Premiere pro CC and 4k h.264 problems

[LucasHoller]

did the tests and the problem is solved!
the test was a 33 second long clip in proress 422(hq) (3.1 Gb) rendered to h.264 100 mbps bitrate, 4k. (with a prores copy of the edit i'm only gonna be using around 60 mbps normally for youtube as i have the prores as my high quality copy)
the results is as follows:

premiere 05:47 (25-30% CPU usage, ram usage around 4 gb)
Handbrake 01:44 (60-65% CPU usage, ram usage around 6-7 gb)
resolve (can't test, the test is clearly bottlenecked by my ram but seem like it it would eat my system whole if i had more ram ! YES! it works!) the CPU usages jumpes to 100% straight away but within seconds it slows down when my ram is maxed out. 

i am going to upgrade my Ram and use resolve and untill that use Handbrake.

[LucasHoller]

Science has been done ! maybe other people with the same problem can use this workflow too.

[ALwin]

snip

 

I really don't understand what problem your workstation has.  Do you have the latest nVidia drivers and CUDA for Mac installed?

 

Today at the office, with my 2015 Retina Macbook Pro with 16GB RAM, I was doing fine in both Premiere and Resolve.  But Handbrake, while it rendered out files quickly, it just wouldn't take the bit rate settings I wanted.

[LucasHoller]

yes i have. 
i know that premiere has problems with h.264 and CPUs with more than 4-6 cores, so i think that is the problem.

and about resolve, the data for the CPU to crunch is feed to it by the ram, so i am 99% sure more ram would make it possible to use 100% cpu constantly, for transcoding from prores to h.264.

[.spider.]

Handbrake 01:44 (60-65% CPU usage, ram usage around 6-7 gb)

 

x264 should utilize almost 100%. You are probably limited by your disk speed thus you could upgrade your disk, or change the preset to slow to get better quality without loosing speed. 

[LucasHoller]

will try that spider.

[LucasHoller]

i got it working 100% on handbrake, but i think i'm still gonna go for ram upgrade + resolve as i think that has much better GPU (CUDA) support and by that will be faster. ofcource i don't know untill i have tried it.

[.spider.]

iresolve as i think that has much better GPU (CUDA) support and by that will be faster. 

At least not for encoding and cuda is really really really bad for encoding anyway

[ALwin]

You're using SSD drives right?  They should have enough read/write speeds to handle 4K content even if you have a single drive and don't have a RAID 0 setup.

 

i know that premiere has problems with h.264 and CPUs with more than 4-6 cores, so i think that is the problem.

 

Yes but even then, I don't think Premiere would utilize less of the CPU power.  That test that I linked you, I think their CPU's ran at close to 100% as possible regardless of the number of cores. They were testing if there was any significant gain in rendering/exporting times.  It doesn't seem like the percentage values they quoted were CPU usage.

[LucasHoller]

yes i have a program/os SSD and a DATA ssd. 

As for my settings when exporting these are the exact settings:
h.264
3840x2160
framerate 25
profile: high
level: 5.2
max render depth
VBR, 2 pass
target bitrate 80
maximum bitrate 100
mazimum render quality
time interpolation: frame sampling.

would send a picture but don't know how on this site
i have triede doing only 1 pass
uncheaking max render quality
uncheaking max render depth but the most CPU usage i have seen is 35-40 % 

and i can see that i do not use all my ram.

[ALwin]

I still think you may have a bottleneck somewhere, and it certainly doesn't seem to be in Premiere because I have 2015 CC suite and they work perfectly on both my Macbook Pro (El Capitan) and Windows 10 workstation.  My unprofessional opinion is that there may be something with the hackintosh setup that is causing a bottleneck.

 

When you have some free time, do you think you can take some test files to perhaps a friend's computer and test it.  Or if you can install Windows on a spare drive on your computer and see how it performs.

[LucasHoller]

it's a fine theory but, seen as i can utilize 100% CPU in both Handbrake and resolve, it cannot be a hardware bottleneck in the system as a whole. It can only either be a problem with the software or with my computer and that specific software.
and the problem with comparing to your tests, is that you do not have more than 4 cores on any of your systems, which seem to be when the problem accurs ?

i would will try to see if i know anyone who has a >4 core system but don't think many of my friends do - if any.

[ALwin]

it's a fine theory but, seen as i can utilize 100% CPU in both Handbrake and resolve, it cannot be a hardware bottleneck in the system as a whole. It can only either be a problem with the software or with my computer and that specific software.

and the problem with comparing to your tests, is that you do not have more than 4 cores on any of your systems, which seem to be when the problem accurs ?

i would will try to see if i know anyone who has a >4 core system but don't think many of my friends do - if any.

 

Good point.  I don't have any friends or know anyone who has >4 core system.  And who knows when one of my colleagues will ever get the Mac Pro he is talking about getting.  Would be nice if one of the LMG members would jump in here, I'm sure they have some >4 core systems lying around.

[LucasHoller]

yeah would be very nice if someone on mac with >4 cores and CC could test if they have the same problem

[ALwin]

yeah would be very nice if someone on mac with >4 cores and CC could test if they have the same problem

 

If I had the budget right now, I'd go buy a Mac Pro and do a test and return it within the 14-day no-questions-asked return policy period.  Unfortunately I don't have any budget to spare for this nor do I want to do this kind of thing.  I like being fair and feel it wouldn't be right of me to return an open box item just for this reason.

 

But I wonder if I could ask someone at the Apple store, could I perform a test on their display model of the Mac Pro.  Depends if their display model is the quad core or  hex core version.