The H264 Codec in Premiere Pro CS6 Creates Files with Variable Frame Rates

[Alan Romain]

Also PRD, do you manually set your Virtual Memory in Windows, or choose Automatic. Someone said it should be almost double RAM, which mine is not. Speaking of Virtual Memory, I have none assigned to the internal hard drive where the project and files are located. Only C drive is assigned Virtual memory.

[poisondeathray]

Thank you.

Is there a way to prevent the overheating. Would selecting Optimize Rendering for Memory instead of Performance help?

Check to see if that is the problem first.

Use temperature monitor utilities for CPU and GPU during a work load

If there is an overheating problem , clean out the fans, blow out the dust

You can downclock your CPU /GPU with various utilities if temperatures are still a problem. Use external cooling like fans / AC if you have to

There should be full guides on this topic on computer enthusiast fourms

Also PRD, do you manually set your Virtual Memory in Windows, or choose Automatic. Someone said it should be almost double RAM, which mine is not. Speaking of Virtual Memory, I have none assigned to the internal hard drive where the project and files are located. Only C drive is assigned Virtual memory.

I set it , because I'm a control freak. The rational is you don't want it to dynamically adjust higher or lower

If you have enough RAM and large enough page file it should not be a problem either way

Not enough system RAM shouldn't crash a render and PP - it will just go much more slowly as it uses the page file (virtual memory)

RAM corruption (e.g. bad memory stick) can cause a crash, but they will usually crash Windows the OS as well like BSOD , not just PP

[Alan Romain]

Great information, thanks. There are two manual settings for virtual memory, initial and maximum size. I just set it now. Initial to what it was at for automatic, and Max to recommended. Don't know if initial is too low, because it's just a little more than total RAM. Also, should I assign Virtual memory to my internal drive with all the projects and files?

[poisondeathray]

Also, should I assign Virtual memory to my internal drive with all the projects and files?

It's not ideal because there will be too many reads/writes to the same drive

Ideally you would put it on separate fast drive like a SSD . More RAM is ideal too

[Alan Romain]

Oh I see. And what about the Initial versus Max virtual memory for C: drive, do you set these both the same value manually?

[poisondeathray]

And what about the Initial versus Max virtual memory for C: drive, do you set these both the same value manually?

Yes, same value to prevent dynamic resizing

[Alan Romain]

Very good to know thank you very much.

[Alan Romain]

Hello PDR. Can you tell me how to downclock my CPU or my RAM. I believe it's more of a problem with the Ram. This has been a marathon that is playing havoc on my health. So many experiments, system tweaks and constant exports for so many weeks. I think my computer has taken a serious beating. In any case, I'm no longer able to export the entire file without PP crashing, regardless of the codec I use. It crashes at the same place each time, which is the start of a complicated transition from one complex clip to another. I have successfully exported this before, but there were times it would crash even weeks ago particularly with certain codecs. Now it's happening with all codecs. Did a Windbg analysis of the crash dumps and I'm not sure what to make of it, although it does mention the memory. The normal Windows memory test says all is good, but watching the Task manager performance monitor, the RAM is at full throttle for about 5 minutes before the crash happens even though I have it set to reserve 4 GB for other applications. HWMonitor shows no temperature issues with CPU or RAM.

[poisondeathray]

Downclocking CPU/RAM generally won't help, unless you have evidence of overheating - so I think you're going in the wrong direction since temps are ok.

RAM unstability usually produces OS crashes (BSOD), not PP crashes.

The software tools can be different for each CPU /motherboard - just search google for "underclocking" utilities plus your processor make/model.
Software downclocking is easy/reversible - and downclocking is generally safe; but overclocking has potential risk . The same goes for GPU downclocking. Search for your GPU model make/name for underclocking utilities

**And don't forget to clear the Adobe cache before exporting - this is a very common cause for problems, especially older PP versions.



Backup everything you have

If you still have problems despite all of this - divide and conquer. Export out a lossless intermedate (e.g. uncompressed) for sections which you can join later for final render. Tackle the problem section separately

Other things you can do is replace the clip references on that problem section with the same clips, but converted to uncompressed video . Relink to the replacedment uncompressed video(s)

Another option is borrow a friend's computer. Or universities/colleges , public libraries often have computers and Adobe suite with free public access

[Alan Romain]

Thank you PRD. I will google underclocking and give it a try, but I do like the logic you've shared in that regard. The reason why I think underclocking might work is that half of my Ram is of a slower speed than the other half. When I finally decided to add more RAM a while back, they no longer manufactured this particular DIMM with the CL6 timing.

LOL, I am building quite a step-by-step Troubleshooting manual, which I will share here when I finally resolve the remaining issues.

Others in different discussion groups have talking about the need to upgrade to the latest Visual C++ Runtime, Direct X Runtime, and .net Framework. What are your thoughts on that?

My biggest mistake in all of this was in wasting weeks of my time reading through Adobe discussion groups only to discover at the end of each one that no solution was ever found. I should have known better.

On another subject, do you know of a really good registry cleaner that isn't too expensive?

[Alan Romain]

I should have mentioned, that on very rare occasions I do experience OS crashes with the blue screen caused by the RAM. It always happens when I'm shutting down the computer without giving it a minute to recover from a heavy workload.

[poisondeathray]

Thank you PRD. I will google underclocking and give it a try, but I do like the logic you've shared in that regard. The reason why I think underclocking might work is that half of my Ram is of a slower speed than the other half. When I finally decided to add more RAM a while back, they no longer manufactured this particular DIMM with the CL6 timing.

You can adjust ram timings, but you usually have to go into the BIOS

Others in different discussion groups have talking about the need to upgrade to the latest Visual C++ Runtime, Direct X Runtime, and .net Framework. What are your thoughts on that?

As a general rule, don't upgrade /change anything in the middle of a project. Such as drivers, runtimes, etc... Unless it's absolutely necessary

If you get a specific error message missing .net framework or something like that, ok maybe consider upgrading

You had it working before, so there is no reason to believe upgrading will fix anything. Upgrading might cause MORE problems. You're using an older snapshot of a system with CS6 ; newest versions of everything might break stuff

On another subject, do you know of a really good registry cleaner that isn't too expensive?

Maybe CCleaner, there is a free version

I should have mentioned, that on very rare occasions I do experience OS crashes with the blue screen caused by the RAM. It always happens when I'm shutting down the computer without giving it a minute to recover from a heavy workload.

Also try memtest86+ for the ram

[Alan Romain]

Some good points. Also, I don't like the idea of using the latest of those programs on an old computer either, yet I've had to do so for certain other software I use, and I somehow believe that this is part of the problem. Yes, it was working before 85% of the time with this particular project, but I'm pretty sure I agreed to installing .net frameworks for some other program a few weeks ago and not performed a restore point beforehand. Whether that's the problem I don't know. I will continue to work on it, but I truly have been way to hard on this old clunker over the past few weeks. One thing Premiere has never liked is Quicktime 7.7.9 the final version, and if I'm exporting to QT, often times both QT and Premiere crash. But first I need to figure out what's up with Premiere.

[ivanb]

Did a Windbg analysis of the crash dumps

Can you share some crash dump files?

[Alan Romain]

I may be able to do that Ivan, but for security reasons, I'll have to black out some stuff.

I was just in the Bios, and it get quite technical when it comes to overclocking and frequency etc. I usually only go in their to change boot drives etc.

What I did notice however is that the DRAM frequency is set to auto with a target of 1066 mhz despite my DIMM's all being 1600. When I highlight the DRAM Frequency the message says that only 1066 and 800 are available with the CPU set to 3059 Frequency. Heck, I can't even figure out how to set the CPU Frequency. My motherboard is P6X58D. I've notice that others online have had this same issue, and apparently with the Dimm all set to 1066 it messes things up. Also, do they not list each stick of DIMM in the BIOS. I see people talking about setting the timing to 8-9-8-24 etc and I saw numbers like this at the top of one section, but it's greyed out, and besides, I'm not going to change anything without knowing what I'm doing. It does seem obvious however that the CPU and RAM are set up for maximum Overclocking. I'm starting to think that my BIOS needs some work, only I doubt there's anyone in this town who is technical enough to help.

[ivanb]

I may be able to do that Ivan, but for security reasons, I'll have to black out some stuff.

In fact, just a stack trace of an error would be enough. Or, maybe several stack traces from multiple occurrences to get the idea if there are some similarities or not.

[Alan Romain]

I uploaded the dump a half hour ago ivanb, but I don't know where it went. It showed as completed. It was a PDF

[JN-]

I converted it, (less than 3 seconds) using my ConformFR ffmpeg based util. no quality loss, now displays CFR.

[Alan Romain]

I see that a couple of members are offering to convert the H.264 to Constant Frame Rate with no quality loss, and I appreciate that, but that part of the post has already been dealt with. The easiest and fastest method is to use My MP4Box.

[Alan Romain]

I uploaded images yesterday, so please tell me where they are located. Also, how to do we respond directly to someone's comment instead of the thread.

[sophisticles]

Minimum frame rate : 29.970 FPS
Maximum frame rate : 30.000 FPS

I find it very hard to believe that the frame rate is fluctuating between 29.970 FPS and 30.000 FPS during the entire length of the clip.

[Alan Romain]

sophisticles It was established by someone in this discussion who ran a test on it that it's only in certain parts.

[Alan Romain]

My Ram passed the Memtest86. Not sure if it is set up properly in BIOS, but I'm not about to play with that. I do find it odd that the DRAM frequency in BIOS is 1066 Mhz instead of 1600 which is the true frequency of each DIMM, other than the fact that the BIOS says there are only two options for DRAM frequency when the CPU Frequency is set to 3059 Mhz, which is 1066 or 800. One tech guy in the nearest town suggested I try setting the BIOS to the default, but that concern me. If I run into more serious problems, I may never get the current settings fully back. Still plugging away. But I may take a break the rest of today.

[poisondeathray]

The RAM can be rated for 1600 at certain cas ratings, but you're running slower than what the RAM is rated for. That's OK and less stressful for the RAM

Your motherboard probably does not support certain frequencies, or maybe you need a BIOS update - but I wouldn't flash or update anything at this point. Just leave it



When you preview the problem section in PP, on the timeline/sequence - does it crash ? How about exporting image sequence , such as a PNG sequence ? If any of these are ok, you can render that "bad" section that way, and combine it after

[Alan Romain]

great points, thank you PDR. The problem part plays perfectly after rendering, and I've rendered that part many times without any crashing, albeit, the RAM runs high when this part is processed for timeline rendering as well, but never a crash. Only crashes during export. Did a Chkdisk and all is good, so it's a mystery. I uninstalled PP CS6 and installed CS5, same problem. I'm wondering if .net framework 4.8 is causing this because I think thats the only program I installed prior to these constant crashes. Like I said, before that, it was only crashing at that section occasionally and never if I exported to MPEG2 but now it crashes even with that codec. I could work around it, but would rather figure out the problem to be ready for my big projects. The only thing I haven't done so far is to perform a windows repair. I also don't understand why the CPU usage sits around 25 to 30% during this section while the RAM is maxing out. In all the other parts, the CPU us running high from 80 to 100%.

[Alan Romain]

I have yet to resolve the crash during export issue when it comes to that complex minute of footage, which happens in the exact same way in CS5 and CS6. So what was previously crashes 20 percent of the time has been 100 percent of the time for that section of footage. However, as part of my experiment, I reinstalled my old Mainconcept Suite codec, and there are no crashes on that section using the Mainconcept playback engine. I stopped using this engine and codec package a while back because it disregards the Use previews setting when exporting to its own set of codecs. In this case, I always deselect Use previews, but Mainconcept seems to use them anyway, unless I am exporting to Premiere's native codecs. I also found that there was reduced quality in the exports at times, so I chose to stick with the Mercury playback engine and Premieres Native codecs.

In any case, watching the CPU and Ram performance during timeline rendering as well as export rendering, the Main Concept engine completely stabilizes the CPU and RAM usage while processing this footage with the complex effects and transparencies. The CPU hovers between 70 and 90 % and the RAM around 70% of the allotted Memory, never going over the assigned amount. Neither the CPU nor the RAM have any spikes whatsoever throughout the process.

This makes me wonder if the Mercury Playback Engine is conflicting with something. I also tried CUDA acceleration using the Mercury Playback Engine, which I haven't tried in 3 years, and it makes CS5 very unstable. Don't know about CS6 because it's uninstalled temporarily. So unstable that it froze my system and after rebooting the project file would not open, saying it is corrupt. I did manage to try and export that difficult section using acceleration and of course it crashed Premiere. That's enough of CUDA.

[Alan Romain]

As mentioned, I do believe that the Mercury Playback Engine is conflicting with something, and the other clue is that the CPU is barely working (10 to 15 percent) when processing the complex parts. I just read that others experiencing this same problem with CC have the option of turning off Hardware accelerated Decoding in Preferences>Media. With this off, the CPU usage went back up during export. Unfortunately, this option is not available in CS6 or CS5.

[Alan Romain]

As for using the Mainconcept Engine, this is not a solution by my standards, because it does Reduce Quality. I just confirmed this by comparing exports of a particular segment through this engine and the Mercury Engine, and when zoomed right in on the person's face, there is a visible blur on the one exported using the Mainconcept engine. In this case, both were exported to the exact same codec settings. In fact I compared the results of a few different exports to the same codecs, both Native codecs and Mainconcept codecs.

[poisondeathray]

As for using the Mainconcept Engine, this is not a solution by my standards, because it does Reduce Quality. I just confirmed this by comparing exports of a particular segment through this engine and the Mercury Engine, and when zoomed right in on the person's face, there is a visible blur on the one exported using the Mainconcept engine. In this case, both were exported to the exact same codec settings. In fact I compared the results of a few different exports to the same codecs, both Native codecs and Mainconcept codecs.

There might be some other issues in your tests - maybe something else contributing to the blur in the processing pathway - because the native h264 encoder for Adobe is licensed from Mainconcept too .

[Alan Romain]

Yes, I knew about that affiliation, but it has always reduced quality first time around in my experience. It's very complicated. It does a great job of smart rendering or using lossless if you re-use the videos it creates in another project, but that first export is not good. In fact it usually results in floating foreground noise. I have a feeling it's because it uses the previews despite selecting otherwise. Either that, or it's the engine itself. I plan to reinstall CS6 in the days ahead, so I'll see how it works with that one. I've never used it with CS6. But as far as using the Mercury Engine and it ramping up the Ram to max in complex parts while causing CPU usage to drop to nothing, this problem has been reported hundreds of times on the internet, even by CC users. The option in CC to turn off hardware accelerated decoding has improved CPU usage for some, but most people never found a solution. Even people with modern rocket computers. I will test Voukoder next.