Went for the plunge!

D

daihard

Well-known member
Well, im a certified FCP user... got my decoder ring and all.
Anyhow, I have known FCP 7/x is a sinking ship. I have vested thousands of $ plug'ins in FCP 7... so its been a real slow abandoning process. (Saphire, Boris, FxFactory, Red Giant, RE-Vision, etc...)
I figure, maybe I can slow transition over to Adobe... as I do most of my special effects in AE anyhow.
Im really loving the fact that I can link straight out of Premiere to AE! So cool!
My real question is:
Im experiencing serious computer slowdowns. I've been using mostly basic effects...Light Flares, and video stabilizing. (I will do grading after...)
You need to keep both apps open, and every time I throw an effect at AE it takes about 5mins just to switch over to apply the effect.
How are other people finding their duel application performance? Workflow tips?

Im running an i7 iMac 16gig 21.5in with a duel monitor setup - 2011

I probably have about 30 compositions within the single AE file, linked to Premiere.

In FCP, I used Mercalli with good results. Also id send my clips to AE for the effects, then render them and throw them back in FCP.
Everything runs smoothly in FCP... its just slower to do all these little tweaks.
I rendered everything in Premiere, and still my preview is dog slow, filled with frame skips through the effects! (I did pre render) I really want this to work out, but its tying my more then adequate resources up... and takes over 3 hrs to render out a 25min piece... where in FCP it would take 10-15mins. (I set PP to use cache files and render natively)
Im running off a duel 2TB strip raided FW800 drive and using ProRes (Proxy).

Little helpful advice would be much appreciated.
- Should I reduce the RAM consumption from AE?
- A different encoding for my AVCHD - GH2 files? (I know it handles AVCHD natively, but even that takes up extra processor cycles just to decompress and read from>Natively)
- A faster Ex-Drive... im thinking of getting a ThunderBolt drive, but frankly the bandwidth isn't requiring much more then what I already have...spec wise. (Duel strip-hardware raided 2tb FW 800)

Thanks in advance.

As an example...
My effects are around this level of complexity: Edited/Graded in FCP ProRes, and flares from AE.
 
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By my understanding of your post, you are doing dynamic linking. As you might already know, however, AE and PP don't have to be running at the same time in order for them to work together. So if AE is so slow on your computer, why don't you just treat AE as a standalone editor?
 
Shooter said:
DL is cool but I tend to use "intermediates"..especially if it gets complicated.
Click to expand...

I do as well and I have a 4 year old iMac. Also did you set your cache files to an external drive? You can maybe try changing how you video previews turn out by changing it to I-Frame Only MPEG and lower the dimensions to a smaller size then your comp. Also, do you have multiprocessing on in preferences for AE? From your configuration you shouldn't be slowing down as much as you are now
 
Yes, I will try that. Intermediates. What are they though? @Shooter
Would I be rendering the clips out from AE, then linking them back into PE? Because if so, its taking me back into my FCP workflow... and im finding the MAIN benefit of speed in using PE with AE is the D/L.
Yep a new i7 iMac...fully loaded shouldn't be slowing down, so I know there is something a matter with my workflow.
@henryqiu I would be using JUST AE, but there are limitations with editing a long timeline with with it.
Also previewing your edits is a bit complicated, as RAM preview has its length limitations. I know I can turn down the quality... but im really picky about details, and so it just isn't suited for long edits.
I usually consider ONLY doing about 5mins long timelines in AE. On a side note, for the life of me... i've never been able to get the audio to preview in AE, of course I havent looked into that problem as I pay more attention to the seconds counter and time my effects to that.

I have turned off Multiprocessing as it can hog all my resources up (you need to allocate tons of RAM to each core). I only enable it at the end, when im about to render. (To clarify, when im using BOTH PE and AE i turn it off until im ready to export. But if im only doing work in AE, then its only 24/7)
My cache is on the internal drive, and the project is running off my external RAID.
I'll turn down my preview settings in PE, that sounds like it would play smoother previews while editing.
I guess i'll have to also stop applying heavy effects at the beginning of projects. Ill do the basic cutting, then go back through and do the D/L after....


Dai-Lon
 
Okay, I looked up "Intermediates" workflow. Basically, I know it as Transcoding.
So from my understanding, its just transcoding a "proxy" version of the original file and working with that. Then in the final export, you relink to the original files and export?
I do that in Final Cut with ProRes. Everything is transcoded in proxy, then i relink on final export.
However, I already had everything coded in ProRes - Proxy, and was working with that in PE/AE. Is there another format that runs smoother/lighter?
If im right, then whats the use of editing native AVCHD in the future? Because I know its going to run even heavier and slower then ProRes format. A faster computer? :p
 
Not transcodes and not proxies.

My intermediates are always lossless avi or movs. ( with and without alpha) at native rez. eg 1920 x 1080

Exported from AEFX as such and I use them just as any other asset in the project.


eg. I would create in AEFX then export those little windows that you show in your sample as all the windows only (with alpha) and overlay it on the edit timeline in Premiere
 
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