Gaussian blur - auto tracking extremely slow

[twpands]

Hello everyone

I'm using PP 24.1.0.85. The program runs smootly editing 4K footage but when I add Gaussian Blur and click on "track" it takes about 2 secs to track 1 video second. I'm tracking 1 face and it pretty small compared to the video itself.

My main editing station is a i9-13900k, 64 GB ram, rtx 4090, while my notebook is a Lenovo Yoga Pro i9-13905H, 64 GB ram and rtx 4070 Mobile. I'm mentioning both configurations because there's literally no differences in tracking between the two machine. Monitoring via hwinfo and task manager, my GPU sits at at about 10% while the CPU is at 20% (top load) and the temperature are around 60° on my laptop and even lower on my pc.

Am I missing something obvious here?

Thanks!

[Mike Dziennik]

2sec for 1sec of video in 4k really isn't that slow. What are you expecting - were you expecting it to be realtime? Or faster?

[twpands]

Actually faster, but the thing is: why my CPU (and GPU but I believe tracking is mainly cpu-related) are doing essentially anything? After all tracking should be a calculation...

[twpands]

Sorry, just realized I misspelled a TINY detail: 2 secs for ONE SINGLE FRAME!

[R Neil Haugen]

What format/codec are you working with? That's another issue that is part of this.

[twpands]

Video Codec Type: HEVC 10 bit 4:2:0

Type: MPEG Movie

Image Size: 3840 x 2160
Frame Rate: 59.88

[R Neil Haugen]

10 bit UHD long-GOP in ... 59.88fps? Or 59.98?

That is a ton of decoding work there. This process is also a load of itself. Warp is even worse, but Gaussian puts its own computing load even on ProRes.

For that, it's having to do a lot of predictive pre-analyzation just to find the iframes to compute from. THEN separately computing the blur.

Would be nice to know what the holdup is. How much cache do you have, and on what connection to the computer?

[twpands]

Not sure if I get you right but it's 59.88 copied from the file properties from Premiere Pro.

I have 52 GB reserved for Premiere Pro (never uses that amount) and my current Cache folder AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Common is 936MB

I'm working locally on a Corsair MP600 Pro 4TB, no network connection involved in the process.

[R Neil Haugen]

What produced those clips? I'm used to seeing 59.94fps.

Are you running everything on the same drive, OS, programs, cache, media?

[twpands]

That specific clip comes from my Galaxy S23 ultra, but I also have footage from dji action 4 which behave the same.

All on the same drive, but media which is on another internal nvm (same brand and model). But performances are actually the same on my laptop which is way less powerful 

[R Neil Haugen]

That is likely also VFR, variable framerate. So not only is it UHD long-GOP, but Premiere has to create frames also.

[twpands]

My question is more like: even if it is a high load work, why my PC is doing pretty much nothing?

[Carlos Ziade]

Neil mentioned something very important, if your Galaxy footage is VFR(Variable Frame Rate) you will have to transcode it to Constant Frame Rate which would be a lot smoother for Premiere Pro to playback (use Handbrake). Also make sure that you are on the latest Studio drivers from the vendor's website for your graphics card. I would also consider the workflow, try to edit everything without any blurs and effects, your last step could be applying the effects on an adjustment layer.

[twpands]

Thanks, by transcoding, do you mean process the video file before importing it in premiere pro? Or is there any better way to do it? I don't care about audio sync cause any audio in the video file will be deleted anyway and replaced with music instead.

Anyway, I still don't understand why premiere pro can't use all the resources of my computer 😊

[R Neil Haugen]

As Carlos and I have noted, that is probably VFR, variable frame rate media. In MediaEncoder it would be listed as VFR (as opposed to CFR) and list most/fewest FPS of the file. Because the number of actual recorded frames varies every second. Maybe from as few as 54.2 to 60.3 fps, from similar clips I've seen.

Premiere needs to be CFR ... constant framerate. So it not only has to deal with the nasty long-GOP decoding and all, it has to create frames or double-display frames or change their "space" in the timeline to play it back.

Bad, all ... bad.

Use Handbrake or ShutterEncoder to convert that media to CFR. In ShutterEncoder, for some reason, the moved the option for that to the Preferences which is bizarre but oh well. It's a very quick process.

Of course, to get the best playback, you could also transcode (a different operation than convert) to say ProRes and have a file that would playback smooth within Premiere.

As to computer asset use, you're assuming that all the hardware is mushed together in one big Resource Base. Which isn't at all how they work. Cores are built to process independent computing streams simultaneously.  I've got a 24 core CPU, which is very handy with processes that can be split to work in those multiple different processing streams. 

But many processes have to be coded to work totally linear. So X cannot be done separately from A, B, or Q ... but only in step-by-step processing. So that process must proceed stepwise, on one core, starting with A, then B, then C, and on through every step to get (finally) to X. Which means the rest of the computer is waiting for that processing chain to finish.

[twpands]

Thank you very much for your reply. I will try with the next clip. Unfortunately it looks like there's a bug in the s23 which prevent the frame rate to be consistent. Otherwise that would be the best option I guess.

Once again thanks!

[R Neil Haugen · Accepted solution]

Most phones record video as VFR, not just yours. iPhones do it also, as to many GoPro and drone rigs. All of it really should be converted to CFR for use in editing.

And your S23 isn't showing a bug, it's by design. My S22 Ultra of course does exactly the same thing.

So ... use Handbrake or ShutterEncoder, two free utity apps, to do the conversion to CFR as listed above. Then import the resultant clips into Premiere.