When you are "seeking," (which means QUICKLY looking through a long video by clicking and dragging the playhead with the cursor,) there is sometimes very high "prefetch latency," meaning that frames will load slowly, resulting in very few frames being shown. This can make it very difficult to find what you're looking for.

But when seeking, perfect frame accuracy is not nearly as important as seeing what you're doing. Therefore, to reduce the "prefetch latency," I suggest that the nearest I-frame is loaded and displayed FIRST, (because I-frames are always the fastest to load) while the exact B or P frame is still being slowly decoded. As soon as it's decoded, it can be displayed, replacing the displayed I-frame.

If the user is seeking quickly, there might not be enough time to load the P and B frames before the user has already moved the playhead nearer to another I-frame. This is fine! The I-frames should always take priority.

In VLC, there is a similar feature called "fast seek."

Combined with my "ghost playhead" feature suggestion, it would be made clear to the user exactly what is going on. (Linked below)

However, it would probably be important for fast seeking to be optional, and perhaps even off by default, as it may confuse some users.

NOTE: This works best if only ONE video source is visible. With more than one video on the timeline, the I-frames will probably not be in the same spots. Nevertheless, it COULD still work, but there would have to be multiple ghost playheads. This might be too difficult to code, and confusing and frustrating for users, who won't understand why premiere is showing video frames out of lockstep, especially in cases where one video has high prefetch latency, and the other is low.

LINK TO FULL EXPLANATORY VIDEO: https://youtu.be/XeFezzmG22c

LINK TO GHOST PLAYHEAD USERVOICE ENTRY: https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/42186274-a-ghost-playhead-which-always-marks-the-timeline

There are cases in news broadcasting where you can not make it in time for your news piece to air and you have to broadcast live from your timeline via SDI for example. In this case it would be helpful to have an option or a button to help make Premiere ready for that so when you know you are going to broadcast live from your Premiere timeline you can just press that button and it automatically suppresses every action that could interfere with your broadcast, for example auto-saving. This would help with the pressure of situations like this and we have this case regularly.

I am using preview files (render in to out) to get better playback, and I use high quality prores 422 as my preview format in the sequence settings so I can render previews eventually in the output settings and save time. this works great but one annoying thing - I am working with high resolution, and I set my playback resolution to 1/4 or even 1/8 to get smooth playback and it works, but when it reaches the rendered preview section in the timeline - it's always high quality... meaning I get a jump in resolution, and the playback is still choppy (it's trying to playback high res 422). the playback resolution should force the preview to play at that resolution, seems like an oversight. please address this.

thanks

Scrubbing and Fast Forwarding performance is often painfully slow.

Here's an example by Jayme Cowley Media Co. of scrubbing performance in Pr vs Resolve: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilPUc22itSA. The associated FR he posted mentions the problem but doesn't offer any specific solutions.

Here are 3 ideas that could greatly enhance scrubbing and fast forwarding in Pr:

1. SCRUBBING/FF RESOLUTION: In addition to being able to set the Payback and Paused Resolution in the Source/Program Monitor's wrench menus, it would be great to also be able to specify the resolution that's used when scrubbing or Fast Forwarding in the Timeline or Source Monitor. This setting would be variable, meaning that setting it to 1/4 resolution, for example, would scrub/play the footage at a variable resolution between Full all the way down to 1/4, depending on how well one's computer can keep up. (see Image 1)

2. DYNAMICALLY IGNORE EFFECTS: A new setting in the Timeline's wrench menu could allow Pr to dynamically disregard computationally heavy effects while scrubbing/Fast Forwarding in the Timeline whenever necessary in order to provide a fluid viewing experience. Essential effects such as crop and Motion settings would always be shown, but certain effects such as Lumetri Color, sharpen, blur, Warp Stabilizer, etc. could be ignored depending on how well the computer can keep up with the Timeline to guarantee a fluid viewing experience. Of course, the moment the user stops scrubbing or resumes normal playback speed, all effects would be displayed again (see Image 2). Optionally, to visually inform users that effects are being omitted, the playhead could turn a different color whenever this happens, returning to its normal blue color as soon as conditions allow all effects to be rendered once again.

3. ONLY SHOW I-FRAMES: TaranVH posted a brilliant FR suggesting that Pr only show the nearest I-frames while scrubbing Long GOP footage, quickly updating to the actual frame under the playhead when pausing. I'd like to add that this great idea should also be used when fast forwarding. Make sure to take a look and vote here: https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/42186322--i-frame-first-fast-seeking-for-inter-frame-compr?tracking_code=ccac1cc695840488e461c4e3fa2399bb

Hopefully some or all of these suggestions can be implemented to help guarantee smooth scrubbing and fast forwarding. Even though computers are getting faster, the ever increasing demands put on them with 6K and 8K footage means new tools are needed in order to give editors a great editing experience. This is especially true for laptop editors!

As always, thank you for listening!

I'm using 2 LG 4K monitors. One is my editing desktop for Premiere Pro the other is for monitoring Video output.

All settings are fine.

NVidia 2070 Super feeding these two monitors via Display Ports. Nvidia drivers on 471.11 and Intel latest on 27.20.100.9466. Windows 10 all updated.

I have noticed on PP 15.2 (and 14.9) a slight 'ripple effect' and minor Video break up on the second video monitor output when there are panning shots - up/down & across - ie when video is not static. This is quite subtle but annoying.

Looking at timeline playback of the Program Reference monitor on the Desktop - this is solid and does not exhibit same problem.

I have done a lot of tests and went back to my PP 2019 version 13.1.5.

Amazingly this ripple effect distortion on Video Monitor output goes away and playback is excellent - HD and 4K video sources with PP 13.1.5.

Has anyone else encountered this weird effect on a second Video monitor? lately?.

Conclusion so far is that it is Premier Pro release dependent.... tbd

All Exported video is fine of course but during editing it is very annoying when looking at playback from the timeline.

I suspected the NVidia 471.11 driver initially, but this is not the case as worked fine on PP 13.1.5 version

I have not swapped monitors as 13.1.5 proved it was not the monitor.

Any comments/assistance appreciated as trying to track this down will be a pain.

Bug report: Playback stops when switching camera on a multicam sequence.

Setup: Windows 10 + Premiere 15.4.1

Make a sequence with sync-ed footage. Insert this sequence in another 'master' sequence and enable Multicam editing. Enable Multicam view in Program panel.

Grab a coin and flip it in the air. If it did between 17 and 23 rotations or between 36 and 41 rotations, then you'll encounter the bug.

Normal workflow would be to start playback and hit the number keys to add an edit and switch to another camera.
But sometimes, you'll hit a number key and playback stops. The edit is here, no problem on this side but playback just stops. You have to hit <Space> again to continue.
A not garanteed workaround is to reboot or play around with Multicam/Composite view in Program panel while also adding a hundred-or-so edits while being paused (using Ctrl+2 for example and your anger).

What a waste of time!

Without OpenCL support, and relying on Metal or Software Only rendering, I get no real-time playback whatsoever with .mxf clips with one instance of Red Giant Colorista applied - even at quarter resolution. A massive number of frames are being dropped, with only occasional bursts of real-time performance.

This is with 4K source footage in an HD Sequence, both at the same frame rate of 23.976. I get better results with 29.97 source footage in a 29.97 sequence.

IDK if this matters or should matter, but I'm a full-time editing professional who uses the Adobe CC daily to make my living. I'm stuck on Pr 14.9 until Adobe makes performance with Metal just as good as it was under Open CL, or preferably better.

Specs:

MacPro7,1 - 2.7 GHz 24-Core Intel Xeon W - 256G RAM - AMD Radeon Pro Vega II 32 GB
ATTO R680 PCIe SAS SCSI RAID6 (8 drives - very fast io)
OSX 10.15.7
Premiere 14.9; all versions of 15.x are unusable due to bugs
Plugins: BCC, various RedGiant, VideoCopilot, DigitalAnarchy, DigiEffects, PlugInEverything, RE:Vision, Rowbyte, Zaxwerks, Vimager, and others
source codecs: mostly .mxf, .mov, .mp4
Seq: mostly HD 23.976 stereo