PC hardware, Premiere CC and GH5 clips

[Stab]

Hello everyone,

I am currently shooting with the GH5 and mostly in 4K 150 mbps (8-bit) mode. I would really like to be able to edit the GH5 files natively (so without transcoding).

My current system can do so and very smoothly, but only in very simple timelines. The moment I start stacking clips on top of each other on the timeline, playback gets choppy and laggy.

My current system:

i7 3770 (4 cores / 8 threads) 
12GB RAM @ 1333 mhz
Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB
Windows 10 64-Bit
Adobe Premiere CC 2017 (both installed on SSD Drive)
Footage is edited from a 7200 rpm 6 TB internal drive

I just did some tests by creating a timeline and adding multiple clips (3 or 4) on top of each other. Then I pressed the spacebar to play it and opened up some diagnostic apps.

- CPU usage goes to 90-99% in difficult area's on the timeline with multiple clips and some effects
- GPU is never used more than 50%, but mostly goes even lower when the CPU starts bottlenecking it
- Memory usage is 10.5 GB at difficult area's. My total memory is 12 GB (but 1.5 GB reserved for other applications)

In short, my CPU and RAM are used 90-100% on difficult timelines. To rule out the harddisk, I copied the video clips to my SSD drive. Ran the same tests, same results.
So it's not the HDD and not the GPU at fault here.

It seems like a CPU upgrade and more and faster RAM will definitely improve things. The question is, will, for instance, a Ryzen 1700 be able to play 3-4 clips stacked on top of each other on a timeline smoothly? If anyone could tell me their experience, that would be greatly appreciated so I know that by spending a lot of money on a better PC, it isn't just for shorter render and export times but also will provide me a smoother playback experience

Thanks!

[Phil A]

It's probably the H.264 compression that maxes out your system. I transcode everything because my system also doesn't do well with H.264.

[Sage]

Proxies! I know you don't want to transcode, but there is nothing like it

You edit better. Simple as that. JKL ftw

With your specs, transcode time won't be significant

Recommend: H.264, Exactly quarter resolution for C4K, or full resolution for FHD, 22mbps for quarter C4K/20mbps for FHD, 6 gop, (max render quality off) all stored on an SSD

[Don Kotlos]

As Phil & Sage already mentioned, it is the codec that gives you problems & proxies are really the real solution for smooth editing.

Some time back I did some tests with sony XAVC-S files, and I found that CPU chokes very easily with the H264 codec. Keep in mind that I used an overclocked 8 core CPU so don't expect much better improvement with a new system. You will get a far far better experience by using proxies which are now natively supported in Premiere. 

GPU is used only for effects and once you hit the GPU limits lowering the playback resolution makes a tremendous difference.

 

[Santiago de la Rosa]

I had same problems with 4K h265 files and I had to transcode to prores 422.

Fast solution: proxies

Permanent solution, update hardware, Ryzen 1700 and 16Gb or 32Gb and no need to transcode or proxies.

[Stab]

Thanks guys. 

So even an 8-core would probably still choke on the native GH5 files when having multiple clips stacked on top of each other?

37 minutes ago, Sage said:

Proxies! I know you don't want to transcode, but there is nothing like it

You edit better. Simple as that. JKL ftw

With your specs, transcode time won't be significant

Recommend: H.264, Exactly quarter resolution for C4K, or full resolution for FHD, 22mbps for quarter C4K/20mbps for FHD, 6 gop, (max render quality off) all stored on an SSD

Thanks.

Sometimes I need to make a 'same-day-edit' on a wedding shoot. This would be made from about 400 GB of all seperate GH5 clips with maybe a 2-4 hour time in duration.

Do you maybe have an indication for me about how long the transcoding would take? 

[Andrew Reid]

Try setting the timeline monitor to quarter-res in Premiere

Also a single hard disk drive isn't optimal for 4K video editing, I'd look seriously at a RAID or SSD setup

Consider moving to Resolve 14 Studio Edition as it has far better performance from the core rendering engine than Adobe is able to give you

[Stab]

5 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Try setting the timeline monitor to quarter-res in Premiere

Also a single hard disk drive isn't optimal for 4K video editing, I'd look seriously at a RAID or SSD setup

Consider moving to Resolve 14 Studio Edition as it has far better performance from the core rendering engine than Adobe is able to give you

Thanks.

I have tried setting the program monitor to half res (no difference) and quarter-res. That seemed to work, but it looks like crap.
I have also tried to edit the same timeline with the footage copied to an SSD drive. Didn't make any difference. So I think it's not about drive speed here.

So yes, probably a change of editing program (like Resolve) would solve my problems. Also, working with proxies will solve my problems. But, as I like working with native files for speed and having a strong preference for working with Premiere (I'm lightning fast with it now), I am still curious if changing to Ryzen would also solve my problems. That way I can keep my workflow exactly the same.

[Sage]

1 hour ago, Stab said:

Sometimes I need to make a 'same-day-edit' on a wedding shoot. This would be made from about 400 GB of all seperate GH5 clips with maybe a 2-4 hour time in duration.

Do you maybe have an indication for me about how long the transcoding would take? 

That is a tricky situation. It should be faster than realtime, but not less than half. Approximately 1.3-3 hours. Assuming no PC bottlenecks. Write to SSD (a different drive than the read), try overclocking the 3770 if its a K - they are very generous with the extra clock cycles, I run at 4.5 with a cheap 212 Evo cooler

You'll will want to edit proxies from an SSD, they are small enough to fit and will have instantaneous performance

[Stab]

1 minute ago, Sage said:

That is a tricky situation. It should be faster than realtime, but not less than half. Approximately 1.3-3 hours. Assuming no PC bottlenecks. Write to SSD (a different drive than the read), try overclocking the 3770 if its a K - they are very generous with the extra clock cycles, I run at 4.5 with a cheap 212 Evo cooler

You'll will want to edit proxies from an SSD, they are small enough to fit and will have instantaneous performance

Thanks again. I don't think that's fast enough for me
Unfortunately, I have the non-K version so overclocking is not really possible. My motherboard also doesn't support it.

Is there anyone here with a Ryzen 1700 or higher, or an I7 7700 who can let me know how their Premiere handles multiple video tracks at the same time with native GH5 footage?

[Don Kotlos]

Let me start with this:

Quote

Sometimes I need to make a 'same-day-edit' on a wedding shoot. This would be made from about 400 GB of all seperate GH5 clips with maybe a 2-4 hour time in duration.

Do you maybe have an indication for me about how long the transcoding would take? 

~ 2-4 hours  

4K --> 1080p in premiere is nicely multithreaded up to 4 cores (here & here). After that nothing. Transcoding to 4K is up to 8 cores. 

Also premiere does not use the GPU for transcoding, whereas Resolve does (here), so it might be a solution for you.

Quote

So even an 8-core would probably still choke on the native GH5 files when having multiple clips stacked on top of each other?

It will but don't get me wrong, if you need to edit 2-4 hour footage in a day, then any advantage that an upgrade will give you (which it will) might be worth it. 

Have a look at all the articles about Premiere performance over at Puget systems you will get a very good feel of the hardware you need. 

[JustinJohnson]

Also you can start editing while the proxy files are being made. You don't have to wait for them to finish. You can have it auto create the proxy files on import or you can manually do it when you see which footage is needed. So maybe you only proxy the files that you are stacking. It's slowing down, right click on the clips in question..generate proxy.. continue as it works in the background. Just a thought. 

[Santiago de la Rosa]

I have Ryzen 1700, if you upload some gh5 files, I will do some test for you.

[Charlie]

4 hours ago, Stab said:

Thanks again. I don't think that's fast enough for me
Unfortunately, I have the non-K version so overclocking is not really possible. My motherboard also doesn't support it.

Is there anyone here with a Ryzen 1700 or higher, or an I7 7700 who can let me know how their Premiere handles multiple video tracks at the same time with native GH5 footage?

I have a new Ryzen 1700 system. It will not playback 4k 10bit GH5 files smoothly without creating proxies. I have not tried 8bit footage. 

[Stab]

22 minutes ago, Charlie said:

I have a new Ryzen 1700 system. It will not playback 4k 10bit GH5 files smoothly without creating proxies. I have not tried 8bit footage. 

I don't think there is any system that can playback the 10-bit files in Premiere smoothly

If you ever try some 8-bit footage, let me know
How do you like the Ryzen 1700 so far?

[Sage]

Have you considered FHD? The GH5 1080p is really great I gather

Also, when the time saved *creatively is factored in, the proxies are not a bad deal. You really will edit faster. With a Ryzen, I think a case could be made for rendering proxies

[Charlie]

8 minutes ago, Stab said:

I don't think there is any system that can playback the 10-bit files in Premiere smoothly

If you ever try some 8-bit footage, let me know
How do you like the Ryzen 1700 so far?

To be honest, im not blow away by it so far. My 32GB 3000mhz RAM, for example, currently only runs at 2133mhz. Many people are having this problem, especially with Corsair RAM apparently. Ryzen is new technology, im sure things will improve with bios updates etc. 

I came from an old i5 2500k processor and was expecting much more of an improvement overall. Don't get me wrong, it is much, much faster. But its buggy. I'm not fan of Windows 10 either but you have to use it for Ryzen as they are not supporting Windows 7.

With all that said, im not an expert on optimising, overclocking etc. Im sure others are getting much better results than I am. I need more time to test different things. 

[Santiago de la Rosa]

I think it´s not 10 bit, I playback 10 bit DnxHD and Prores, it´s the combination of 10 bit H264 and 4K.

Really happy with Ryzen Stab

[jcs]

10-bit 422 H.264 4K (ALL-I) plays back better than 8-bit 420 4K MJPEG (C300 II and 1DX II respectively). For the latest build of PP CC, I can play everything smoothly (10-bit 422 4K, 12-bit 444 RGB 1080p, H.264 IPB; anything) on latest Win10Pro box: Intel 6950X, 64GB RAM, GTX 1080 8GB, Samsung 960 Pro M.2 2TB SSD (also plays just as fast on 4T 7200 HDD- drive speed not really an issue for these highly compressed files (less then 1MB/s transfer needed per track).

Keep in mind OS and video card drivers (especially Nvidia) have a huge impact on performance. Right now Adobe and Nvidia are 'aligned' and things are working OK right now. However, in the past 4K editing in real-time went away for months (perhaps 6?) as both Adobe and Nvidia had serious issues with software performance and reliability. Win10Pro (latest updates and drivers) and OSX Sierra (latest updates and drivers) is once again working OK for 4K (C300 II and 1DX II). Highly compressed 8-bit 4K GH4 and A7S II footage also works fine, as did 10-bit 4K GH5 footage I downloaded from @Neumann Films before Adobe broke the 10-bit GH5 compatible importer (again, the MXF rewrap trick solves the problem with no transcode and is as fast as a file copy).

[Orangenz]

10 hours ago, Stab said:

Hello everyone,

I am currently shooting with the GH5 and mostly in 4K 150 mbps (8-bit) mode. I would really like to be able to edit the GH5 files natively (so without transcoding).

My current system can do so and very smoothly, but only in very simple timelines. The moment I start stacking clips on top of each other on the timeline, playback gets choppy and laggy.

My current system:

i7 3770 (4 cores / 8 threads) 
12GB RAM @ 1333 mhz
Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB
Windows 10 64-Bit
Adobe Premiere CC 2017 (both installed on SSD Drive)
Footage is edited from a 7200 rpm 6 TB internal drive

I just did some tests by creating a timeline and adding multiple clips (3 or 4) on top of each other. Then I pressed the spacebar to play it and opened up some diagnostic apps.

- CPU usage goes to 90-99% in difficult area's on the timeline with multiple clips and some effects
- GPU is never used more than 50%, but mostly goes even lower when the CPU starts bottlenecking it
- Memory usage is 10.5 GB at difficult area's. My total memory is 12 GB (but 1.5 GB reserved for other applications)

In short, my CPU and RAM are used 90-100% on difficult timelines. To rule out the harddisk, I copied the video clips to my SSD drive. Ran the same tests, same results.
So it's not the HDD and not the GPU at fault here.

It seems like a CPU upgrade and more and faster RAM will definitely improve things. The question is, will, for instance, a Ryzen 1700 be able to play 3-4 clips stacked on top of each other on a timeline smoothly? If anyone could tell me their experience, that would be greatly appreciated so I know that by spending a lot of money on a better PC, it isn't just for shorter render and export times but also will provide me a smoother playback experience

Thanks!

1) Have you tried the rewrap to mxf?

2) Don't have your project media on a platter drive (if at all possible). SSD or raid. Complete a project then store it on the platter. 

3) Generally speaking each logical core should have access to its own required memory, which for 4k is 4GB. 

4) Each 4k screen you drive should have 4GB of video card memory, ie. running 2 x 4K screens = 8GB video memory

I'm on i7-4770K, 32GB. Will try a test now.