Adobe Premiere Pro Recommended Hardware 64GB RAM Minimum

OK so Adobe in its mansuetude recommends 64GB of RAM minimum to run PP in a professional environment:

64GB Minimum! WHAT??

This info is taken from Adobe's "Best Practices & Workflow Guide" that you can download here. 

64GB, this is a huge amount of RAM. And they even say to go higher for complex projects. How much higher? 128GB? 256GB?

Yes, I know Premiere will work just fine with less, duh! That's not my point. Adobe recommendation is 64GB or more. Who are we? Rockefellers?

I mean, I agree that more is better, but it's also expensive and inefficient at some point. Fast cores, sure, more cores, of course, it will help rendering speed. Faster ssds and drives, faster ethernet, obviously.

Adobe justification for this is rather vague:

Video frames decoding, OK sure, 6k, 8k, 12k is gonna tax the system RAM. How many pros work with higher than 1080/4k 24/30 resolution though, I'd be curious. Also this function is shared with hardware / GPU, and with these getting more and more powerful, less system RAM should be needed, not more.

Project data... Gobbling RAM like this? And how much of it is really used? And why is it not more efficient at using RAM? At some point throwing more raw power at bad code is not making the software better.

So how about looking hard into optimization for a change Adobe?

Adobe Media Encoder Stuck Rendering "Reading XMP" - With Fix

 Adobe Media Encoder is broken again (v 24.1.1)

When Exporting from Premiere, Send to Adobe Media Encoder, nothing happens, AME gets stuck "Reading XMP", or not even showing anything. One of the many complains.

Yet another bug 🐛 that's been plaguing AME for the longest time. Can't you guys FIX THIS SHIT once and for all Adobe?

Note that this bug is not systematic. Sometimes everything works as it should, other times it gets stuck. Usually when you're in a rush to export something.

I tried a possible fix: open AME Preferences, Uncheck "Import sequences natively". Quit AME. Remove XMP altogether, no go.

Uncheck "Import sequences natively"

Unfortunately it only worked for one export. The next day, same thing happened again: AME stuck "reading XMP."

Quitting Premiere, restarting Premiere does not work either. AME gets stuck Establishing Dynamic Link, then stuck reading XMP.

What works for me:

(1) In AME Settings, General, turn off "Enable Parallel Encoding". Why is it turned on by default Adobe?

Uncheck "Enable Parallel Encoding"

 (2) Create a Custom Preset, or Edit your Preset, then click on the "Metadata" Button.

Click on Metadata, bottom left

"Create Sidecar File" is the default export option. NO GOOD. Why is it the default Adobe? I understand it might have something to do with Markers that's broken, although many users report that they are not using Markers at all. Whatever, in any case it doesn't work. So, turn Export Options to "Minimum required" or "None".

Export Options - Select "Minimum required" or "None"

Click OK, then SAVE and use this new Preset to encode.

(3) Sometimes even steps (1) and (2) are not enough to get AME to start encoding. If it still gets stuck, delete every single job from the queue. Leave AME open, go back to the Premiere  sequence, re-Export via send to AME. Re-apply the saved presets and hit render.

After these 3 steps, (AGGRAVATION x 3!) AME eventually does its job properly without getting stuck.

What a convoluted unnecessary process Adobe, shame on you.

The dreaded black frame at the end of h264 exports with Adobe Premiere and Media Encoder seems to have been fixed with 2024 versions!

 Looks like Adobe listened and finally put people to work fixing this ongoing problem.

I can report that Adobe Media Encoder 24.1.1 seem to be immune, and exports h264 properly, ending on the last frame of the program, not on an auto generated black frame.

I tested Exporting h264 directly from Premiere 24.1, and the bug is fixed with Premiere as well. No more black frame at the end of h264 exports. Yeah! Finally.

Thank you Adobe!

Something is up with h264 encoding on Final Cut Pro 10.4.1, Compressor 4.7

 h264 encoding using either Compressor 4.7 or FCP 10.4.1 on M1 with Sonoma 14.2.1 are showing blockiness with busy/semi busy imagery.

It wasn't like this with previous versions on FCP/Compressor/Pro Video Formats/macOS that I recall.

 h264 encoding behaves very poorly compared to Adobe Media Encoder. I tested both on the same ProRes master, Apple output is dirty where AME is relatively clean. Same data rate, using the default settings.

I tested previous versions of FCP/Compressor on the same machine: Monterey and Ventura, and results are the same: blocky, sloppy, prone to artifacts on certain images.

It was not like this before: I looked at the same h264 export I did in June 2023 with FCP 10.6.6, Pro Video Formats 2.2.5, and Ventura, it was clean throughout. Same machine.

Something happened since, and now it's screwed. What is going on Apple? Anybody seeing a similar problem on their setup?

Below are 4 frame exports of the same image:

1. ProRes export
2. h264 export from FCP
3. h264 export from Compressor
4. h264 export from Adobe Media Encoder

Superimposed to the original sequence. Opacity switched to Difference, and Midtones Exposure pushed to 100%.

1) ProRes

2) h264 Final Cut Pro

3) h264 Compressor

4) h264 Adobe Media Encoder

5) h264 DaVinci Resolve

ProRes looks the best as expected. Clearly Media Encoder h264 output looks much better than Compressor, Final Cut Pro, and Resolve h264 outputs 😵.

Final Cut and Resolve are close, both doing a sloppy job at encoding h264 compared to Adobe Media Encoder. Compressor is the worst of all 😩.

NOT GOOD APPLE!! Not great Blackmagic Design!!

Blackmagic UltraStudio Monitor Not Working With Apple Sonoma 14.1.1

 Desktop Video 12.7.1 is not yet compatible with Sonoma, so no UltraStudio Monitor output is possible at the moment for FCP or DaVinci, or Premiere, or anything.

It's actually an Apple thing introduced in Sonoma 14.1:

"Starting in macOS Sonoma 14.1, cameras and video output devices that don't use modern system extensions won't be available to use unless you restore the legacy settings."

Apple offers a workaround: https://support.apple.com/en-jo/HT213969

Although some users seem to be having a hard time: https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=191101

I don't think I will even try this, as I'm just testing Sonoma et the moment, and I have no intention of using it for production just yet. My problem is that I will no doubt forget about this restoring legacy video device workaround, so I'd rather wait for BMD to come up with a updated software.

Adobe Premiere, Why on F#$%^#* Earth Do You Put A Black Frame At The End Of My Video????

 Adobe Premiere is such a piece of garbage.

I export a h264 video selecting an In and an Out points. The Out point is 1sec into a graphic, the same graphic continues for a whole 10seconds after the Out point. On export the resulting h264 file last frame is black.

Why is it not showing my graphic? WHY??????

I mean ADOBE? What do you have to say? It's been documented FOR YEARS! Just Google "Adobe Premiere puts a black frame at the end of my h264 export". It's a BUG!!! 🪲🪳🦟 BUG, BUG, BUG!!! Fix it already.

If I Send To Adobe Media Encoder instead of direct exporting from Premiere, SAME THING!!! By the way, selecting Hardware Accelerated or Software Only doesn't not make an iota of difference, same fuckup. So now I have to export a ProRes version, that works just fine, and then encode a h264 with AME? Nope! Doesn't work either. 🖕

Apple Compressor to the rescue. APPLE COMPRESSOR, works just great with h264, Adobe???

 What a mess. Premiere "Pro" Uh???? It would be laughable if it wasn't disgusting.

!!!UPDATE!!!

Adobe Media Encoder 24.1.1 SEEM TO BE WORKING FINE NOW.

I tested Export on Premiere 24.1, and the bug is FIXED with Premiere as well! No more black frame at the end of h264 exports. Yeah! Finally.

Thanks Adobe!

Adobe Premiere Pro 2024 (24.0.0.58) Error code -1609629690 Exporting h264, And Solution

Premiere Pro throws an error compiling movie on exporting a h264 file:

Error compiling movie.

Render Error

Render returned error.

Writing with exporter: H.264

Writing to file: /Volumes/G Vulcan 4TB/[2152] MCV OpenHands/MCV OH Chuck/ Masters/Masters Web/CP_OHC_Chuckwild_01.mp4

Writing file type: H264

Around timecode: 00:00:02:00 - 00:00:02:05

Rendering at offset: 0.000 seconds

Component: H.264 of type Exporter

Selector: 9

Error code: -1609629690

 The media / clip itself is h264, editing into a default Timeline.

Other people have been reporting the same error, and for them turning off "Hardware Encoding" seem to work, albeit slowly.

For me, it's turning off "Use Maximum Render Quality" (leave it unchecked) that does the trick. 

If I check the "Maximum Render Quality" box, it leads to the error, no matter what. It's perfectly happy with "Hardware Encoding" always on.

Mac M1, macOS Ventura 13.6, Premiere 24.0.0.58