Adobe Community: Adobe After Effects CS6 takes FOREVER to lock existing frames before rendering

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1. Greg Baber,

Aug 15, 2012 3:17 PM in reply to Grizzlar

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If you have Multiprocessing turned on, turn that off - your system is under-powered to use that. Let me know if that resolved the issue.

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2. Rick Gerard,

Aug 15, 2012 5:49 PM in reply to Grizzlar

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3rd party codecs, MPEG source files, disk cache, low available resources, free memory, all could be having an effect on your performance.

How much free memory are you showing? Do you have any 3rd party codecs installed. Did you enable disk cache? What kind of footage are you using? My MBPro runs just fine with 8GB ram for most AE work.

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3. Grizzlar,

Aug 16, 2012 7:38 AM in reply to Rick Gerard

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Hi Rick and Greg,

Thanks for the quick responses. Below are all the details to all your questions. Also - just to emphasize again - my rendering goes super awesomely fast. It is not the rendering. It is the "Locking Existing Frames" process before the rendering that is ruining my life.

FREE MEMORY:

This is brand new Mac Book Pro with hardly anything stored on it.
The 8 GB of RAM is split into 2 memory slots, each with 4GB of RAM

3RD-PARTY CODECS:

I am not aware of any third-party codecs in this system. I imported some fonts (ITC Franklin Gothic) and some video files (see below), but I am not aware of any third-party codec installed on this system.

DISC CACHE:

My Disc Cache is enabled
My maximum disc cache size is 69 GB
I do not have a seperate "fast hard drive" or "SSD" seperate from my main hard drive, where I store my footage.

MPEG SOURCE FILES:

If by source files, you're asking about the video files I imported:

2 MP4s (5 sec. each)
3 QuickTime .mov (3 sec. each)
1 Audio-only FLV. (2 minute background music throughout video; used to be a Premiere working file)

MULTIPROCESSING

Turned off, but still locks up forever before rendering.

ADDITIONAL FUN FACTS:

Here are some additional observations that might help:

It doesn't just take a long time to start rendering; it freezes my entire computer for the duration of the "Locking Existing Frames" process - putting my entire life on hold for 3 minutes, every time I need to preview a minor detail... It's a nightmare.
The video is 1 min. 45 sec. long so far, and has 15 sec. to go.
The video is comprised of 99 percent motion graphics, and 1 percent actual footage (Occupy Wall Street hates my footage)
The complexity in this video is that there are a lot of compositions inside of compositions inside of compositions, but even when I go to the very beginning of the first comp - where the only animation is a line being drawn with the "Stroke" effect - it still takes 3 minutes to "Lock Existing Frames."
Again... The rendering goes super fast after the "Locking Existing Frames" process. The problem is NOT with the rendering. The problem is the "Locking Existing Frames" process BEFORE the rendering starts.

This is my job and I can't do efficiently until I solve this problem, so I will be very responsive until we can identify the issue.

Thanks again for all your helpful responses!

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4. Grizzlar,

Aug 16, 2012 8:03 AM in reply to Greg Baber

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Also, Greg, thanks for the quick response! Not sure if it automatically notifes you, but please see my comment to Rick.

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5. Grizzlar,

Aug 16, 2012 8:40 AM in reply to Greg Baber

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GETTING CLOSER TO SOLUTION:

I went back through previous comps, and it stopped the problem whenever I deleted my audio in each comp (I had the audio turned off in each one so that they weren't overlapping, in case anyone think I'm idiot).

So I know the problem has something to do with my audio, and probably its Codec. First I tried using the raw Premiere file. Then I exported an FLV at a 250-something bit rate.

I'm going to play around with that for a bit. Shoot me a response if you know how I can zero in on what I need to change in my audio details.

Thanks!

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6. Grizzlar,

Aug 16, 2012 9:29 AM in reply to Greg Baber

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I now know the problem, but I don't know the solution.

I figured out that the "Locking Existing Frames" issue only happens when I have audio, so I'm assuming I need to know the correct codec to use for my audio.

To figure that out, I need to know:

Where in After Effects can I find the information that tells me the correct codec I need to use for my audio?
If that's not the right question, then what codec should I use for exporting my audio from Premiere so that it doesn't lock up my machine for 3 minutes whenever I need to render?

Thank you!

Andy

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7. Grizzlar,

Aug 16, 2012 9:28 AM in reply to Greg Baber

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And just to clarify, the files I've tried to use for my audio include:

Premiere Project File (Raw)
FLV
MPEG4

I just tried an MPEG2 but I don't think my Mac recognizes the file (it appears as an icon image piece of paper).

How should I export an audio file to use in After Effects on a Mac Pro?

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8. Grizzlar,

Aug 16, 2012 10:22 AM in reply to Greg Baber

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Upon further research, I just found out this problem has persisted since CS4 for which they created an update to the bug, and then it seems it came up at the beginning of CS5 for which they had to create another update.

Is this a bug, and do you have the update for CS6???

P.S. This issue seems to only come up on Macs because the same project on my Windows computer at home works perfectly fine.

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9. bldg13,

Aug 16, 2012 10:40 AM in reply to Grizzlar

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I'm having what seems to be the same issue. Like Grizzlar, seemingly anything that I RAM preview that has audio takes longer due to the Locking Existing Frames. The audio I'm using is AIF exported from Apple Logic. I'm on a Mac Pro (early 2009) 2 x 2.26 GHz Xeon w/ 24 GB RAM running 10.8. This happens no matter if Render Multiple Frames is on or off. This happes any time I RAM preview—even if I have full green showing everything is in RAM—I still get the Locking Existing Framesdelay before playing. If I mute the audio layer there is no delay.

Another weird audio issue—I'll post in a separate thread if unrelated: my audio pitch is off (low) in RAM preview. The first playback of the RAM preview is usually wacky (I've seen this before in previous versions of AE) where the audio plays and no video for the first few frames and is indicated as NOT realtime. Like I mentioned I've seen this before in previous versions, but not quite like this: FPS is at 115.224/24 for the first few frames but the audio is the correct pitch. Then the second time through (and all subsequent plays) the video plays realtime (24/24fps) but the audio pitch is now lower. In previous versions I recall the audio was higher (incorrect) pitch for the first play through and lower (correct) pitch on subsequent plays.

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10. bldg13,

Aug 16, 2012 10:45 AM in reply to bldg13

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A few other notes: I'm not getting the 3 minutes of delay as Grizzla but rather 10 seconds. The comps that I am currently working on are only 100f though.

Also, I'm not getting consistent results with Render Multiple Frames on/off as it pertains to Locking Existing Frames (LEF). On RAM preview, some of my comps are LEF even if already in RAM and others play immediately. I'm looking for variables that might be causing this.

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11. bldg13,

Aug 16, 2012 12:41 PM in reply to bldg13

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Here is a post about my audio problem that includes a screencast w/ audio

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4626717#4626717

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12. Rick Gerard,

Aug 17, 2012 4:30 AM in reply to bldg13

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Try transcoding any MPEG video to a production codec. Turn off disk cache.

Convert your audio to .wav files. Let us know how that works for you.

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13. erich@opossumfx.com,

Oct 23, 2012 9:30 AM in reply to Grizzlar

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Hello Everyone,

we have dealing with the same issue on various of our Mac. We simply have opted to turn off the audio during preview and rendering to a file to view our movies with audio. I just tried all your suggestions and continue to have the problem. At this point the locking of the frames will happen after about 1 minute,

This mac is a 2x3.06 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon, 32 GB 1333 MHz DDR3, running mac OS 10.7.5. NVIDIA Quadro 40000 grphics card. Built in Audio Intel High Definition Audio.

If anyone find an answer to this it would be osom!!!! thanks.

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14. Jonas Hummelstrand,

Oct 23, 2012 9:52 AM in reply to erich@opossumfx.com

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I would make sure to avoid MPEG-based codecs (FLV, H.264, MP4, MKV, M4V, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4) as these are delivery codecs that prioritize file size rather than quality and frame-reading speed. On many such codecs the audio is "muxed" into the video stream, causing AE to try to demux the entire audio duration before playing.

Good production codecs, you ask? Avid DNxHD, Apple ProRes, QT Animation, QT Cineform, QT PNG. All can be set to use minimal or no lossy compression.

For audio, either embed it in a production codec or use WAV or AIFF, never MP3 or another delivery audio codec.

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15. Tuttleharry,

Apr 19, 2013 10:51 AM in reply to Grizzlar

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Here is the immediate solution:

Open your Preview Panel.
Make sure "RAM Preview Options" is selected from the dropdown.
Turn off all audio rendering by clicking the third icon from the right, on the top of the panel. It will look like a speaker.
That's it. When you hit NUM 0 to start RAM preview, you will see the "Locking" statement for only a couple of seconds and it will go right into rendering.
If you need audio in your preview, you'll need to use Jonas's suggestion.

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Adobe After Effects CS6 takes FOREVER to lock existing frames before rendering

Aug 20, 2012 6:51 AM

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