Skip to main content
Participating Frequently
July 30, 2021
Answered

Slow Performance with subtitles Premiere 2021

  • July 30, 2021
  • 7 replies
  • 15300 views

Is anyone having an issues editing with the subtitles layer on?

Every time I try to make an edit or playback my edit. I get the mac beach ball. 

Is there another way to improve performance?

 

I am working with mac os Mojave Macbook Pro 2019

2.4 GHz Intel Core I9 Radeon Pro 560X 4GB 32GB RAM

Correct answer morphinapg

The srt has 965 captions; imports fine to a new project. I placed it on a sequence created from a 26 minute 1920x1080 h.264 file. I added a second instance of the video to fill extend the length of the captions. I get DELAYS in simple selection/editing of captions. (This is the first time I have been able to create this problem.) The delays do not always happen, but a large percentage of the time. Some are very short delays. Others are long enough that I see the spinning cursor circle. I can get a delay when simply clicking to another point in the timeline - the previous caption stays on the screen until the switch occurs. Double clicking to edit may result in a delay before the text is highlighted.

 

I get the delays whether editing in the Text Panel or the Timeline. Some users have reported that avoiding the Text Panel helps.

 

I'll try to experiment further now that I can replicate this.

 

Stan

 

 

 

 

 


Thank you for this. Closing the text panel solved this lag for me. Just switching to another tab in the same panel doesn't work, the entire panel needs to be completely closed. I was doing a workaround where I only worked with about 100 caption segments at a time in a duplicate sequence, and cut/paste those back to the original sequence when done, or it would become too laggy. With hundreds of captions on the same timeline it would take 2+ seconds after I typed anything before the text would even appear on screen, which is obviously a major problem. 

 

Since I have a keyboard shortcut for adding a new caption, I was able to safely close the panel until I need it again for exporting, and there's no lag at all anymore. Not with adding, typing, trimming, moving, etc. It all works perfectly again. So it's clearly the panel that's causing this issue. Hopefully this helps the team isolate what they need to patch to fix this issue. 

7 replies

ricktheflynn
Participant
August 11, 2022

I've been dealing with this same problem for a very long time. Not only with captions tracks, but also with essential graphics text. On one doc, we had EG text rather than captions, for hours of dailies subtitles. Even if the captions track is turned off, or even if ALL video tracks are turned off, every single click gets the wheel of death. Also, even if all captions or EGs are disabled, same situation. Black screen, everything disabled, still the same. I've been searching for over a year for a solution, and I have found a workaround! (thanks to this thread). Disable duplicate frame markers. 100% total fix. Back to normal editing, with all tracks turned on, all captions enabled (thousands of captions and EGs on a 2-hour sequence with multiple layers of video). I'll miss my duplicate frame markers, but for now, worth the trade-off. 

Legend
August 11, 2022

thanks for posting your workaround.  while always nice if the is fixed, but it's about getting the work done...

Legend
January 5, 2022

I was seeing this all the time on a very complicated project, a restoration of a '80's documentary.   I'm working on both a windows machine and a couple of Macs... May not be an option for you, but I always duplicate my sequence when I start my days work so by the time I got around to doing the captions the project was about 28 mbs.  I did a save as and deleted most of the backup sequences and anything that I no longer needed to reference on a daily basis and my performance improved a great deal...  Also, I saw much improved performance when I updated to Premiere 2022...  Since the main element was the output from resolve (for restoration and colorcorrection) I also did an edit detcct on the sequence which made adjusting timing of captions much easier...    

Legend
January 7, 2022

fortunately for me, it's been a few months since I had to deal with captions in Premiere, but I'm starting to remember a few things that may have impacted performance.  Maybe try a proxy workflow with creating the proxy in an all i-frame format like prores proxy...  And I also found that I had some serious performance hits when I was working in a two monitor setup.  If possible try working with just a single monitor..  Also, because I needed to adjust vertical placement and add formatting for italics for the streaming platform the film festival used and the only way to get that formatting to hold was to convert the .srt file to a web vtt file and then apply these attributes, I did this in a program called Subtitle Edit recommended by some guy named ... Stan Jones, if I remember correctly (thanks again Stan, you're a life-saver).    There were a few quirks in Subtitle Edit but you might find it a better platform for this work...  Obviously, the new caption workflow in Premiere was a great place to start but Subtitle Edit was a life saver for my workflow.  

 

Next, I'm gonna have to deal with the DVD workflow which will be a whole other mess.  I went crazy figuring out how to work with Encore to author the dvd and blu-ray but now it appears that blu-ray is being delayed and the authoring for the dvd will probably be done by the distributor.  I'm assuming they'll be using Scenarist but haven't had that conversation with them yet...   

Participant
December 30, 2021

Same here, I am editing a webinar of 3 hours and edit captions, delete, create, move, etc. are really slow.

My PC: NVMe, 32 RAM, 12 GPU

Stan Jones
Community Expert
Community Expert
December 30, 2021

What specific version of PR? 2021? 2022? If 2022, 2022.0.0, 2022.1.1, or 2022.1.2?

 

Stan

 

Participant
December 31, 2021

Hi!, thanks for your response.

The last, I use the CC version updated (public version, not beta).

I have try with different video extensions and with 3 hours is so (SO) slow, with 1 hours slow and I imagine that with 15 minutes long its fast or normal.

Participant
October 26, 2021

Is this really a problem that has to do with individual machine performance or messed up preferences / cache / whatever, or is the subtitle tool just a piece of badly written, ill-conceived code that does not hold up to the otherwise mostly fine performance of this complex software?
Is there anyone who has this modul running fine and working without problems? 

On all the machines we tested it, it's just ridiculously slow and buggy. The longer you work, the worse it get's. It often (!) even does delete changes we made 10-20 minutes earlier leaving but a blank subtitle-clip. It's sadly unusable. Which is a horror, because I'm working on a polish film with a polish directress and subtitles are crucial to the editing process.

... when it could (and should) be such a basic (!) but killer feature: imagine transcribing interviews and long form documentaries and later performing text-based search for certain buzz words. It could be so wonderful.
Please, Adobe.

You can do this!

Stan Jones
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 26, 2021

This problem does not seem to affect all users. It is being worked on, but for now, workarounds are the only way. And they are no guarantee.

 

Zoom in on timeline; turn off visibility of caption track (they can still be edited).

 

See this thread for some ideas:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/large-number-of-captions-locking-up-premiere/m-p/12461204#M373079

 

Upvote this bug report:

https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/43871721-captions-in-premiere-2021-timeline-is-lagging

 

Stan

 

Stan Jones
Community Expert
Community Expert
July 31, 2021

I agree with the suggestions by Sumeet and Kevin.

 

See the posts in this thread for more informaiton on the workarounds of zooming and temporarily disabling the captions track.  Also, upvote the bug report linked there:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro/timeline-is-lagging-working-with-captions/td-p/12212802

 

Stan

 

Kevin-Monahan
Community Manager
Community Manager
July 30, 2021

Hi,

Try zooming in a little on the Timeline. I also advise you to delete media cache. File > Close All Projects. Then choose Preferences > Media, and delete all Media Cache. Quit Premiere Pro. Then, press the Option key and restart Premiere Pro to delete Preferences. I found my projects working better after doing the above.

 

Thanks,
Kevin

Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community and Engagement Strategist – Adobe Pro Video and Audio
Participating Frequently
July 31, 2021

What would happen of I reset the preferences ? Would I lose my saved workspaces or functions  that I've added to my keyboard?

Stan Jones
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 1, 2021

What would happen of I reset the preferences ? Would I lose my saved workspaces or functions  that I've added to my keyboard?

 

I think the answer is yes. But in my opinion, you should always have these backed up.

 

Stan

Community Manager
July 30, 2021

Hi Wallace5C73,

 

We're sorry to hear about this. Have you tried resetting app preferences to isolate any preference corruption issue that might be causing the app to misbehave? Also, are you experiencing this issue specifically with subtitles or is it happening with other caption tracks as well?

 

 

Thanks,

Sumeet

Participating Frequently
July 31, 2021

HI Sumeet!

 

I am on a project that has a lot subtitles (30 mins TRT) and we need the subtiles to stay with the shots as we make edits (we are non native speakers of the foreign language). The behavior that I find daunting is the contant beach balling as I use the zoom key or use the slider in the sequence.

 

I deleted all of the media cache and I seen inprovements on smaller sequnces with about 100 subtitles. 

But nothing has changed with my current time line that has roughly 500 captions 

 

I hope this makes sense.

 

Stan Jones
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 3, 2021

Hi Stan,

 

 

That's correct.

The lag happens on the larger caption sequence.   Premiere has to constantly think about performing the next command when I zoom in and out or click on another tab. I noticed that I can't have two subtitled sequences open at the same time. Using the zoom tool on the smaller caption sequence is not an issue for me at this time.

I am able to operate the application with little to no lag.

 

I'm thinking about investing in an external GPU.

 

Thoughts?


We don't know why it is slow, so I don't know if the GPU has anything to do with it.

 

I can't have two subtitled sequences open at the same time.

With only one at a time active? Or editing using, is it called "pancake" editing?

 

Hard for me to really test the zoom issues as I don't have projects that are this big.

 

Stan