How long have you waited for them to generate? With very large original files it might take some time.

They don't have to regenerate when you edit. They are just low-resolution copies of the original files and when you produce the final video your edit decisions are applied to the originals. Regards,
Mike

Home-build system:
Intel Core i5 Quad Core 3.3GHz, 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333MHz,
Asus Nvidia GT440 1GB, 2 x Western Digital WD10EARS 1TB, 1 x Seagate ST1000DM010 1TB,
Windows 7 Prof 64-bit, PD 9 Ultra 64, PD 13 Ultimate 64

Quote How long have you waited for them to generate? With very large original files it might take some time.

They don't have to regenerate when you edit. They are just low-resolution copies of the original files and when you produce the final video your edit decisions are applied to the originals.

I have waited 26 minutes for a 30MB clip. (about 3 seconds of footage).
I believe the issue might be the H265 codec. Doesn't look like PD13 can create shadow files from H265.

Can the more recent versions do this?

Yes. PD13 supports the hevc codec for import/export as in this faq: https://www.cyberlink.com/support/faq-content.do?id=17746 . Do not know if 5.4k footage is supported in PD13 for generating shadow files. I only have 4k. Can you supply say a 5 second sample for users to test on their pc.

Quote Yes. PD13 supports the hevc codec for import/export as in this faq: https://www.cyberlink.com/support/faq-content.do?id=17746 . Do not know if 5.4k footage is supported in PD13 for generating shadow files. I only have 4k. Can you supply say a 5 second sample for users to test on their pc.

Thanks for sharing the clip. Do you see the actual content in the media library or if you drag the clip to the timeline? I only see a blank white screen in PD13 and PD14 while the clip works properly in PD17 and PD365.

If you're only seeing white then shadow files aren't the issue and you'd need to transcode your clip into a compatible format.

For what it's worth, turning on shadow files in PD17 took only 3 seconds for the icon to turn from yellow to green, but I have a very fast system.

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

Quote Thanks for sharing the clip. Do you see the actual content in the media library or if you drag the clip to the timeline? I only see a blank white screen in PD13 and PD14 while the clip works properly in PD17 and PD365.

If you're only seeing white then shadow files aren't the issue and you'd need to transcode your clip into a compatible format.

For what it's worth, turning on shadow files in PD17 took only 3 seconds for the icon to turn from yellow to green, but I have a very fast system.

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I do see the content when I drag this clip to the timeline. And I can perform all the usual operations on it.

But it is very slow to work with, which is why I wish to create a Shadow File. (I was still able to create a short video using a dozen or so similar clips, but it was a painfully slow process).

I also resorted to Render Previews, in lieu of shadow files, in order to speed up the edit process.
But because the preview is decommisioned when any edits are made, I found this of limited worth.

As an aside, on a working system, when would one use Render Previews, and when would Shadow files be used?

The only other option besides transcoding is to lower the Preview Quality for the timeline. You might need to use High or Normal and you'll lose some detail, but the clip should be easier to edit.


I wouldn't recommend Render Preview as PD usually has trouble figuring out when to use the preview and when to revert to the live timeline content. Save yourself the headache and skip that until you've got that section ready to go.

Thanks for the attached clip. The online mediainfo indicates that this is a 10 bit depth video without audio. It is converted to 8 bit for editing in PD17 and PD365 as already indicated by optodata. Shadow files are generated in the earlier versions of PD too though a white screen on the timeline. That file is not usable in PD13 for editing in my pc while you claim it can be done in your pc.

Quote The only other option besides transcoding is to lower the Preview Quality for the timeline. You might need to use High or Normal and you'll lose some detail, but the clip should be easier to edit.


I wouldn't recommend Render Preview as PD usually has trouble figuring out when to use the preview and when to revert to the live timeline content. Save yourself the headache and skip that until you've got that section ready to go.

Yes, I tried Render Preview of various qualities and it actually doesn't appear to make an appreciable difference. (Non Real Time Preview also turned off).
Apologies but what do you mean by "skip that until you have that section ready to go" Do you mean, (try to) make the clip edits without Render Preview, and then perform RP on just a section at a time?

Quote Thanks for the attached clip. The online mediainfo indicates that this is a 10 bit depth video without audio. It is converted to 8 bit for editing in PD17 and PD365 as already indicated by optodata. Shadow files are generated in the earlier versions of PD too though a white screen on the timeline. That file is not usable in PD13 for editing in my pc while you claim it can be done in your pc.

That's the crux of the matter. Shadows are not generated on my PC on PD13. They are generated (as indicated by yellow clip turning green) on a H264 file.
But yes, the H265 can be edited (rather painfully) on the timeline. See attachment.

The basic issue is that you're trying to edit highly complex clips (10-bit, 5.4K, 120Mbps video bitrate) on hardware and software that wasn't designed to handle them.

Many modern PCs would struggle with these clips, and IMO you're lucky to even see content in PD13. With that said, I don't think there's anything that can be done to force it to create those shadow files - and there certainly isn't a way to force it to do it more quickly.

If you need to stay with your current setup, you might want to try using an intermediate codec like MagicYUV to free your system from all the video decoding.

The downside is that you'll need to convert each clip ahead of time (which is usually pretty quick) and you'll also need tons of hard drive space to handle all the unencoded video. Spinning HDDs might not be able to keep up when previewing long stretches of the timeline but overall you should find projects much easier to work with.

See this discussion for more details.

Quote The basic issue is that you're trying to edit highly complex clips (10-bit, 5.4K, 120Mbps video bitrate) on hardware and software that wasn't designed to handle them.

Many modern PCs would struggle with these clips, and IMO you're lucky to even see content in PD13. With that said, I don't think there's anything that can be done to force it to create those shadow files - and there certainly isn't a way to force it to do it more quickly.

If you need to stay with your current setup, you might want to try using an intermediate codec like MagicYUV to free your system from all the video decoding.

The downside is that you'll need to convert each clip ahead of time (which is usually pretty quick) and you'll also need tons of hard drive space to handle all the unencoded video. Spinning HDDs might not be able to keep up when previewing long stretches of the timeline but overall you should find projects much easier to work with.

See this discussion for more details.

Thanks for that info, will look into MagicYUV.

So, as an info point from this thread, I guess it is safe to assume that Shadow FIles cannot be created for H265 files, at least in the older (pre PD17?) versions of the software.

Quote So, as an info point from this thread, I guess it is safe to assume that Shadow FIles cannot be created for H265 files, at least in the older (pre PD17?) versions of the software.

I think that's too broad of a statement. HD 8-bit HEVC clips up will typically work, but the further "up" you go from there in complexity the more likely you are to have compatibility issues.

The 4K HEVC/60p 73Mbps clip in this OneDrive folder took about 8 minutes to convert in PD13, even though it's only 13 seconds long! In PD365 (v20), it only took a few seconds to create the shadow file. Note that the clip doesn't have audio so don't be surprised when you don't hear anything.

ExtraPD,
To get by, you could also use the manual proxy file creation and file name switch approach from years past. Mentioned here: https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/43102.page#post_box_222624 and contained links. Worked for many at the time, like Eugene with his 4k files.

Jeff

Quote ExtraPD,
To get by, you could also use the manual proxy file creation and file name switch approach from years past. Mentioned here: https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/43102.page#post_box_222624 and contained links. Worked for many at the time, like Eugene with his 4k files.

Jeff

Now that is interesting! Thanks very much Jeff, look forward to trying that out and reporting.

Is Format Factory still a tool of choice for this type of conversion?

Quote Now that is interesting! Thanks very much Jeff, look forward to trying that out and reporting.

Is Format Factory still a tool of choice for this type of conversion?

One could use anything that suites them for conversion.

FF would work as it can create a H.265 in MOV container (similar to your source) with user defined bitrate and such, one might even consider PD13 in this case since you indicate it handles your file properly (other than proxy file generation) and it can create a QT MOV file. Both approaches create a MOV file that way it's an easy file swap in working directory to later produce with high resolution source files after editing. FF does offer more encode setting flexibility than PD for these manual proxy files.

Jeff

Quote

One could use anything that suites them for conversion.

FF would work as it can create a H.265 in MOV container (similar to your source) with user defined bitrate and such, one might even consider PD13 in this case since you indicate it handles your file properly (other than proxy file generation) and it can create a QT MOV file. Both approaches create a MOV file that way it's an easy file swap in working directory to later produce with high resolution source files after editing. FF does offer more encode setting flexibility than PD for these manual proxy files.

Jeff

Thank you for your assistance on this.
PD13 does not have a viable batch produce function (only works with .pds files). Does FF have such?

Quote Thank you for your assistance on this.
PD13 does not have a viable batch produce function (only works with .pds files). Does FF have such?

You'd have to simply create a very basic pds files for each source clip for PD batch process.

FF does allow you to import many clips and then convert all to a defined output folder. One can use GPU (if supported) or control the number of encoding threads for performance/capacity of given computer.

Jeff