Memory bloating

As long as the memory doesn't hang or crash the app or computer, 'we' more often worry about how playback is doing.

So, things like the size on disc of a bit of media aren't a concern ... frame-size/frame-rate, and the format/codec are where we spend most time thinking about performance.

That said, anything from a drone is undoubtedly H.264, the single nastiest media for playback in an NLE made. The camera has a specialized chip that quickly reduces the data to write to chip in the smallest form fastest. So ... there are very few actual real frames in that media. At the most, every 9-15, but with the drones it can easily be up to 30 frames between complete or " i-frames ". An i-frame is a complete frame just highly compressed. Some drones/DSLR modes now use partial i-frames, so it can be up to 100 frames or a bit more between full i-frames.

In between, the chip reduces the sensor image to data-sets of 1) the pixels that have changed since the last i-frame; 2) the pixels that will change before the next i-frame; or 3) both 1 & 2.

To recreate that for playback requires a TON of CPU/RAM work. De-compress an i-frame, store to RAM, call up the next "frame" data-set, recall previous i-frame from RAM, compute new frame, store to RAM, call up next set ... oh, this references the next i-frame, so find & pull that frame to decompress & store to RAM ... rinse & repeat.

A basic suggestion I've seen for H.264 work is to have 8-10 cores running as close to or above 4Ghz as possible, with as close to or above 10Gb of DDR5 RAM per core as is possible. 10 cores running above 3.8Ghz with 100-128GB of RAM was suggested as about an optimal rig.

Most colorists I know work on monster mega-computers. They look at 6K RED or Arri and go, yeah, no big deal. Get much 4k H.264 in a project, the assistant is going to be transcoding that before they even start the project. Or at least use Resolve's "optimized media" option, which is of course, creating proxies for actual playback work.

In PrPro, for that media on most machines, it is STRONGLY recommended to make proxies on ingest from the Media Browser. The included Cineform presets are really the best. Use one with say half the frame-size dimensions of your original media.

Then go to the Program Monitor's lower right corner, click the + sign which brings up the 'extra' control block icons. Hover over them until you get the one that gives a tool-tip of "Toggle Proxies", and drag it to your control area. When clicked so it's blue, you're using proxies. Clicked to gray, original media. PrPro will always use the original media for exports unless it is offline.

Neil