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Dowding
Dowding
Known Participant
April 14, 2022
Question

Slow 4K TIFF image sequence on M.2 drives - what am I doing wrong?

  • April 14, 2022
  • 4 replies
  • 2046 views

I have 64Gb of super fast memory, an AMD Threadripper and 4 x M.2 Samsung Pro Drives (the fast ones), a new Nvidia 3000 series GPU. Driver and software all up-to-date.

 

My image sequence is made up of a short (20s) 4k images @25fps

Why, oh why, is Adobe Premiere unable to play it back without stuttering. No color grading. No other effects. Just pure footage made up of image sequences on a fast M.2 (7000MB/s)

 

Files are on separate M.2 to the cache. Anyone got any clues?

I was using PNG files BUT After Effects now takes 3 x times longer to render them out than a TIFF. 

 

Do I really need to swap editing software?

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4 replies

Richard van den Boogaard
Community Expert
Richard van den BoogaardCommunity Expert
Community Expert
April 15, 2022

Have you inspected how the TIFF files are created? If they are in 300 DPI or more, you may consider running them through Photoshop first (using a macro) and changing it to 72 DPI at the desired 4K resolution (which is all you need for video).

 

Using higher DPI file sizes will bog down your system unnecessarily.

 

Also, consider doing the timelapse animation in After Effects and then either render out the result or link the file dynamically with Premiere Pro. Ae is far better suited for handling image sequences.

 

Hope this helps.

    R Neil Haugen
    R Neil Haugen
    Legend
    April 15, 2022

    This reminds me of a couple years ago, there was a user with horrible performance on a good machine with some TIFF image-sequences. Took awhile before we finally figured it out.

     

    They were 300dpi, and HUGE. The OP finally checked with the person who'd made them, and they'd wanted to make sure it was the highest quality and made them the biggest they could.

     

    Using a batch process in Photoshop, the OP made essentially 4k (at the 72dpi figure) and they worked fine. And you couldn't see the difference in video playback. I don't know if they ever told the client they'd smallified them, but ... it worked.

     

    And yea, for video the dpi isn't useful. But Photoshop wants it set ...

     

    Neil

    Everyone's mileage always varies ...
    B
    Baffy19
    Legend
    April 14, 2022

    Yes, this is generally a sore subject. I have read and listened to users as much as I can, no matter what fast disks you have and no matter what the latest video card is installed in your computer, this, to my surprise, does not affect the speed of work. Which is very very strange. It's the opposite.

    A
    Andy 1968
    Inspiring
    April 14, 2022

    A fast SSD will have no effect if the CPU is the bottleneck as seen in the video link below. That being said redrawing H.264/265 is harder to do than redrawing Pro Res or MJPEG. 

    B
    Baffy19
    Legend
    April 15, 2022

    Judging by the configuration of the author's car, he has a very good assembly. But, alas 🤷‍♂

    chrisw44157881
    chrisw44157881
    Inspiring
    April 14, 2022

    do a benchmark speed test on your drives

    is LZW compression off on the TIFF? you might be cpu bottlenecking it with lossless compression.

    and post the image size per frame.

    and did you say the PNG played out fine?

    and what was the size difference? 

    PNG used to have threading problem which would explain the exporting times, but i think it depended on the encode Piq level.

      Dowding
      DowdingAuthor
      Known Participant
      April 14, 2022

      I am going to try some benchmarks!

      A
      Andy 1968
      Inspiring
      April 14, 2022

      My guess is the CPU is the weakest link but who knows for sure? Your best bet is to use Windows Taskmanger to find the bottleneck as seen in the video link below. 

      R Neil Haugen
      R Neil Haugen
      Legend
      April 14, 2022

      4K TIFF image sequences are a total bear for anything. I've used them only a few times, but not since I got this 24-core Ryzen with 128GB of RAM and a 2080Ti. And all drives with media are fast SSDs.

       

      I still wouldn't expect awesome playback though. But it will be interesting to see if others with more experience with TIFF image sequences get better playback.

       

      Neil

      Everyone's mileage always varies ...
      Dowding
      DowdingAuthor
      Known Participant
      April 15, 2022

      BENCHMARK SHOWS...

      Fastest to render (mutiframe support on OR off - makes no difference) - TIFF with LZW compression.

      Turning LZW compression on with a TIFF hugely helps playback - thanks for the suggestion.

       

      Output a 4K Quicktime 420, 29.97FPS clip to an image sequence. Plain with no plugins just to see how After Effects can do it before I do something normal like rotoscope.

       

      PNG and EXR are bottlenecked and took an hour, where TIFF took 2.5 minutes for test.

       

      BUT...

      • Upto 98% of 64Gb of 4000Mhz memory is being used
      • 18% CPU processing used - most cores of 3960X aren't used STILL. Even with multicore turned on
      • 17% of GPU used - Nvidia 3090

      Double checked SSD speeds and they are are working at 7000MB/s

       

      It's mental that Adobe can't sort this out - after ALL this time. No excuses about plugins not supporting multicore - Adobe After Effects STILL doesn't support multicore properly.

       

      I could have chosen a faster single core solution but, like many motion designers, I also use 3D sotware like Cinema 4D.

      Would LOVE someone from Adobe to answer this. FFMPEG take 12s

       

      Been trying out Cavalry recently. Once they support 2.5D, which I use A LOT, then it looks like a much better tool for a lot of motion work.

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