Adobe Community: Saving Projects with Warp Stabilized Footage takes Forever

AtonMusic

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Saving Projects with Warp Stabilized Footage takes Forever

May 18, 2011 9:08 AM

Hi,

I have 8 comps in my project all enjoying the wonderful stabilization of Warp Stabilizer.

When I save the project - it takes 10 minutes. Removing all the Warp Stabilizers from the footage it takes 1 second.

Having done all my work in the 8 comps all having Warpy applied to them then dragging the comps over to Adobe Media Encoder for rendering takes about 20 minutes.

Removing Warp Stabilizer from the Comps and repeating above takes 1 minute.

I think that warp stabilizer is great but then workflow slowness hit is devastating.

Is all this normal behavior ?

Thanks

3211 Views 26 Replies Latest reply: Rick Gerard, Apr 17, 2013 1:27 PM

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1. Todd_Kopriva,

May 18, 2011 10:23 AM in reply to AtonMusic

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What are your Memory & Multiprocessor preference settings?

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2. Todd_Kopriva,

May 18, 2011 10:31 AM in reply to Todd_Kopriva

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Also, what are the characteristics of your compositions---most importantly, duration and frame dimensions?

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3. Dave LaRonde,

May 18, 2011 11:15 AM in reply to AtonMusic

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Such a long save may be abnormal, but you should know that ALL of the tracking information and settings for each piece of stabilized footage is saved in the effects themselves: no keyframes to speak of, but tons of data.

I'll bet you would find that there is HUGE difference in project file size between a project with stabilized footage and and identical project with no stabilization.

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4. AtonMusic,

May 18, 2011 11:52 AM in reply to Todd_Kopriva

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Hi Todd,

thanks for chiming in...

Memory installed = 32Gb / 28GB set for other apps (No other apps are running)
Processors enabled = 4 CPUs with 2GB Per CPU assigned
Project = 1920x1080 tiff Sequence 300 frames long.

Warp Stabilizer set to synthetic edges

After Effect is quit prior to AME rendering
AE Project is 125MB and YES it is smaller when no warp stab. is applied.

I think it has to do with the fact that AE assigns more than 100% load to ONE CPU.
And AFAIK the Maximum ONE cpu can reach is 100% not 160% which AE assigns them to use.
At least ONE core is running at 160% when viewed in OS X Activity Monitor.

All in all - I fare a whole lot better just by leaving MulitProcessing off.

Perhaps in CS7 - the leverage of MP is developed enough.
Apple probably plays a huge part in this too. I know of many applications having problems with MP'ing.

Aside from Apple's own apps which are using every bit of CPU power there is and really are excelling on it

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5. AtonMusic,

May 18, 2011 11:57 AM in reply to Dave LaRonde

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Hi Dave,

depend on how one regards HUGE..

THe project is about 3MB without Warpy and 125 with it...

Still saving a 125 MB should not take so long!

But what do I know.

Still, warp stabilizer is a god darn amazing stabilizer. Really incredible for 90% of all tasks.
And in those 90% there are NO stabilization app available that comes even close !

I ran some tests against a lot of the others and while on long pans warp stabilizer is just as 'bad" as all the others; when it comes to roll-shutter stabilization and general jitter-removal it makes me smile every time I use it...

Thanks Adobe !

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6. Dave LaRonde,

May 18, 2011 12:33 PM in reply to AtonMusic

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AtonMusic wrote:

THe project is about 3MB without Warpy and 125 with it...

Still saving a 125 MB should not take so long!

To me, that's a HUGE difference between 3 and 125!
And I think I might have an explanation for some of your slowness.

You previously wrote, " Memory installed = 32Gb / 28GB set for other apps (No other apps are running)"
...which would be 4GB of memory allocated to AE.

You also wrote, "Processors enabled = 4 CPUs with 2GB Per CPU assigned"
...ah, but 4 x 2GB = 8GB!

Are you unnecessarily forcing AE to use disk caching?

I would think you easily could allocate 16 GB to AE, and 4GB to each processor AE uses.

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7. AtonMusic,

May 18, 2011 12:55 PM in reply to Dave LaRonde

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Dave,

I think you missed in my other post the part where I stated that AE isn't even running while I encode in AME !

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8. Dave LaRonde,

May 18, 2011 3:31 PM in reply to AtonMusic

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I'm not talking about the encoding, I'm talking about your sluggish saving woes within AE itself. I thought that was the real problem.

I think you need to adjust AE's processor and memory allocations; they don't look right, and I think that at their current settings, you're forcing AE to do disk caching to run on the amount of memory you have allocated to it... which I think is causing the slow save times.

Have you tried the recommended settings outlined here before?
http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva/2010/10/please-try-recommended-memo ry-settings-for-after-effects-cs5-and-give-feedback.html

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9. AtonMusic,

May 18, 2011 4:00 PM in reply to Dave LaRonde

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Hey Dave,

thanks for taking the time to write...

Sorry.. yeah, the real problem was the save time but I think it is intertwined with Drag n Drop to AME !

Anyway, at NO time is my memory maxed out during that process. I have a monitor showing me what memory is being used and what not.

But I will try out todd's suggestion which you pointed me to via the link. Then I'll report back !

Thanks again !

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10. Todd_Kopriva,

May 18, 2011 4:12 PM in reply to AtonMusic

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> Sorry.. yeah, the real problem was the save time but I think it is intertwined with Drag n Drop to AME !

They are related. When you process an After Effects composition in AME, a headless version of After Effects starts up and works in the background. It has to load the project and all of the other stuff that After Effects would normally have to do.

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11. AtonMusic,

May 18, 2011 5:52 PM in reply to Todd_Kopriva

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Opening the same project takes 10 minutes too....

Now, I am kind of guy that like saving all the time, I have that command+S - built-in to my brain.

I just cant wait 10 minutes EVERY time I hit command+save each 5 minutes.

Great stabilization or not... That time-lag isn't worth it.

I have tried with ALL MP settings recommend. While AE does faster/slower RAM-Previews and Renders depending on the MP settings - the MP settings have absolutely NO effect on my saving/opening problems.

todd, is this something you guys have been experiencing too.

PS - If Warp Stabilizer is causing the slow open/save due to its data being altered, perhaps I could understand that LAG.
However, if absolutely nothing has changed in its data then I dont see why it AE should save it all over again !

PPS - Draggin over 10 comps to AME from AE (same project) takes more than half an hour.... If AME only has to open the AE project ONCE then why does it need so long as if it seems that it would open the project 10 times consecutively !

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12. AtonMusic,

May 18, 2011 6:02 PM in reply to AtonMusic

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Found a MUCH faster way of doing all this !

I save my AE project, then close it. Then in AME I select File>Add AE Composition...

It will take about 4 minutes for Dyn Link to find the Comps in the project but once so, I can just select all 10 comps and add them in ONE SECOND.

That is GREAT news. Dragging from AE takes more than 30 Minutes to reach the exact same result !

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13. Todd_Kopriva,

May 18, 2011 6:38 PM in reply to AtonMusic

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Thanks for reporting back. That is useful information for us to isolate what is taking so long. I'll pass this on the the relevant engineers.

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14. Paul Uusitalo,

May 19, 2011 11:26 AM in reply to AtonMusic

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Something doesn't seem right here. While it is true that the Warp Stabilizer does significantly increase project size, and cause a certain level of slowdown in project save/load times, ten minutes seems seriously out of line for a 125 MB project. I just constructed a similar project here - over 250 MB in size and it saves in just under a minute.

I'm wondering if something is amiss with your project file. And you are correct, memory and MP settings really have no affect on save /load performance.

Could you possibly email me a copy of your project?

puusital@adobe.com

Thanks!

Paul Uusitalo
After Effects Quality Engineering

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15. AtonMusic,

May 19, 2011 12:09 PM in reply to Paul Uusitalo

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Hi Paul,

unfortunately, this was what I call a temporary project. Once the Comps have undergone rendering the project is deleted.

Next time I come across this void, I'll be sure to email you are project - using the email address you gave me !

Thanks for responding !

I might add that ALL the comps had synthetic edges set to 5 seconds.

PS | Last findings before I deleted the projects was that I noted that setting the Synth.Edge value to 0.5 made the project save faster. Setting the method to Stabilize only made it save even faster!

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16. Paul Uusitalo,

May 19, 2011 4:07 PM in reply to AtonMusic

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Yes, if you create another project that exhibits the same behavior, please let me know.

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17. Bonsai Gravy,

Jul 21, 2011 7:06 AM in reply to Paul Uusitalo

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Howdy!

Hope you don't mind if I piggyback on this thread but I just ran into the same problem. For me, projects saved in After Effects CS5 usually run around 1 MB; a similar project in a trail version* of AECS5.5 (with Warp Stabilization) recently ran at 61.5 MB. Seems a bit too extreme, though it does explain why it takes so long to save and open projects.

Rendering CS5.5 is also a time hog. Each time I hit the preview button I get a series of prompts in the info panel beginning "Background Process Status, Loading Projects" which takes around 3 minutes to execute, before the very slow rendering process begins.

Having never used WS before (and I do love it!) I began to layer several affected clips, which resulted in extremely slow rendering times. Then I rendered the warped-stabilized clips and layered the render clips, but that also resulted in long preview times.

Let me throw this in, too: on several occasions I rendered items in the render queue, waited during the "Saving Project" prompt and 3 minute spinning rainbow wheel, but the result was a QT mov of one only second. Then I would add the same clip back into the render queue and get the result I wanted. Perhaps I'm drinking too much coffee, or I just belong to the "I need in done yesterday!" generation, but the whole process seems to be taking a lot more time than it should.

*I am using the trial version. Is this something that gets cleared up when I install the full version? I am awaiting it's arrival as we speak.

Here's my particluars:

MacPro3,1 running Snow Leopard (10.6.8)
Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 3 GHz
Dual processor (3GHz)
Total Number Of Cores: 8
16 GB RAM

Using a chart generated for an Adobe article by Todd, my memory and multiprocessing settings are as follows:
Memory: 6GB for other apps
MP: 3GB RAM allocation per background CPU
       Installed CPUs: 8
       Actual CPUs that will be used: 2
       CPUs reserved for other apps: 4

Thanks in advance.

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18. Ken Bit,

Nov 15, 2011 5:40 AM in reply to AtonMusic

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Hello all
may i add some Bits to this discussion.
i have recently upgraded, camera to nikon d5100 and up to CS5.5 and have been amazed at the power of warp stabilize, especially for extreme and almost abstarct use (when invoking the synthasize function). yet as with Aton asbove i have quickly manged to get mega and unweildy file sizes once ws has been added. when i queue a whole bunch of clips, 20 plus i have had 20 30 minute save times. as i wanted to process the whole project this work flow should not be an issues, yet it quickluy becomes unworkable.
also i seem to have run into a killer issues in which render queues will fail or are perhaps becoming corrupted.
i have taken a particular clipthat has failed and put it into its own project, applied the same adjustments and WS and rendered the proect seemlessly. yet when isolating the same file in the 20 plus render queue it fails once again.

i guess i can work around this by more or less treating each clip individually, but with shoots that have dozens of smallish clips this too is unweildy.

im guessing there has to be a better way of storing the WS information than in the project file in its current format, such long save times are obviously unstable i various ways.

any further discussion on this would be most welcome.

best best
Ken

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19. Mr. Zogg,

Apr 16, 2012 10:36 AM in reply to Ken Bit

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20. Dave LaRonde,

Apr 16, 2012 10:49 AM in reply to Mr. Zogg

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Mr. Zogg wrote:

That's too bad. Perhaps you might help us help you:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/961743

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21. Mr. Zogg,

Apr 16, 2012 11:08 AM in reply to Dave LaRonde

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Nope Dave, that doesn't help a bit.

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22. Paul Uusitalo,

Apr 16, 2012 11:15 AM in reply to Mr. Zogg

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Can you give some specific details as to your Project, System, other processes running, etc.?

Not too much to go on here with just a screen shot.

Thanks!

Paul Uusitalo
After Effects Quality Engineering

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23. Dave LaRonde,

Apr 16, 2012 11:28 AM in reply to Mr. Zogg

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Mr. Zogg wrote:

Nope Dave, that doesn't help a bit.
Sorry to hear that you don't find it useful to follow a link to a post by Adobe's Todd Kopriva entitled, "What Information should I provide when asking a question on this forum?"

Yours must be a profound problem indeed.

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24. mikeo55555,

Apr 17, 2013 10:54 AM in reply to AtonMusic

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I've had this problem for over a year now, but now I am starting to stabilize GoPro3 4K footage in AE CS5.5 and saves are taking SOOOO Long !

has there been any fixes ? I don't care about the render times but the saves are killing me. I can't upgrade to CS6 due to work limitations.

CS 5.5
Mac OS 10.6.8
Model Name:    Mac Pro
Model Identifier:    MacPro4,1
Processor Name:    Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed:    2.26 GHz
Number Of Processors:    2
Total Number Of Cores:    8
L2 Cache (per core):    256 KB
L3 Cache (per processor):    8 MB
Memory:    12 GB

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25. Paul Uusitalo,

Apr 17, 2013 11:41 AM in reply to mikeo55555

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How many frames are you stabilizing in a given project?

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26. Rick Gerard,

Apr 17, 2013 1:27 PM in reply to Paul Uusitalo

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Why not render the stabilized footage? I never leave stabilized footage in a comp. I don't see the point.

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