Pr Workflow with Ae and Rendering Performance

[mhump]

Trying to figure out the best approach for perfromance, especially when adding After Effects to the mix.

To start, I'm working on a laptop, so I've adjusted my expectaction accordingly.  But I want to find out if what i'm seeing is typical.

Hardware:

Intel i7-10750H, 16GB Ram, iGPU = Intel UHD, dGPU = NVidia GF 1650 Ti, 1TB SSD

I am working with a 55 second clip.  I've applied a few adjustments, including Lumetri color.

I then Right Click - Render And Replace with After Effect Composition. 

In Ae, I am using the Noise/Grain Removal.  I apply the effect, save, and then return to Pr.

When it comes time to render, it takes about 3 hours.  The whole time, both the iGPU and dGPU are at 0%, and the CPU is consistently at 40-60%.  But I've read that GPU is not used for a lot of things in Pr/Ae - it would seem that Noise/Grain removal is one of those things.

I've read that using the linking can be very slow and resource intensive.  I did see one article that suggests doing the noise/grain removal in Ae, and rendering there.  This makes sense I guess because you only have to render it once.  As it stands, if I want to make any adjustments post-export, i have to wait the whole 3-4 hours again.

I'm not clear on the best workflow for this though.  How to go from Pr to Ae back to Pr without using linking, as well as rendering settings in Ae to get the best quality.

This is a hobby for me (not a professional) so i don't mind waiting some time.  3+ hours seems like a lot for a 55 second clip.  

Any help/suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks

-M

[Michael Grenadier]

I would do the send the clip to AE before doing any lumetri correction.  and render out the AE comp and put that on top of the ae comp in premiere so it doesn't need to render...  and then apply lumetri in premiere.  bwdik?  The dynamic links between ae comps and premiere can sometimes get wonky so this helps keep things on the straight and narrow.

[Apetch]

On my old PC the only way I could use Denoising plug-ins without waiting forever was to use it in Premiere and follow the same procedure everytime...

I'd finish my video, export it then put it back into Premiere and THEN drop Denoiser on, then export again.

Maybe that was just good for Denoiser 3 or whatever, but it worked for me - it sped it up and removed glitches that would happen if I stacked it on top of other effects.

[Kristian Gabriel]

Denoising, in general, is not very smooth unless you are lucky or you have a very powerful GPU and computer specifically created for rendering fx. Because you are on a laptop, as already suggested, it would be much, much better to apply the effect in After Effects and then export a single clip back to Premiere (which will become your new master clip). It seems like a whole lot of trouble, but denoising is a very serious thing. I've accomplished this on my laptop with success, but it was very slow. The native effects in AE take a lot of time and the 3rd party effects such as DeNoiser and others can be worse. To summarize, avoid the dynamic linking with Denoising or Denoising directly in Premiere if you don't have a powerful computer.

As a side note, for future, difficult exports, try less compressed, higher quality formats such as Prores, DNxHD, DNxHR, Go Pro Cineform, or Animation. Recently, we had some issues with particle effects in animation and we tested output in various formats across different computers and it was clear that some formats put additional pressure on the effects processing. Effects cause a lot of processing and if you combine a highly compressed file format...this can mean longer processing times and more things that can negatively affect the output. Some effects have issues with even the mighty Prores file format. There are times where GoPro Cineform and Animation seem to process smoother. I'm not saying this is the perfect answer to your problem, but this is something to be aware of or try on a lower powered machine. 

[Michael Grenadier]

I generally use the neat video plug in and I find the interface much more responsive in AE than in Premiere.  This is true in a bunch of different plug-ins.  Some plug-ins are almost unusable in Premiere... particularly if you're adjusting a bunch of parameters and need to see feedback...

[mhump]

I've been looking at Neat Video.  I tried the demo, and was impressed with the performance and results.  But the demo is only 720p.  I'm thinking 4k is a different world, and would like to better understand performance before I purchase.

As I mentioned, I'm not a pro, so i don't mind waiting, and I have to curb the expenses at some point (don't I?).  But if it's a day and night improvement over Ae's Noise/Grain removal, I'd mow a few extra lawns to get it.

Until then, i appreciate everyone's help and recommendations to get what I can out of the software/hardware that I have.