Blackmagic Forum

bigger projects take long to export/import (last one took 3 minutes)

i'm just staring at the UI waiting to respond. some kind of indication that it is at least still working on something would be nice.

Agreed. Some type of progress bar would be welcome here.

If this is a problem, I think you need to examine how the project is built and if there's a way to reduce its size. For example, you might delete all Media that's not actually being used, or delete unneeded timelines. What I generally do is, as we get closer to the finish line on a project, I'll go in, duplicate a project, retitle it with today's date and a version number, and then delete any older timelines just to simplify it.

A lot also depends on the nature of the project. I have seen people try to do TV episodes, and they dump 10-15 episodes into a single project. I would rather tear that apart and just have one project per episode. If necessary, keep both episodes open with Dynamic Project Switching in case you have to cut and paste between them.

I have yet to encounter a project that takes more than 20-30 seconds to open, and that's OK with me. If it was a minute, I'd think something was malfunctioning pretty badly.

No question, amount of available RAM, CPU speed, GPU power, and drive i/o speed are other factors. Length of timelines is another factor. Type of media (4K/5K/6K/8K) could also affect it; speed could be a factor (24 vs. 30 vs. 50 vs. 60 vs. 120fps). Worst case scenarios could require very heavy-duty hardware.

that's fair. however, most of my projects (the 3 minute example was exceptional) still take some time to export/import. i think 10/20 seconds would be quite common. all the symptons are in line with a crashing pc. one click with the mouse will give that ''program is not responding'' windows-popup.

a little progress bar, just like when you save, would not be so bad. it's also not a dealbreaker thougn..

Marc Wielage wrote:If this is a problem, I think you need to examine how the project is built and if there's a way to reduce its size.

I disagree. I think the operation by its very nature calls for a progress bar. Currently there's no indication at all that anything is happening. That's on BMD to correct.