v2.0 Adobe Media Encoder Very SLow!! Help Please!!

R

randyarcilla

New member
Hello, need some help/suggestions/inputs please... i recently upgraded to v2.0 from v1.5 and migrated my projects there. I am using the same machine/workstation and the same projects.

However, when i export to MPEG-2 using Adobe Media Encoder the estimated time goes up to hours! (like more than 5 hours! and one time it clocked an estimated time of 12 hours!!) where in v1.5 I've done it in 40 minutes with no problems and no glitches.

Again, I am using the same machine, same project, same settings... all the same except I am using v2.0 now.

Using a Pentium 3GHZ processor (dual capable) with 2 Gig Ram, Windows XP Pro, lots of hard drive space

Thank you!!
 
Having just spent 5 hours waiting for two songs to burn, I know where you're coming from. What kind of video are you working with? I'm using HDV 720 at 30p. I'm also using an AMD Athlon 64 3200 and one gig of Ram.
 
Im using PAL-DV. I didn't use filters. Only Cross-Dissolve Transition for about 20 video clips. Then a Crawling Text on the lower third with a .psd graphic bar as its background. 3 Video Tracks total. 1 Audio Track. Running Time is 12 minutes.
 
randyarcilla said:
i recently upgraded to v2.0 from v1.5 and migrated my projects there. I am using the same machine/workstation and the same projects.!
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I have been reading about this problem in other forums, and the problem seem to occur when one open Projects created in PPro 1.5 in PPro 2.0 and continue to edit and then render out the Project from PPro2.0 instead of PPro 1.5. The unofficial thumb of rule is to always finish the Projects in the version that it was created in.

Do you have the same problem with long render times in "PPro-2.0-projects-only" as well?

/Roger
 
randyarcilla said:
yes, actually... i made the same project in v2.0 from start to finish and it still logged hours of exporting to mpeg.
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O.k!

How long does it take to export an Microsoft DV-avi?

Imo, Windows Media Encoder is the slowest encoder on earth, so exporting DV-avi's and let a third party encoder, such as MainConcept MPEG Encoder, encode the file to MPEG2 saves tons of times comparing to encode to MPEG2 with Adobe Media Encoder. Since you are a Premiere user you get a $100 discount on MainConcept MPEG Encoder!

Or, use Cinema Craft Basic and export your Timeline as MPEG2 directly from your Timeline faster than real time!. Of course, effects do slow down rendering times with Cinema Craft Basic as well, but not as long time as it does for Adobe Media Encoder.

Trial version of MainConcept MPEG Encoder and Cinema Craft Basic are aviable here:
Cinema Craft Basic
MainConcept Encoder - Special offer for Adobe® Premiere® 6.5 and Adobe Premiere Pro users

FYI, Adobe Media Encoder uses the MainConcept codec, so there is no difference in quality using MainConcept MPEG Encoder instead of Adobe Media Encoder. And Cinema Craft Basic is concidered as one of the best MPEG encoders aviable.

Try them out, and if you like them, buy them. They are both cheap and is on of the best investments you can do if rendering time is a problem. :) (Hmm, and rendering time is a problem with Adobe Media Encoder - always... :Drogar-BlackEye(DBG )

I own and use both MainConcept MPEG Encoder and Cinema Craft Basic and would not in my wildest dreams use Adobe Media Encoder again because of it's slow rendering times. :)

/Roger
 
Roger,
Have you or someone else done any tests to compare the quality between rendering directly to mpeg2 with the Adobe Media Encoder versus exporting to DV-AVI and encoding separately like you suggest. I've always been concerned that exporting to DV-AVI would add a generational loss although I have not actually tested it myself.
Thanks,
Dan
 
TeleDan said:
Roger,
Have you or someone else done any tests to compare the quality between rendering directly to mpeg2 with the Adobe Media Encoder versus exporting to DV-AVI and encoding separately like you suggest. I've always been concerned that exporting to DV-AVI would add a generational loss although I have not actually tested it myself.
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Yes, several persons including myself have been tested this. I saw a test on the official Premiere Pro forum and Cinema Craft Basic got the highest scores when it was compared to Adobe Media Encoder in PPro 2.0, Canopus ProCoder 2.0, MainConcept MPEG Encoder 1.5.1.

It takes several DV-avi generations for the human eye to actually "see" the difference depending on the DV-Codec you use. PPro uses the MainConcept DV Codec and thats a very good one. Some people see the difference earlier than other people.

IMO, one generation loss is not noticable.

Try it and see if you can see any difference, your eyes are the best judge when it comes to your defeniton of quality! :)

I recommend using the Work Area Bar in PPro to render out lets say 10 secs of footage for saving time and to use DVD-RW's to burn the DVD's. Sometimes i have had one DVD with 30+ buttons on one menu, each button goes to a different clip. Same footgae but different encoders, Adobe Media Encoder VBR, Adobe Media Encoder CBR, Encore DVD, MainConcept, Cinema Craft, etc, etc. A paper and a pen to write down the render times is good as well to compare render times for each encoder. If you are checking render times, use longer clips such as 1 or 10 minutes long.

I have compared DVD's with the same footage. One was encoded with Adobe Media Encoder and one was exported as a DV-avi from PPro and Encore did the transcoding and i can not see any difference between them. I have tried the same thing with different footage as well. The big difference was the rendering times vs the transcoding time in Encore. 10 minutes of native DV with no effects took me 20 minutes to export from PPro through Adobe Media Encoder. Encore transcoded the DV-avi in 15 minutes. I used the same Presets in PPro and Encore.

MainConcept MPEG Encoder encodes in real time and Cinema Craft Basic is a hair faster than real time on my P4 3.2GHz with 2GB RAM. Thats 100% faster than Adobe Media Encoder and its giving me the same quality... Thats why i never use Adobe Media Encoder for encoding anything. If i want Windows Media i use Microsoft Media Encoder. If i want QuickTime i use QuickTime Pro. This gives me faster render times, better quality, smaller file sizes than Adobe Media Encoder gives anybody.

/Roger
 
Roger, I take it from reading your posts that you use the CinemaCraft encoder, how much does it cost?

I have been reading up on it a bit and it seams that it costs $1950US???
 
Hi Guys!

I may have narrowed down the issue... i exported my source files (video) one by one and side by with another workstation (with the same specifications). 1 running v1.5 and the other one running 2.0 all the video files were exported to mpeg clocking the same time with v1.5 and v2.0... when it came to a crawling title file, the v1.5 clocked less than a minute. the v2.0 clocked in 15 minutes! I re-typed the title again entirely in v2.0 (remember, I'm migrating projects from v1.5 to 2.0) and then replaced the one done in v1.5 I exported the project into mpeg-2 again using Adobe Media Encoder in v2.0 and it clocked in at 1 hour and 30 mins consistently (it used to clock at 8 hours!! or more with the old title file). But v1.5 still clocks in at about 40 minutes only... any ideas/suggestions/inputs this time now that i have narrowed it down??

Thanks all!
 
Roger, thanks for the great info. Very informative post.

ChuckS, I just looked it prices. I assume Roger is referring to the Cinema Craft basic version that is a Premiere plugin. It's $58 to $68 depending on deliver method.

http://www.visiblelight.com/mall/catalogView.aspx?cat=201

The standalone M/C encoder is $50 for Premiere owners.

http://www.mainconcept.com/site/index.php?id=820

I like how it allows you to batch up a series of renders.

Great deals either way.

To be honest, mpeg2 encoding times with the Adobe Media Encoder is not a problem for me. With the Athlon64 X2 3800+ in my desktop system, mpeg2 encoding is nearly twice real time. What kills me is the render times for some of the effects. An 8 minute 30p clip with no effects encoded to mpeg2 with AME takes a little over 4 minutes. Simply adding the RGB color corrector in PPro 2.0, for example, with only a couple of basic adjustments takes 2-1/2 hours! Exporting the same timeline to a DV AVI file takes just as long, plus or minus a few minutes. So it's not the mpeg2 encoding time that's killing me.

-Dan
 
randyarcilla said:
using Adobe Media Encoder in v2.0 and it clocked in at 1 hour and 30 mins consistently (it used to clock at 8 hours!! or more with the old title file). But v1.5 still clocks in at about 40 minutes only... any ideas/suggestions/inputs this time now that i have narrowed it down??
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Are you using the PPro title editor to make the title? How long is it? Does it overlay another video track? Any effects? How long does it take to simply pre-render the title sequence on the timeline?

Adobe did change how titles are handled in 2.0 in terms of storage. In 2.0 they are stored in the project file. In 1.5 they were stored as separate files on disk. Other than that I haven't noticed any change in render times although I don't think I tried moving a 1.5 project to 2.0 that already had the titles in the project.

-Dan
 
Dan,

Yes, using PPro title editor.
Its 12 minutes long and crawling.
Yes, it's overlayed to one track of video.
No filters/effects. Just Cross Dissolve transition in-between clips.
To pre-render in v1.5: 4-minutes of the title, about 1 minute.
To pre-render in v2.0: 4-minutes of the title, about 15 minutes.

Titles are exactly the same. Written and exported in v1.5 and v2.0 respectively using PPro title editor.

I'm running two workstations (same specs) side-by-side... 1 running v1.5 and the other running 2.0

I plan to re-capture all my source video in v2.0 (all clips captured in v1.5 as of now) next and see how it affects exporting time... simply put i plan to re-do the project in v2.0 from capture to export... think this will help?
 
ChuckS said:
Roger, I take it from reading your posts that you use the CinemaCraft encoder, how much does it cost?
Click to expand...
I use the Cinema Craft Basic encoder. It uses the very same encoding engine as Cinema Craft SP/SP2 but with less controls and costs $58 or $68 as TeleDan wrote. (There are tons of controls in Cinema Craft Basic though.) Big bang for the buck! :)

Cinema Craft Basic comes as a export plug-in for Premiere 6.x and Premiere Pro and as a stand alone encoder. The export plug-in lets you export your movie direct from your Timeline.

/Roger
 
Thanks for the info Roger, I'll give Cinema Craft a try. I have actually had good results from Adobe's Media Encoder.

Most of my editing is HD(V) using AspectHD which renders a Cineform uncompressed AVI which I downconvert and then encode using Encore 2 [which I imagine is the same media encoder that's in PPro2].

I'd love to get better quality... Thanks
 
TeleDan said:
Simply adding the RGB color corrector in PPro 2.0, for example, with only a couple of basic adjustments takes 2-1/2 hours! Exporting the same timeline to a DV AVI file takes just as long, plus or minus a few minutes. So it's not the mpeg2 encoding time that's killing me.
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Hum, i tested the RGB Color Corrector and that took indeed some time to render....

When it comes to color correcting i am kind of lost, but i do all my CC with either Fast Color Corrector or Three-Way Color Corrector. The Fast Color Corrector is quite fast, especially compared to the RGB Color Corrector. But as i wrote, i am kind of lost here so i can not point out any differences, ie pros and cons on any of those filters. But it may be worth for you to check them out and see if they do the job for you. The downside is that they are aviable in PPro 2.0 only, but if you have PPro 2.0 give them a try. :)

/Roger
 
randyarcilla said:
...simply put i plan to re-do the project in v2.0 from capture to export... think this will help?
Click to expand...
Maybe, maybe not but its definetly worth a try! :)

Keep us updated and let us here how it goes!

/Roger
 
randyarcilla, I'm baffled as to how it could be taking so much longer for 2.0 to render a title sequence. For me, the titling frames render fast on both versions. It does sound like there is some sort of conflict with something on your system but I can't imagine what that would be. Could this be something that gets a render assist from the GPU on your graphics card if you have a supported one? I switched from an ATI card to a nVidia 7600 about the time I switched to PPro 2.0. The 7600 is not a top-of-the-line card but render times for Magic Bullet literally went from hours to minutes.

-Dan
 
Averdahl said:
When it comes to color correcting i am kind of lost, but i do all my CC with either Fast Color Corrector or Three-Way Color Corrector. The Fast Color Corrector is quite fast, especially compared to the RGB Color Corrector.
Click to expand...

I've tried the fast color corrector effect and it is indeed faster. Unfortunately it does not have all the knobs I want so I usually wind up adding a luma corrector effect as well. Maybe I just have to work with it a bit more. I got quite comfortable with the RGB color corrector because it has all the knobs I want. I'm not sure why it became so slow in 2.0.

-Dan
 
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