Premiere Pro 2014.2 (8.2.0) - File Indexing?

[User]

Hi Folks,

Premiere Pro 2014.2 (8.2.0) on a 2013 Macbook Pro loaded. OSX 10.8.5. I don't want to upgrade.

I'm editing a doc with a massive amount of assets that take 20 minutes to load and index. I'm ok with the time it takes to load the media (how could I not be) but the indexing certainly adds to the wait. I would say half the project is ProRes, the other half is LongGOP and H.264. As I think I understand it, it might be that the later 2 are what the hold up is. Correct?

Can someone tell me if the newer versions of Premiere Pro still require 'indexing' the files in the same way that 2014.2 (8.2.0) does?

[sondreg]

Different codecs will have a lot of impact yes, so if you're going big it's best to transcode everything into the same format, the newer version of Premiere allows you to automatically transcode all footage as ur ingesting and still being able to edit. You can also use Adobe Encore for the transcoding upon ingestion.

Also the way you import footage can have a lot of impact on performance, even though the files aren't actually added (such as XMLs that aren't accepted or text files from importing folders). So when you import files in a bigger project, make sure to only import files supported by Premiere.

It may benefit you to transcode every video file over night(s) and relink the media to the transcoded version.

Not so sure of how the 2 different versions compare to indexing though, but maybe increasing cache size or something to store the index data is possible?

[User]

1 hour ago, User said:

Can someone tell me if the newer versions of Premiere Pro still require 'indexing' the files in the same way that 2014.2 (8.2.0) does?

Can anyone nail this question?

[pablogrollan]

I think it does, in the background. I honestly don't usually pay attention to that when I import the media (I will tomorrow and confirm for sure). Still, the indexing should only happen once when you first import the media into the project and after closing and reopening the project you should only have to wait for the media to load...

[Grimor]

Last premiere for windows, on file explorer window (the one with previews before you import the clips) take long time indexing GH5 10bit previews, even in a powerfull Pc.

[silvertonesx24]

3 hours ago, pablogrollan said:

wait for the media to load...

A good quarter the time I spend editing is spent on this

[User]

Thanks folks.

Let's try this in another way.

As I understand, when new material is added to PPro (imported directly into the project without Encore), PPro builds new reference files that are related to the newly imported files.

Each time I open my PPro, it always loads the media files and then always begins indexing the reference files it has created.

What I want to understand is: when you open your version of PPro on your system, does it ALWAYS continue to load these index files after it ALWAYS loads the media files OR does it only do this ONCE when the new media files are added for the very first time.

Someone here must be able to answer this. Nobody using PPro here?
 

[Grimor]

Everytime you open your project, PPro index the files in your timeline.

This take not so much time. And only when you open the project. No problem here.

The long time i say was indexing folders (thumbsnail) while browsing for new clips to import in the navigation window.

[pablogrollan]

4 hours ago, Grimor said:

Everytime you open your project, PPro index the files in your timeline.

No it doesn´t. Files are indexed when you first import them and that's it, unless you erase the project temp files created by Premiere.

 

13 hours ago, User said:

when you open your version of PPro on your system, does it ALWAYS continue to load these index files after it ALWAYS loads the media files OR does it only do this ONCE when the new media files are added for the very first time.

No. I just opened a project I edited last month: not too long, not too short, around 500 clips including short B-roll ones and 20 minute long ones from interviews, plus subtitles, 8 songs, After Effects lower thirds etc. It took about 5 seconds to open the project and after that less than 3 seconds to load the media. No re-indexing or "conforming". As I understand it, the reason behind indexing is precisely to accelerate the process of opening a project and recalling all the media files associated with it. The footage was a mix of Sony MXF files (FS7 and FS5) and Quicktime h264 files form a Canon DSLR, and the station is not the fastest around (old-ish i7 with a GTX1070 and 32GB of RAM). 

[User]

12 hours ago, pablogrollan said:

No it doesn´t. Files are indexed when you first import them and that's it, unless you erase the project temp files created by Premiere.

 

No. I just opened a project I edited last month: not too long, not too short, around 500 clips including short B-roll ones and 20 minute long ones from interviews, plus subtitles, 8 songs, After Effects lower thirds etc. It took about 5 seconds to open the project and after that less than 3 seconds to load the media. No re-indexing or "conforming". As I understand it, the reason behind indexing is precisely to accelerate the process of opening a project and recalling all the media files associated with it. The footage was a mix of Sony MXF files (FS7 and FS5) and Quicktime h264 files form a Canon DSLR, and the station is not the fastest around (old-ish i7 with a GTX1070 and 32GB of RAM). 

Thanks for jumping in again Pablogrollan, Grimor.

- 'As I understand it, the reason behind indexing is precisely to accelerate the process of opening a project and recalling all the media files associated with it.'

- Agreed.

If your project only takes 5 seconds to open, and 3 seconds to load all media, then I can imagine that you do not even see the files being indexed as it all happens so quickly.

My project file takes somewhere over a minute to open and 20 minutes to load and index 40k media files.

I guess I just have to live with this as we don't have anyone else here who can confirm and/ or move the ball up field.

[pablogrollan]

6 hours ago, User said:

If your project only takes 5 seconds to open, and 3 seconds to load all media, then I can imagine that you do not even see the files being indexed as it all happens so quickly.

I do see the indexing -only once- since I import the full folder with the rushes which usually weighs several GB and can see Premiere "conforming" every video file and "generating a peak file" for the audio tracks and files. This happens in the background though sometimes the file that is being indexed doesn't respond well to scrubbing/editing until it has been indexed. But once the indexing is done, re-loading the project is really fast.

6 hours ago, User said:

My project file takes somewhere over a minute to open and 20 minutes to load and index 40k media files.

The "over a minute to open" is really a long time to open a project, but I guess it makes sense considering how many media files the project has. The 20 minutes after that should not happen... Have you checked how much space is allocated for project files in your drive? I kinda remember you could define how much disk space the folder could use and that by default it was not too much. Maybe that folder is full and the indexing is only stored in RAM and not the HDD, making it necessarry to re-do it everytime you exit Premiere?

On 30/7/2017 at 10:46 PM, User said:

I would say half the project is ProRes, the other half is LongGOP and H.264. As I think I understand it, it might be that the later 2 are what the hold up is. Correct?

In my experience, file format has little to do with how long indexing takes. File size is directly proportional to how long it takes Premiere to "conform" it. Compressed and long GOP files are simply more hardware demanding and may result in choppy scrubbing, dropped frames and general poor performance if the computer is not powerful enough, but that's about it.

6 hours ago, User said:

40k media files

From an editing prespective, not a technical one, have you considered dividing the job into several smaller projects? I know the nature of every job is different and sometimes that is not possible, but even if the files are small I cannot imagine what it's like to navigate through your project structure... How many bins you have?? how many items per bin?? It's gotta be a challenge!!

[hmcindie]

Newer versions should do the indexing faster (indexing and conforming the audio files only happens once, that is when you import them the first time). If your editing a feature film it still might take a while to load every single media asset afterwards. That time is depended on your media drive speeds. But you can just install the CC trial version and give it a test right?

[User]

8 hours ago, pablogrollan said:

I do see the indexing -only once- since I import the full folder with the rushes which usually weighs several GB and can see Premiere "conforming" every video file and "generating a peak file" for the audio tracks and files. This happens in the background though sometimes the file that is being indexed doesn't respond well to scrubbing/editing until it has been indexed. But once the indexing is done, re-loading the project is really fast.

The "over a minute to open" is really a long time to open a project, but I guess it makes sense considering how many media files the project has. The 20 minutes after that should not happen... Have you checked how much space is allocated for project files in your drive? I kinda remember you could define how much disk space the folder could use and that by default it was not too much. Maybe that folder is full and the indexing is only stored in RAM and not the HDD, making it necessarry to re-do it everytime you exit Premiere?

In my experience, file format has little to do with how long indexing takes. File size is directly proportional to how long it takes Premiere to "conform" it. Compressed and long GOP files are simply more hardware demanding and may result in choppy scrubbing, dropped frames and general poor performance if the computer is not powerful enough, but that's about it.

From an editing prespective, not a technical one, have you considered dividing the job into several smaller projects? I know the nature of every job is different and sometimes that is not possible, but even if the files are small I cannot imagine what it's like to navigate through your project structure... How many bins you have?? how many items per bin?? It's gotta be a challenge!!

Solid info and articulation here Pablogrollan. Thank you! I agree with everything you've mentioned.

- "Have you checked how much space is allocated for project files in your drive? I kinda remember you could define how much disk space the folder could use and that by default it was not too much."

- If you are referring to the Media Cache folder, which as I understand it, holds the generated files that PPro indexes to the original media files, this folder keeps growing in size (yes I clean this cache periodically to keep things tight) as the project grows with media. Currently there is 80GB of indexed files in the Media Cache folder on an external drive housed in a Thunderbolt enclosure where the media is also located on 4 other drives.

7 hours ago, hmcindie said:

Newer versions should do the indexing faster (indexing and conforming the audio files only happens once, that is when you import them the first time). If your editing a feature film it still might take a while to load every single media asset afterwards. That time is depended on your media drive speeds. But you can just install the CC trial version and give it a test right?

Thanks for jumping in Hmcindie.
So are you saying that your version of PPro never ever has to 'load' the indexed files after it first creates them?
My version of PPro loads the media and then loads the indexed files. It's a long process for such a big project.