Premiere Pro 2: Handling of AVI file from digital camera

[cheerful]

I can import these files. However, each uses a lot of memory. 20+ files lead to 1.9GB VM usage by premiere pro 2.

1. Am I doing sth wrong?

2. Do I need to install some codec to handle this type of AVI?

Thanks!

[harley2ride]

Uncompressed video does take up a lot of HD space. Fact of life. Anyone working with video, should be looking at at least a 100gb HD to be used solely for capture/storage. I had one VHS tape that I captured that took up 60gb until I edited it and encoded it to mpeg2.

[cheerful]

Not HD space but physical RAM. After importing about 20 AVI files into project, Premiere is using 2GB of RAM.

[edDV]

Not HD space but physical RAM. After importing about 20 AVI files into project, Premiere is using 2GB of RAM.

What is the input? DV format?

What are the Premiere Pro project settings? DV? Uncompressed?

What are you rendering on the time line?

[cheerful]

as in title: avi file from digital camera, so mjpeg

i am not usin any timeline or redndering. simply importing them takes a lot of RAM

[edDV]

as in title: avi file from digital camera, so mjpeg

i am not usin any timeline or redndering. simply importing them takes a lot of RAM

What model Digital still camera? What frame size and frame rate for the AVI?

What Premiere project format? If uncompressed, is it RGB or YUV. Does project frame size and rate match the AVI? If not it will convert.

Each MJPeg frame will be decompressed by Premiere Pro to the project format.

[cheerful]

Canon 30fps 640x480. MJPEG

Tried several premiere setting, matching or non-matching, all same result. I dont think Premiere converts anything on import as there is no trace of that. Even if it does, why does it hold on to 2gb of ram?

[edDV]

Canon 30fps 640x480. MJPEG

Tried several premiere setting, matching or non-matching, all same result. I dont think Premiere converts anything on import as there is no trace of that. Even if it does, why does it hold on to 2gb of ram?

On import it will analyze the file. Preview playback would require decompression.

640x480 uncompressed YUY2 is ~18MB/s, RGB24 is ~27MB/s


There are preference settings for RAM vs. virtual scratch disk buffering. I don't have it here.

[cheerful]

do u mean Premiere uncompress them and then hold them in memory?

if so, will 3rd-party codec help?

[edDV]

do u mean Premiere uncompress them and then hold them in memory?

if so, will 3rd-party codec help?

Help with what? Will it play? The codec will decompress it.

FWIW: I loaded a 10 sec (7MB) Canon 640x480 MJPeg file into Vegas without playing it and it added 21MB memory usage.

Playing it added 36MB to RAM usage.

Rendering it to DV project format didn't add to memory usage, the render went to a tmp file.

Closing Vegas and reopening the project put memory usage back to 21MB over base level.

[cheerful]

well, i dont understand the ram usage. 7mb for 10sec is fine. 2gb 4 20min is not

[edDV]

well, i dont understand the ram usage. 7mb for 10sec is fine. 2gb 4 20min is not

10sec (7MB) created 21MB RAM usage so 20min would be

21 x 6 x 20 = 2.52 GB

The program will probably use all the physical RAM and overflow will go to a tmp file.

Premiere and Photoshop tend to default to high RAM usage. There is a setting in preferences to assign % RAM limit.

[cheerful]

I've not found it. Where is it? Holding uncompressed video in memory is wrong, since i hvae not even played it or added it to any sequence.

[edDV]

I've not found it. Where is it? Holding uncompressed video in memory is wrong, since i hvae not even played it or added it to any sequence.

I don't have Premiere pro here.

They use all the RAM available to speed your editing task. You have to tell the program to limit RAM usage. This used to be a big deal back when total system RAM was ~256MB.

[cheerful]

I don't think that is the case for premiere pro here. It will be ridiculuous to hold all uncompressed video in memory.

[edDV]

Here is an article that describes Premiere Pro memory usage.
http://www.digitalproducer.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=35102

I don't understand your problem. Are you planning to edit these files? Memory Usage depends mostly on the project format and conversion of "foreign" formats. In order to speed the process, Premiere will be anticipating your next move and loading the RAM.

[cheerful]

Yes, i want to edit them. But the idea that i need to have enough memory to hold all video in memory is scary. It has to be a way not to do that. Or some way to handle MJPEG natively, like adding a codec.

[edDV]

Yes, i want to edit them. But the idea that i need to have enough memory to hold all video in memory is scary. It has to be a way not to do that. Or some way to handle MJPEG natively, like adding a codec.

No, that isn't an issue. Premiere will use the memory available for speed then use virtual memory (tmp files on HDD) next. If you only had 512MB RAM, it would only use 512 MB RAM.

[cheerful]

virtual memory is transparent to apps. using a lot of virtual memory forces os to swap a lot and eventually exhaust VM as well.

[edDV]

Video editing apps heavily use their own swap space and huge tmp files. They don't use much Windows swap space.

Editors like Premiere Pro work with uncompressed video in segments. Pro can operate in native 4:2:2 YUV or 4:4:4 RGB at various bit depths. This is set in the project setting. For processing, everything gets decopmpressed to tmp files.

[cheerful]

I don't think you understand the problem. If premiere uses its own file/disk-space, that is fine.

however, task manager is reporting Premiere using 2GB of memory and a low system memory warning is generated.

[edDV]

I don't think you understand the problem. If premiere uses its own file/disk-space, that is fine.

however, task manager is reporting Premiere using 2GB of memory and a low system memory warning is generated.

Windows manages physical RAM, Premiere has preferences for swap disk space which should be on a separate drive from Windows. Adobe tends to default to higher % physical memory usage compared to other apps. You can also manage memory in XP but I've never had reason to do that.

[cheerful]

I have to say that you don't understand the problem at hand at all, probably b/c you don't use the software. Please don't THINK what would happen. You have to try to see what is happening.

Upon importing an AVI with MJPEG, Premiere immediately claims memory in GB, which is totally out of control. It has nothing to do with Windows memory management or separate swap drive used by Premiere. No, it is Premiere using memory like crazy, shown clearly in task manager.

[edDV]

I suggest you call Adobe Support.

I told you I don't have Premiere Pro at this location.

My Canon MJPEG file decompressed 36x in Virtualdub and Vegas. A 10MB Canon MJPeg file (~13 sec) decompresses to 360MB.

[cheerful]

I don't want to decompress anything here.

[masterpug]

why use premier to edit canon mjpeg videos if it's going to decompress? use womble mpeg
video wizard to edit the mjpeg avi directly which then outputs to dvd spec mpg2 ready for
import into dvd authoring program. if you require even more robutst editing features then
just load the mjpeg avi files directly into vegas and edit/output as dvd spec mpg2.
**let me know if these programs won't accept loading your mjpeg avi files, then i'll direct
you to the free codecs to install so all is well.

[cheerful]

I am working on a large project. Among the source, there are 20+ clips in MJPEG. Others include DV.

[edDV]

Then import them into your DV project and go. If you are concerned about RAM consumption convert them to DV format.

That same 10MB Canon MJPEG file converts to ~50MB DV format

[cheerful]

I've said after importing them, Premiere uses 2GB of RAM and a low system RAM is given. That is the problem.

I think what is missing is a codec that can let Premiere use MJPEG source w/o such huge memory usage

[edDV]

I have never seen a "low system RAM" warning. Unless you render your timeline to a temp file, Premiere will hold a decompressed version of the MJPEG file in RAM.

If you just use Premiere to convert the files to DV, then they will be treated like any other DV file and load into memory only when being filtered.