Premiere Pro 2019 Huge File Size And Rendering Time

[Guest]

Hello guys! I've beeon using premiere pro for a few days now to edit some video game gameplay of me and my friend. Basically I'm filming with OBS Studio, NVENC, CQP (QC Level: 21) and my file sizes are already big after recording for a few hours. I figured that when I import them into Premiere they will get smaller since I trim away like 98% of one video at a time anyways. So far I've imported 2 videos that reach 23GB altogether into Premiere, cut them and applied effects of my choice.

The problem now is that there is a total of 4 SECONDS of gameplay that I wanted to render with the applied effects and according to Premiere they take 7MB and 1:30 Min to render. Now I cant imagine how long it'll take me to render a bigger video and how big the file size will be. Now if I try to render 3 min out of that whole sequence I made which is pure black with a song playing in the background after those 4 seconds of gameplay, it takes 380MB (I've uploaded some screenshots of the export settings). What can I do to speed up the rendering process and make the file size smaller?

Things I've done:

Made sure GPU Acceleration is ON

Tried QuickTime File Format and DNxHR Codec

EDIT: My Specs:

Ryzen 7 2700x

GTX 1070Ti

16GB Ram 3000MHz

Adobe products are on my SSD, I'm saving the output files on my HDD

[DarrenManden]

Hey there,

1:30 for 4 seconds isn't exactly what one would call fast, but the big unknown is the effects on your clips. Also, what is the resolution of the source footage?

Just to clarify, the play order for the long video that you mentioned is this:

First four seconds are gameplay, and the next 2:56 are nothing but black, but there is music playing?

Is there anything in the video layer for the 2:56 section?

Could you screenshot your timeline for us, and your effect controls panel (for the gameplay clip), as well, please.

Regarding speeding things up, please keep in mind that I'm missing information, so take these as grain of salt suggestions 😛

You could pre-render the 4 seconds of gameplay without effects into a more edit friendly format, like ProRes, or DNxHD. When you do this, if the source footage isn't 1080p, encode it into that resolution. Pop that pre-rendered file into your timeline, so you no longer reference the original source footage there. Apply your effects to that pre-rendered file in your timeline. Make sure that the black section is just a "Black Video" item, and nothing else in your video track for that section.

Then to reduce your file size, there is a bit of trial and error: Try changing to a VBR 2-pass (yes, I realise that this is going to be slower than single pass, but bear with me), and initially try setting your export settings to something like: Target 12Mbps, and Max 15Mpbs. That will start to drop your final file size down.

Once exported, if the footage looks good, you can drop your target bitrate down further until you notice that the footage starts to look artifacted. When that happens, increase it slightly.

Basically without us having your footage, you will need to be the judge, but hopefully this will help get you on the right track. 🙂

Cheers,

Darren

[Guest]

Hello Darren, first of all thank you for answering! Yes, at first there were four seconds of gameplay and ther rest of the time was pure black only with the song playing. Since then my project has expanded but right now im honestly just baffled. Since the last time I made this post I've added 3 more of my recorded gameplay videos, cut and edited to my liking, got the gameplay section to 36 seconds right now and the final file size is still 384MB according to Adobe (rest still black and music), shouldn't it be bigger with the new clips added anyway?

Breakdown of my timeline:

I've duplicated my original gameplay clips 2 times and set up the RGB Color Balance effect on them then offset each a bit to get an old VHS effect. On the adjustement layer all I have is a Noise, Wave Warp, and Venetian Blinds effect.

https://imgur.com/a/bXiTfGF

EDIT: Source footage resolution is 1080p, filmed at 60fps.

[DarrenManden]

Hey there Luca,

No problem! Hopefully we can figure this out together.

It's not entirely unexpected that the file size hasn't grown. Your VBR is set to a Target of 16Mpbs, with a Max of 16Mbps, so coming out the other side with something in the same ballpark isn't super-strange. If it were 2-pass, with a different target and maximum, and you still came out with the exact same size, that would be odd.

As a general rule, I've never found any value in running VBR with Target and Maximum matching - at that point I would probably just switch over to CBR. Matching bitrates tend to defeat the purpose of the VBR setting, but that's a whole other story. 😛

Try out the suggestions from my previous post (lower the target, etc), and let me know how you get on.

Curiously, what size are you aiming for in the end? Is there anything in particular in mind, or just the smallest size with reasonable quality?

[DarrenManden]

One other thing to quickly check: When you render the timeline, how long does that take. So, set your in and out just over that initial gameplay section, and then go Sequence>Render In to Out.

Does that take 90", like your export, or is it faster?

[Guest]

Using the In and Out markers and the Render In to Out function took me three minutes and five seconds for those 36 seconds of gameplay. Im aiming for the smallest file size I can go without losing too much quality of the video. Also I've seen that by changing from Youtube 1080p Full HD Format to Match Source - High Bitrate makes the total file size 242MB instead of 384, should I use this one or stick to the YouTube format?

[DarrenManden]

Basically the basic settings from Match, are much the same as your initial YouTube setting. The major difference is the bitrate.

I would suggest taking the first 10 seconds, setting an in and out for that, and then doing export comparisons.

In the export settings, grab the H.264 codec (you can start with the YouTube setting, or the Match, it won't really make much of a difference).

Make sure to set it to VBR 2-pass, and then start testing with different bitrates.

So, start with: Target 8, Max 15, and check that. If you aren't seeing artifacts, try lowering the target until you do. I suspect once you get to around 5-8 you might start seeing problems.

If you already spot problems at 8, increase the target bitrate a little.

Remember not to match your target and maximum, or else that pretty much defeats the purpose of VBR.

If you'd like, export the first 10 seconds to a ProRes 422 (HQ) file, and send me the WeTransfer link, and I can take a look and make better suggestions on bitrate.

If it's to be uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo, I wouldn't stress too much on making it super-small. If anything you could probably just shove it on target 10-12 Mbps, and max 15 Mbps, and then upload away.