Unusually long export time in PP when exporting recordings captured in OBS.

[DroidAnoid]

Exporting video game footage I capture in OBS Studio is a relatively new process for me in PP as previously I only worked on video projects using a Black Magic camera and never lengths over 15-20 minutes. What I am doing now is capturing very long game sessions of 3-5 hours using OBS Studio with settings of 1920x1080 at 60fps.

Because the files are large (90GB to 180GB) and are 3-5 hours each I expected some longer export times from PP but nothing like what I am seeing now. The quickest export I am seeing so far is 4-6 hours with others taking 16+ hours to the point where I cancel the export entirely.

Details about the recordings:

Captured at 1920x1080 60fps

2-3 audio tracks per video - Voice over, game sound, music (not always there)

Average size is 90Gb to 180GB

Recorded in MKV format and remuxxed in OBS to MP4 format so I can make small edits in PP.

No extras added to the project timeline, it is literally just game footage and audio with some edits to remove space at the beggining and end when I am setting things up.

I have tried troubleshooting using the Media Info program to see if there is variable frame rates that would cause an issue but it states that 60fps is the consistent frame rate.

Trying to run the video through handbrake results in equally long render times before it finishes and can be run through PP again.

I have also tried using the Adobe Media Encoder but it also takes equally as long to render out.

When exporting from PP my GPU usually only maxes at 12% for Video Encode and my CPU rarely if ever goes past 25%, it usally averages about 22-23%.

I am using Hardware CUDA for playback and using Hardware for the export settings as well along with the 1920x1080 YouTube preset. I have also turned off the settings for Previews, Maximum Depth, and Maximum Render Quality when exporting in order to reduce the total time but this did minimal improvemement at best.

My hardware specs are as follows:

Intel i5 8600k CPU running at 4GHz - 6 core 6 thread.

32GB DDR4 Memory 3000MHz

2x Samsung 860 Evo SSD, one being used to house the project and scratch disk (also tried putting scratch disk on other SSD) and the other is where the file is exporting to.
RTX 2080 Super EVGA dedicated video card.

I am posting this after reviewing a similar article posted here that I don't think worked to resolved my issue: https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro/unexpectedly-long-export-times/m-p/11413005?page=1 and also several other forums and videos regarding the issue but to no avail.

I am relatively new to this whole process and I feel as though I am either doing something incredibly wrong or perhaps that video game footage does not play well with the PP export settings...although I find that hard to believe since I know several people who upload to YouTube after editing their long video game files in PP regulary and would not tolerate such an issue.

I can provide screen shots and additional details on my settings in PP or the PC itself as needed if anyone is able to assist. As stated I am new to this and not entirely sure what other info would be helpful to troubleshoot this issue.

P.S. I would upload directly to YouTube from Twitch instead of my locally stored recordings but dropped frames in Twitch due to bandwidth can sometimes occur and would ruin portions of the video. I have done this out of desparation but I always prefer to edit and upload my local footage after I make the changes and small edits I need in PP. It also reduces the upload time as PP will compress the file from say 90GB to 27GB when finished exporting.

[Carlos Ziade · Accepted solution]

did you try to lower the bitrate in Handbrake?

Try to export a small segment in both Handbrake and Media Encoder,

in Handbrake try to lower the bitrate and remove 2 pass encoding, and in ME try to transcode

to something other than mp4 like Quicktime GoPro Cineform yuv 10 bit.

Note: you have to record a small test segment on OBS using the same settings you used in the long recording

you will loose some quality but give it a try and decide your priority, quality or time

[DroidAnoid]

Thanks for the tips, I'm going to try this after my current video finishes exporting. I let it run for 6 hours and now it's 95% done for a 3 hour 1080p video. While it was exporting I tested what I could in Handbrake and Media Encoder and I noticed Handbrake actually let me set my NVEC specifically and was utilizing way more CPU and GPU than PP was at any point. ME did the same nonsense when I used the YouTube preset but if I switched it to Match Source High Bit Rate it started working more along the lines of what I would expect. It's still a decent chunk of time to encode but nowhere near 6 hours. I'm still not sure where the disconnect is happening though between PP and the capture I'm getting in OBS. It should be a solid 60fps at all times with no variable frame rate but maybe there's something happening with the bitrate and the preset in PP. I seem to have stumped most of my editor friends with this as well (I should mention I'm not an editor, I'm mostly a recordist and I leave the final product to other folks when I do film work but I always make sure the format going in is correct for when we export).

[DroidAnoid]

OK, I never figured out the disconnect between what was captured in OBS and why it didn't like to export in PP but I found a work around or perhaps the "proper way" to do this. I took my very large 1080p recording and put it into HandBrake and Encoded it for YouTube HQ 60fps. I changed the Video Codec to H.264 (Nvidia NVEnc) with a constant framerate of 60. This compressed the video from over 100GB to 33GB but after watching it all the way through...yes 3 hours it did not lose any noticable quality. I can now throw this into PP and make my cuts and volume adjustments then export at a much more reasonable export time.

[Carlos Ziade]

yeah you either have to choose other format or lower the bitrate, demuxing does not reduce

file size, it will still be a large file, demuxing only changes the container, you have to encode

to a lower file size... Premiere Pro does not like variable frame rates too...