slow editing experience when editing from fully kitted out network infrastructure

[Brandon5]

Hi everyone, for several reasons I have no choice but to edit from a network server on our local network. Despite the performance increase from having the footage stored locally, with the size of our projects this is just not possible. However I’ve noticed that despite having fully spec'd out servers and network infrastructure e.g 100GP/S networking and fully ssd server arrays, Premiere runs far slower on the media server than having the footage stored locally. From testing, there is no bottlenecks from the desktop to the server, Premiere just doesn’t seem to want to use the full 100gb/s bandwidth, the network drives are faster than the local drive and its mostly one editor at a time accessing the files. Is there any way to force Premiere to perform better over the network, optimise it or prioritise it.

This is a issue that has been plaguing us for years that we have fully kitted out machines but the software just isn’t quite working with me. I could switch to DaVinci yes but its just not that particle for the rest of the team.

appreciate your time effort for reading

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hello Brandon@CraigSharpHomes,

I read your notes. You are having performance issues with your media files located on a remote server even though the bandwidth seems to be available. Is that right? Edit: I watched your video and that seems to verify that is what you are having problems with.

• Is Premiere Pro installed locally?
• Do the client computers exceed basic system requirements?
• You say your project files are large. 
  • Have you considered breaking down large project files into a "Production?" 
• You say that your media is stored on the server, not locally. 
  • What kind of media is it? 
  • Your movie indicates that you are editing with 4K and 2K files. Are they using the H.264/HEVC codec? If so, this media is non-performant and not ideal to edit with remotely.
  • Consider proxies or transcoding, and then move these files locally for editing.
  • It's fine to store media on the server, however, one should avoid editing non-performant files directly from the server:
    • Download them to the local computer, then edit with them.
    • Why is it necessary to edit these non-performant files from a server?
• Are your media cache files living locally? They should be.
• Premiere Pro has no special features designed to tune the application for use on networks. 
  • Premiere Pro was designed to run locally. 
  • If you must run the project file over a network, you must take certain precautions. 
  • Most people use their IT admins in congress with special video VARs that have installed, tested, and support the system. 
  • It is not trivial to run non-linear editing applications over a network, especially with:
    • Non-performant media like H.264 and HEVC
    • 4K frames
    • High frame rates
    • Variable frame rates
    • Video files with a long duration
    • Sequences with long duration, etc.
  • If your scenario has any of these things, you should definitely take action.
• Resources: See this FAQ from Bob Zelin discussing the network setup for NLEs running on QNAP hardware: https://www.bobzelin.com/qnap-frequently-asked-questions
  • Note the section where Ethernet connectivity with the computers on the network is discussed: "For 4K media editing, I strongly recommend using thunderbolt to 10G Ethernet adaptors on the editing computers, or 10Gb Ethernet PCIe cards if you have Windows PC's or old Mac Pro's. These products are made by Sonnet Technology, QNAP, OWC, and ATTO Technology."
    
    

I hope the notes help. Note that Adobe Support cannot really assist you with running Premiere Pro over a network. 

I used to be in IT at Deluxe Digital Studios running XSAN with 24 or so clients. For performance issues I couldn't fix, I needed to consult the VAR that installed the network, as well as Apple, who are hardware manufacturers, so they supported this with a specialist from Apple. If you cannot solve this, I suggest you reach out for help from your IT department or from a VAR. 

Come back with any questions, and I hope I can help steer you in the right direction.

Best of luck to you,

Kevin

[Brandon5]

Thank you Keving for responding

Premiere Pro is indeed installed locally.

Do the client computers exceed basic system requirements? = yes, all editing machines are fitted with 2x 100gb network cards, 128GB of ram 3090 for graphics card and AMD Ryzen 5000 Threadripper CPU.

I wouldn’t consider the majority of our Project files to be large, the one in the demo video only had a few 1080p video clips in a single sequence. Though when editing larger projects I have split it between multiple project files.

The media stored on the server is standard h.264 1080p footage sometimes 4k and sometimes h.265 but mostly compressed h.264 1080p 30fps.

So the footage in the video is all 1080p, h.264 scaled to a 2:1 1080p sequence.

4K would be stupidly slow over the network.

Yes, all cache files are stored locally on a high speed SSD

The pc’s server and switches are all configured with two 100gb fiber network cards running in LAG.

As much as I wish I had I IT department, I’m the only knowledgeable person within my company when it comes to the network, I setup all the pc’s servers and switches.

This has been an ongoing issue for the past few years, tried every possible solution you could think off, even running a single link directly from one of the pc’s straight into the server with no LAG configuration. The example is provided is it at its best performance. But when editing documentaries performance is much worse.

I figured the problem is likely to be caused by windows SMB or filesharing protocols. Ive even contacted out network switch provider to see they could help with no luck.  

[R Neil Haugen]

Your media is mostly long-GOP mp4, and your CPUs are all Ryzen/AMD ... um, that's an issue right there.

As someone with a darn good 24-core Ryzen myself ... that total lack of long-GOP hardware is a pain in the tush. "We" don't have Intel's QuickSync, and AMD hasn't yet given us a replacement on their CPUs.

So that may be part of your problem. To test, make ProRes 422 or Lt transcodes of the media on a sequence. Create a sequence with that media, and check playback.

[Brandon5]

Thank you for the suggestion ill defiantly give it a go.

[Kevin-Monahan]

I agree with you, @R Neil Haugen. AMD CPUs are not ideal for the reasons you mentioned. I would try ProRes Proxy and the proxy method to make this situation more tenable. Let us know how it works then, @Brandon5.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Brandon5]

Just out of curiosity will intel CPU’s be better. Although Proxys don’t take that long to create, its still an extra step and time I’d rather not want to include in our workflow, though it seams it could be the solution.

[Kevin-Monahan]

I always like the workflow which allows me to edit with media that is "like butter." That way, I can JKL, scrub, and manipulate footage in the Timeline and Program Monitor with ease. H.264/HEVC native files are never smooth to work with. I don't think that many younger editors even know what it's like editing with optimized media anymore. In my opinion, it's worth the extra step of transcoding or creating proxies. Always.

Kevin

[R Neil Haugen]

Intel CPUs with their QuickSync hardware do better with H.264/5 media because of the specialized hardware just to handle that.

So especially if you don't have a QuickSync capable CPU, proxies and t-codes are useful. Premiere makes proxies on the fly in the background so that's easy enough.

[R Neil Haugen]

In general, I LOVE my Puget-build Ryzen computer. It's truly awesome for most work in Premiere ... as long as there's not too much H.264/5 media, so I avoid shooting that stuff. But when I get it anyway ... if it's only a bit here and there, it's ok.

More than that ... t-code, baby!

And ... AMD, I mean, really, come on now!