Simple Text Events Choke Smooth Playback?

[JMLfilm]

Hi there, I’ve been using Premiere for more than a decade, I’m in the middle of cutting a feature project I’ve been working on for more than 4 months with no issues at all, and I’m hitting a problem I’ve never seen before — it JUST started happening:

I’m putting in occasional simple text overlays using the Text tool to create a few subtitles here and there, no more than one line of text per event, default font. Media is 4K .mov H264 and has been running flawlessly with no trouble.

PROBLEM: On either side of the text event, for about a second on both sides, playback drops frames to the point of basically freezing, and then resumes normal smooth playback. It feels like the same thing that happens when the machine chokes on a large data file or a big FX render that it can’t handle in real time.

It’s one layer of media, no FX, and -- this happens even AFTER I RENDER and have a green bar. 

I’m doing some crazy compositing in other areas of the movie with multiple layers of media with moving mattes and stabilizations and color grading all rendering in real time, but for some reason these text boxes seem to be throwing Premiere for a loop.

I’ve tried deleting the render files and re-rendering.

I run the Progam monitor with 1/2 rez selected, but most of the time I get full rez playback. Tried 1/4, no change.

I’ve tried deleting them and re-creating them rather than copy and paste, same same.

I have restarted several times, and updated OS and Premiere so everything is up to date.

Anyone have any suggestions as to how I might fix this so playback is smooth? It’s really bumping me and I can’t figure it out.

MacBook Pro M3 Max 128GB OS14.6.1

Thank you!!!

Josh

[Peru Bob]

Just a guess:

Try Preferences > Audio Hardware and set Input to None.

If that doesn’t work, try updating or rolling back your graphics driver directly from the video card manufacturer’s site. If NVIDIA, do a clean installation of the latest Studio Driver (NOT the Game Driver).

If that doesn't work, try creating a new project and import the old one into it.

[JMLfilm]

Fascinating!! Thank you so much! I will try this in the AM!!

[Peru Bob]

Keep us updated on what happens.

[JMLfilm]

Good morning!

First thing was I tried deleting ALL the render files from the project. It seemed like it started to get hinky around the time I started rendering large swaths of the movie.

No dice.

Set Audio Hardward Input to NO INPUT.

No dice.

Investigated video card.  Since my mac is the M3 Max it doesn't seem to have a 3rd party video card. Apple OS is fully updated.

No dice.

Created a new project and Imported the old project into the new one --

YATZEE!

I'm always a bit hesitant to blow up a project and start over so deep into the process.  A whole feature's worth of dailies organization and syncing plus 4 months of cutting and I'm always afraid something won't port over, or I'll lose some kind of metadata that will damage my ability for locked cuts to talk to conform -- but so far as I can tell, aside from my project window metadata displays having to be reset -- everything else is exactly as I left it!

EVERYTHING is running more smoothly now, media is even loading exponentially faster when I open a reel.  I guess there was something stuck in its craw that just kept building, but this seems to have fixed it!  This was a great idea -- thank you so much for the advice!!  I feel like I have a new lease on life!!

On to smoother editing!

[JMLfilm]

Sigh. I spoke too soon. About 10 minutes into editing with what I thought were newly minted wings, it started doing it again. Even when rendering those sections, the video still stutters/freezes while play through sections with subtitles.  Interested in any other ideas!!  Thank you!!

[Annika Koenig]

Hi @JMLfilm ! Sorry to hear you are having such performance issues. Is there a way you could share a mini-version of the project with which I should see this issue? If not, then can you give instructions on how to recreate this? Have you been able to see if this happens with specific media or specific graphics?

[JMLfilm]

Hi Annika! Thanks for the response!

I'm not quite sure how to share a mini version of the project, it's a feature project with 35 days of dailies and a lot of sequences, but happy for suggestions if there's a specific form that would be helpful to you?

I've recently discovered the SIMPLE TEXT tool, which I've been using for these instances lately and seems to work just fine.

When using the TEXT tool for these single line instances, it happens with almost all instances in which there is a text tool event.  All the media is the same (4K H264 quicktimes), and I'm generally only using 2 video tracks, checkerboarding the cut as I go.  Occasionally I have a few layers of video on top of each other if I'm doing a simple composite, a Lumetri FX drop in to do a simple color balance shot to shot, or sometimes I have a JPG that I'll drop in as an overlay, but for the most part this is about as straight forward as it gets.  And Premiere has been handling every composite and color adjustment with no troublewhatsoever, even if I am nesting composites.

No matter what else is going on, Text events cause playback to drop frames, sometimes to a point of freezing.  And the part that is most puzzling is this bump is still present even if I render the FX and have a green bar.  If I render a QT of the sequence everything is fine, but internal FX renders don't change this artifact at all...

Thank you for looking into it!  Please let me know what I can send you that might help!