P: Improved performance for Canon raw video formats

[Chris Spiegl]

[Moderator: I tweak the title to make it easier for people to find this thread.]

Dear Adobe Team,

I hope this message finds you well. I wanted to take the opportunity to share some feedback on my experience using the Canon EOS R5C with Premiere Pro. While I have been utilizing raw files more frequently, I have noticed that the software is struggling with processing these files during playback. Even without any effects or color adjustments applied, Premiere Pro seems to lag significantly, but particularly with small effects like lumetry color.

Upon playback, my CPU usage spikes to 100% on all cores, while the GPU remains relatively calm at around 50%. This makes it nearly impossible to smoothly playback footage at full resolution. When I reduce the playback resolution to 1/16, it does play through, but this compromises the quality and is not an ideal workflow.

Using proxy files is an option, but it becomes limiting when I need to make more intricate adjustments such as color grading or noise reduction.

With these concerns in mind, I would like to inquire if it is possible for Adobe to improve the processing of Canon RAW Light files in Premiere Pro, so as to alleviate the heavy strain on system resources.

To provide some context, I am working on a powerful M1 Max 64GB machine which handles 4k HEVC flawlessly. However, the Canon RAW files seem to overwhelm the system.

I genuinely appreciate any insights or guidance that you could offer on this matter. It is my hope that Adobe can continue to enhance the render engine to address these challenges.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Best regards,

Chris

[EditingBear]

I have a possibly serious problem on my hands:

My main client has moved heavily into shooting on the C200 and editing with its resulting CRM files. They say CRM edits just fine off of external SSDs on their (Mac) systems. However, when I try to work with these files on my main system, it's a nightmare even off of my internal M.2 SSD with 3GB/s read speeds. Playback is a choppy, slow slog and so is all editing / effects work / coloring. My machine eats up any other 4K format just fine so far, but CRM is a no-go at the moment.

To top it off, Premiere can't seem to create proxies for CRM footage and the Canon Cinema RAW developer utility creates just unusably large DPX files (and is way too slow). ProRes is of course out of reach on Windows. The client wants to have a streamlined workflow (not creating redundant ProRes on their Macs) as they have no problems with CRM, and who could blame them.

My system is this:
Win 10 Pro 64bit

Intel i7-6850K @ 3.6GHz

64GB RAM

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti

Samsung SSD 960 EVO (for the CRM files)

I would expect to be able to play CRM files on a timeline without any effects and at 1/4 resolution?

Any help, anyone?

[Richard van den Boogaard]

Hi,

Your hardware specs seems to be OK; similar to my machine.

I have had good experiences editing CRM files from C200 in CC2018. Have not had a chance to use them in CC2019.

Can you see if it works in CC2018?

Let me know if this works.

Richard

[EditingBear]

Thanks for the speedy reply and sorry, should have specified: I'm still on CC 2018.

I've been too busy to risk upsetting the apple cart by installing anything new.

I guess I'll try 2019 then, now that you've reminded me of the obvious - not holding my breath but what have I got to lose at this point?

Edit:

Well, I installed CC 2019, created a fresh new project, imported two CRM clips and created a sequence from one of them.
The same deal - incredibly choppy playback at 1/16(!) resolution.

Edit 2:

I also installed the free version of Resolve, and with what little I could do with it, it seemed to almost completely eradicate the problem: almost flawless playback at full resolution, with some quick color correction applied. So as far as processing power is concerned, my rig can easily handle it, as expected.

Something in Premiere / its interaction with my system seems to be messed up.

Edit 3:
Well, CC 2019 did bring with it the ability to create proxies out of the CRM files. I think my existing version of Media Encoder had some problem with it, but now it seems I can create DNxHD-proxies and based on a quick test they work smoothly as ever. Takes a couple of hours, but at least this would get me back to editing instead of gnashing teeth.

[Trevor_Asq]

4K canon raw is definitely pretty meaty to edit with - I’ve had to transcode to DNx Proxies .

What spec is their edit station that can edit natively?

[EditingBear]

They use 2017 Macbook Pros for pre-editing stuff, so you can see my problem. I'm supposed to have a decent workstation here, but if it can't keep up with their laptops, this is not good.

[EditingBear]

This seems to be a dead horse, but I'll just add this:

My client recently updated their Macbook to CC 2019 and immediately suffered severe slowdown in Premiere's CRM performance. Everything was going swimmingly for them and after the update, BOOM, Premiere ran like oatmeal. This is not so great, I have to say.

[Kevin-Monahan]

EditingBear,

It's a verified bug in Windows only (Mac it's fine). Very sorry about this. We are working on a fix.

Thanks,
Kevin

[megamanatl]

any updates on this bug or any work around.

I tested it  on my 2003 mac book pro and  it faster than on my brand new 2019  razer blade  with 2080 max

[arturn97065632]

so whats the most effective sequence settings to work with the CRM files??

[maxwellingels]

Did this ever get fixed? I'm running a 9980xe a gtx 2080ti m.2 ssd and 32gbs of ram. Very annoying that I can't edit the footage I shot because of slow speeds. How should I work around this?

[ryanr23349659]

I would love to know of a solution to this as well. I get wayyy better performance using raw RED files at the same resolution, Canon CRM runs like sewer trash.

[jasonvp]

I rented a C500 Mark II last weekend which produces similar RAW Light files.  I don't know if they're 100% identical to what comes from the C200, but I suspect they're close.  On my monster Mac Pro (2019) with the 16-core Xeon, the simple act of trying to play the footage sent all cores to 100%.  Playback was basically impossible.

I don't know if the same thing is happening on your rig; you might want to watch your system's CPU load while you're trying to play the files.  Does your rig go right to 100% on all cores?  If so, uh... game over.

[martinfueloep]

Hi Jason,

same here: playing back C300 Mk3 CRMs sends all of the CPU cores to 100%. Fun fact: the GPU does not take any work on my system.

When editing the CRMs with Davinci Resolve, there is no problem: GPU and CPU both take a part of the rendering work and the playback is smooth.

[jasonvp]

Yep, I know about the playback and editing ease with ... "other" NLEs.  It's one of the main reasons I've let my CC sub lapse and am no longer editing in Pr.

[Daniel Ehrhardt]

Hi,

It has been more than 1 year since you wrote that you are working on a fix. No update yet?

I tried to cut videos on my current rig, but even with 1/4 it is hardly possible to work with it.

Please provide a solution or workaround as soon as possible.

Best,

Daniel

[sf7]

Why does Adobe not get it together. I am paying them 60$ a month and I am not able to edit my Canon CRM Footage. I am switching to Davinci Resolve in the future just bought the Studio Version.

[Profanity removed by moderator]

[Cal MacBeth]

Hi Kevin,

Hope you're well! Can you tell me if this is still a bug in CC2021 on Windows? CRM still seems to be grinding PP to a halt.. Canon's Cinema Raw Development tool is still able to playback easily.

Thanks!

Cal

[Christian Leibig]

January 2023, nearly two and a half years later I still cannot playback CRM files from a Canon R3 without Premiere grinding to a halt. This is on a Threadripper 3960x, RTX 3090 and 128GB of RAM and 1/4th playback resolution.

Even tried a complete new test installation with Windows 11 and it was exactly the same performance.

Davinci Resolve and Canon's Cinema Raw Development play the files just fine. Can this please finally be fixed?

[richards56526006]

The same issues here, but using a Macbook Pro 16" M2 Max with 96GB... 6K RED RAW footage footage plays back smoothly in Premiere Pro, but 6K RAW footage from the Canon R3 won't play at all.  It plays perfectly in DaVinci and in Canon Cinema Raw Development.  Are Adobe going to fix this?

[richards56526006]

Hey everyone.. I'm using a Macbook Pro 16" M2 Max with 96GB... 6K RED RAW footage footage plays back smoothly in Premiere Pro, but 6K RAW footage from the Canon R3 won't play at all - basically a frame every 20 seconds or so, and processors running at 100%.  It plays perfectly in DaVinci and in Canon Cinema Raw Development.  Any ideas? Thanks 🙂

[R Neil Haugen]

This might be something that @Fergus Hammond might have help with.

Neil

[AndreasWinter]

Same problem here as well. Running a 5950X, 128GB ram, RTX 3090 - Separate Nvme ssd for the OS, scratch disk and media cache + got the CRM files on a separate nvme as well. Just painfully slow and choppy in Premiere Pro (latest), but buttery smooth in Resolve. So annoying...

[Cal MacBeth]

You're not alone! Here's another thread dating back to 2018 -https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/c200-raw-crm-editing-really-slow/m-p/1375957...

Seems like Canon's RAW Light .CRM in Premiere Pro is simply not cared about albeit 'supported' in the most basic sense. It seems to be a problem in PP that affects even the highest spec Mac & Windows systems. Having not seen any real response from Adobe, I wouldn't hold your breath for a fix. It's been a real disappointment.. Other NLEs seem to handle .CRMs fine!

[PowerMike G5]

I can echo everyone's feelings here.  Playing back one stream of Canon CRM from the C300 Mark III in Premiere literally uses all 16-Cores (32 threads total) on my Mac Pro 2019 7,1 Xeon system.  And it still can't playback smoothly, dropping frames.  My GPU (RX 6800 XT) basically stays idle in this use case.

I load the same footage in DaVinci Resolve and is barely uses 3 CPU Cores for perfectly smooth playback at 100% full resolution. 

I'm really surprised how inefficient Premiere Pro is with hardware here.  I've resorted to transcoding to ProRes to use my Afterburner card, but has it really been over 4 years and Adobe still hasn't addressed this?? 

[Harry Chalker]

Strangely for me it seems to be resolution dependent. I'm editing on a M1 Max Macbook Pro with 64GB of memory and I can play back 8K 50fps raw from my R5C with next to no issues but I cant play back 5.9K raw at 25 or 50fps from the R3 or my R5C. Tried both ST and LT raw in 5.9K with no luck. Massive pain considering 5.9K is a massive factor for why I bought the R5C. No issues with playback in resolve.