my current workstation specs: iMac mid 2011, 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7, 12 GB 1333 MHz DDR3, AMD Radion HD 6970M 2048 MB. Premiere Pro 7.2.1, AME 7.2.0.43.
I stopped an export in AME that had been going 19 hours, reporting 43 hours left to finish. The sequence was under 7 minutes, using native AVCHD material, effects applied including Ultra Key and 3-way Color Corrector, an animated background, and some text. I was exporting using the YouTube settings, customized to do 1 pass instead of 2. AME crashed when I hit "stop" the next morning, but clearly wasn't functioning in any practical way, though at some point overnight, some progress had been made. I have a screen grab of the AME window just prior to the crash.
![PP_export_grab.jpg]()
Whenever I would try this export, the first few seconds, which was text over a background, would go ok and then it would choke at the Ultra Key part. I've never seen that chopped head before in the preview pane. In case it isn't clear, the dude's head should be a normal part of the sequence, I didn't key it out or anything.
I tried doing an export straight from Premiere, and also tried just exporting a "same as sequence" rather than compressing to H.264. These also choked/hung. Meanwhile, on another older work station I tried a similar sequence, identical specs as above but with a different on-camera subject.
Older workstation specs:
iMac late 2009, 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1333MHz DDR3, ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB, Premiere Pro 7.2.0, AME 7.1.0.174
The graphics card on this computer is not up to spec so the export was done using the software only.
Here's the puzzling part: on this older computer, with a slightly older version of Premiere, using software only, the export went totally normally. Both using direct export and also using AME. Compressing to YouTube settings. Worked as expected. So I went back to the newer workstation, removed Ultra Key from the sequence in the grab example above, exported using AME and compressing to YouTube settings, and again it worked as expected, within a "normal" time frame of under 10 minutes, or in less time than it took to type all this.
So, is it a bug that Ultra Key doesn't play well with the latest version of Premiere/AME?