Playback is horrible on this amazing computer! WHY?

[avivb39553963]

So I bought this super expensive laptop thinking im going to have a smooth editing experience and... Now I wanna kill myself 😞

Laptop Specs:

Lenovo legion y740, 32gb RAM, Gforce 2080RTX max Q, i7 g9 proccecor, 1TB SSD.

Im trying to run a normal 4k footage project (sony a7iii) and Premiere is dropping frames like crazy it's been driving me nuts! (its dropping frames on full HD clips aswell)

I updated all the drivers, tweaked all the possible settings in premiere like ram usage and stuff... 

but nothing seems to work. 

is it my computer or am I having too high of expectations of Premiere or the laptop? (i don't think so)

Please, someone shed some light on this topic.

Tanks 🙂 

[Guest]

Do you have the Intel GPU enabled in BIOS? This will allow QuickSync decoding of H.264 media. 

You can also use proxies. 

Give this a read: https://www.dellemc.com/resources/en-us/asset/white-papers/products/storage/h17334-wp-isilon-adobe-p...

[avivb39553963]

Thanks man ill go check it out sounds interesting 🙂

and my whole point is that I don't want to use proxies haha.

[Jeff Bugbee]

What are the specs of your footage? Codec, bitrate, frame rate, resolution, etc?  Or if you have a small clip you can upload that would make things even easier.

[R Neil Haugen]

I've no freaking clue whatever why some people have a problem with proxies. It isn't about having a computer 'hot' enough ... it's about the nature of the media itself, coupled with the editing/grading/fx processes on computers.

Proxies have been a natural part of professional video post work since computers have been used for it. Still are in all major post-shops. From corporate projects through major motion pictures.

As I said, I just don't understand the antipathy to proxies. Is it somethin like people's ego is involved over being able to edit without them or something. Really? I don't get that.

My 8-core/32GB RAM rig burns through creating ProRes422 proxies in seconds per. They edit great and the BMPCC4K original media can at times (especially with effects applied) start slowing the editing process. Toggle proxies, full speed ahead. Simple fix, to me ...

Neil

[Jeff Bugbee]

"But I paid extra $$$ for an extra powerful PC so I wouldn't NEED proxies!!"

Proxies are extra steps, that's the main reason people hate them. Everyone wants everything faster and faster and creating proxies takes additional time. Will it save them time in the long run? No doubt about it. Does that fact influence their opinion regarding proxies? Not in the slightest.

[R Neil Haugen]

Much of the time, proxies take so little extra time to create ... and if planned for, nothing you notice while working. They can run in the background while you're working, or even overnight.

And yea, a couple things with the Premiere proxy thing can be clunky. Audio file mismatches ... good gravy why?

But still ... for so many things, they work so well, so easily, so fast ... as said, I just don't get it. I just like being able to work without delays.

I especially get a kick about this as most editors "big spendy hot machine" costs about a quarter of what most colorists spend on theirs. Most of the colorists I'm talking with feel that $10,000 for a new computer is essentially cheap. They typically will be a few thou above it when fully kitted out. NOT including a monitor even ... as a "base" 1920x1080 monitor is $5,000 for them. UHD? Probably $10,00 or so. HDR? Well, an acceptable monitor then is gonna be around $30,000.

And editors think a $2500-$3000 dollar machine is a major beast ... sigh.

Neil

[Guest]

I thoroughly disagree, Neil. 

OP is using a computer that has a whole lot of power, and I'm sure it can decode the H.264 Long GOP footage in VLC without dropping frames. 

If VLC, Windows Media Player, and Telestream switch are able to play back the media without dropping frames and have more than 20% overhead, there is absolutely no reason why Premiere shouldn't be able to. 

There is an issue with Long GOP decoding that causes unreasonably high FramePrefetchLatency until the Media Cache is cleared. Many people complaining of these H.264 decode performance issues that I have spoken to have also had FramePrefetchDelay over 1000ms when it should be less than the duration of 1 frame. Often that latency will dissapear when the media cache is cleared, and reapper as soon as users begin to scrub. 

This issue did not exist in CC 2017 and I have tested CC 2017 and CC 2018 side by side in the past and gotten much better usability out of CC 2017. CC 2018 acts the same as CC 2017 soon after the media cache is cleared, but performance quickly disolves. 

And furthermore, for many of us (especially news types), the original attraction of Adobe Premiere was that we could edit in the aquisiton format as opposed to Logging to ProRes. My editors edit Long GOP MPEG-2 all day long just fine, but whenver we break out the DJI drones that shoot H.264, performance grinds to a halt. It's not all Long GOP though, our CNN packages play just fine, while ABC packages can sometimes recreate the issue. It depends on the P frame structure. 

I've been editing Long GOP on Premiere for 8 years now. The only time I've ever used proxies is for motion graphics. 

[AzzieScott]

If your using PPCC2020, its premiere not your computer. A lot of people have been posting about this issue including myself. 

[Kevin-Monahan]

AvivB,

Sorry for the issue. Is this a previous project that you updated? If so, it could be corrupt. My advice at this stage is to create a new project, then import your legacy project into it.

Please also consider placing your media on a separate high speed drive. It's the #1 way to get your performance working correctly.

My advice is that you consider Premiere Pro as part of a system which is comprised of not only the software and a "smokin' laptop," but also high speed drives separate from the OS and connected via a high speed connection, like Thunderbolt, USB 3, or better. You'll need powered speakers, and ideally, a video monitor to check quality, if possible. 

With 4K Long GOP footage, I suggest that you also make sure Accelerated Hardware Decoding is enabled in Preferences > Media. 

Thanks!
Kevin

[R Neil Haugen]

JP, I certainly accept your expertise on the latency issues. That's something I hope you pester the engineers about!

I understand the issues specifically pertaining to newsroom editing. You don't have an overnight t-code or proxy batch as an option. And even a couple minutes extra time to create proxies is tough.

For other situations of course things are very different.

So, as in so many aspects of this, it ... depends.

Neil