Adobe Links which may be helpeful:

Using Productions may speed things up

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/storage-best-practices-productions.html

Adobe Best Practices

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/bestpractices-editing.html

[DJ24715962q35k]

Thanks for the links and suggestions!

I don't think I've ever heard of productions (or if I have I probably just didn't think it applied to me) but will definitely look into it to see if it can help improve anything. I'll also review the Adobe Best Practices guide to see if there are additional optimizations we can implement. I'm pretty sure I've found and gone through this best practices article or something similar in my research in the past, but I'll give it a try anyway.

Thanks again for your help!

[PaulMurphy]

Out of curiosity, what's the duration of your sequence with hundreds of cuts?

In my experience, Premiere will get laggy with long timelines (20+ minutes) with many cuts, regardless of codec, effects, etc. The more of these sequences you have in one project, the laggier the whole project becomes.

I recommend always working in shorter timelines that you can stitch together at the end. Productions will help share the load across multiple projects.

Cheers,
Paul

[DJ24715962q35k]

Yeah they are 20+ minutes long. We actually do eventually split up our edits into multiple smaller timelines when it starts getting laggy to help with editing performance, but I always figured it was mainly because of the number of edits as opposed to just the length of it, although that does make sense. We usually try to avoid doing this as it feels more like a bandaid than a solution, but I guess we will just have to continue for now until Adobe finds a way to better manage large timelines like this. I'm definitely going to have to check out productions now. Thanks!