Render Farm for Premiere Pro

[kennethy69524864]

As the title suggests, how can I connect multiple computers (on the same network) and render a Premiere Pro project (faster)?

I know this question has been asked before in different ways, but the answers don't exactly line up with what my situation is (i.e. they target After Effects projects).

I have five machines that all support the latest versions of Adobe CC (2020). I would like to find a way to simply send a finished Premiere Pro project (with all of its assets and external comps including After Effects and Audition files) into something like a Watch Folder, except instead of only one computer rendering all five computers work together to render the project. I understand there are some ways to use frame splitting to render individual frames separately on different computers and then combine them in the end, but I have not been able to get this to work.

I do not mind working with scripts or code, in fact, this setup will be linked together in a render server, so it would be great if the solution to this could also send callbacks or signals when it has completed a render.

Thank you for your help!

[R Neil Haugen]

AfterEffects has supported render farms for some time.

However I've never heard of anyone who has been able to achieve that with Premiere. The two are not coded at all alike.

Post a UserVoice request for this would be good. Then post a link to that back here. I'd go vote for it, as would a number of others.

Adobe lives by metrics. Give them some.

Neil

[kennethy69524864]

Thanks for your reply!

At the very least, is there a way to recieve callbacks or signals from Media Encoder after a render initiated from a Watch Folder has completed?

[Guest]

Adobe has expressed a roadmap direclty contrary to multi-computer encoding for Premiere. They are solely focused on hardware acceleration frameworks and SIMD optimizations for performance improvement. 

Furthermore, it's futile for Long GOP codecs where it would actually make a difference

There is a setting to make Media Encoder bing when it's done, you could probably trigger a script based on the audio output of the computer speakers if you need anything more: https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro/alarm-sound-on-completed-render/td-p/9594417

[premiumleo]

Would it be possible to import a completed (edited) video from premiere into aftereffects, and render it that way (with minimal extra input)?

[R Neil Haugen]

Not that I know of. I think I've read of a plugin utility app that could be set to inform the user about something like that. Unfortunately some time ago.

Neil

[Alexander Skobtchenko]

The best option I've been able to find, is to export your Premiere Pro Project via Media Encoder (which can also be done for After Effects), and setting up the watch folder there.

Basically using Media Encoder for Network Rendering:
Using Adobe Media Encoder as a Remote Render Farm for Adobe After Effects (schoolofmotion.com)

I've sought advice from Adobe re: Distributing Exports across Multiple Render Nodes, so as to render more quickly by utilising many more machines' resources, from the network.
And they've said that this solution also works with Media Encoder, not just for After Effects:
After Effects User Guide (adobe.com)

I'll be playing around with this over the next little while. Hopefully it'll allow us to accomplish all of our Render Farm needs!

[Eddie5FD8]

@Alexander Skobtchenko: Have you had any more success using Media Encoder to do a multi-render of Premiere Pro projects? I opened my big mouth at work when I said, "I'm sure Premiere can use a render farm. After Effects does, so I don't see why not." Oops 🙂

[kalamazandy]

So have you figured out how to do it with media encoder? This is useful for single projects, but also quite useful if you need to render something like 100 clips as separate clips at once. If I know I have 3 machines available, I could just send 33 on each machine, but that requires time for user input, And not all the computers/files will render at the same time. It's much better when one computer just picks up the next job upon completion. 

[Andy 1968]

What are your computer specs and what are your render times?