Media Cache files management anomalies...

[Ashley7]

The following are not deal-breakers as I'm learning the manual ways to get around this but ... I'm wondering if there's any way around what appears to be limitations with Premiere's automatic management of Media Caches files that require my manual management of things...

• If my SSD becomes full from Media Cache files Premiere creates, Premiere is not smart enough to start deleting the oldest cached files to keep some amount of disk space available. I shouldn't get a disk full error when Media Cache files can reasonably be purged. I must manually delete the cache and re-load the project. Perhaps I can understand Premiere avoiding this if cache files are kept side-by-side with source media, but when all cache is in one place it seems reasonable for Premiere to assume it owns those files. Ironically, one way around this is to possibly choose to keep media cache files next to source media... but that fails if the source media disk is too small... I hit the same issues and must play cache manager... with a centralized cache, seems Premiere can auto-purge better than it currently does.

• I notice Premiere has some smarts with what it auto-generates cache files for... if I load a clip, it will create the pek/cfa files after completing the file it is conforming (if any... if it is free, it will confirm immediately). However, this seems a bit simplistic, and there seems to be more room to be a little smarter... for example, if I have one single clip Bin open, and I've got a clip from that bin in source monitor, my preference would be for Premiere to not only conform that clip, but to focus on that Bin which I have open, where I last opened/selected a clip (for either source monitor or anything else)... that "bin clip focus" (my own ad-hoc term) is enough for Premiere to say, "Hey, user has a clip just opened here, let's conform that clip, and continue in this bin to the next clip and so on." It doesn't seem to do that. It seems to conform the newly opened clip but then jumps back to its original order. I can sort of trick it somewhat by opening a bunch of clips in Source Monitor but that's an imperfect thing because it seems to jump and conform the most recently opened clips... so I can only apply this technique to drive cache management a few clips at a time (point of diminishing returns if I choose too many). The best workaround I've found is to Save As to temp project, and delete all bins except my bin of focus, let Premiere conform all remaining clips (in bin of focus, the only bin remaining), re-open original project where all clips in bin of focus will have been conformed... I can do my work, and Premiere continues conforming other clips.

The above items become especially noticeable if using Premiere for ingestion/analysis of many clips... the more clips in a Premiere project, the more beneficial it becomes to conform near an area where a user has focus. I guess this is to say currently Premiere does not focus near where a user last opened a clip... it can jump there for the most recently opened clip(s) but then jumps back to some "original" ordering...

I want to enter a feedback item on this but thought I'd ask... am I missing some hidden options somewhere to tweak things related to media cache managing, including auto-purging as well as clips to focus on for conforming new items to the cache?

[Ashley7 · Accepted solution]

I filed a product suggestion on this. My workaround in the meantime was to Save As the master project, delete all bins except bin of focus, Premiere then conforms that bin, apparently in clip order, I leave that there to conform a bunch of clips, then I can do work. After I'm done, I can bring my work back into the mater project by importing that bin.