Why is export from Screenflow 9 or 10 MUCH slower on the new M1 Pro MacBook 14" compared to the M1 MacBook Pro 13"?
You can see the export settings and then the difference in export speed from the MacBook Pro 13 M1 (16GB - Bir Sur 11.6) ) on the left vs the MacBook Pro 14 M1 Pro (16GB - Monterey 12.0.1) on the right.
Export time is more than twice as slow on the MB 14 Pro in both Screenflow 9 and 10 (latest versions).
Is Screenflow not optimised for the new MacBook Pro M1 Pro, or has it got anything to do with Big Sur vs Monterey MacOS systems, I can't test either of these...
I truly hope Screenflow can be optimised and/or fixed to take advantage of the M1 Pro/Mac chips like Final Cut Pro X 10.6 and Davinci Resolve 17.4!
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Thanks for that but in order to test please have matching operating systems since changes Apple made in Monterey may have an impact. We're still testing.
We also need complete specs on both as there are a variety of CPU/GPU configs and cores. RAM may be a factor and whether anything else was running in the background.
The same document should be tested on both systems.
Additionally, you could give us your document so we can test it directly on our systems.
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Thanks for your response, and I might be able to upgrade the older MacBook Pro 13 M1 at some stage to see if that affects export speeds.
How can I privately send you the Screenflow document and MacBook specs?
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Plegilink Using forum private message system you can send me a dropbox link or equivalent.
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Plegilink Given Dave's comment below on HandBrake and Video ToolBox that might imply an update between Big Sur and Monterey as well.
Can you run a test using HandBrake on the 14" M1 Pro?
I have a 13" M1 MBP on Monterey.
If you create a test document and use that on your Big Sur MBP and send the document to me via forum private message I can run an export test with matching settings and that may tell us if the OS is at issue.
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I've noticed a similar issue. I'm on the M1 Max 32 GPU codes and trying to do the H.264 encoding with the Hardware Accelerated Apple H.264 enabled. Before, when trying with just the 8 Core CPU, it completed my transcoding in 2 minutes. With the Hardware Accelerated Apple H.264 enabled, it took 8 minutes.
A very strange issue that I found is when exporting the video with the CPU, it started off but then all of a sudden the monitors went black. The only way to get them back on was to unplug them and plug them back in.
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Dave Kimura Update on the monitors disconnecting. It appears that the USB-C power delivery of the monitors/devices is not enough to be sustainable. Plugging the dedicated power cord into the 14" laptop does resolve that issue.
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Dave Kimura Often port powering can be an issue as the power may be divided as its distributed to the ports. This can become a problem as some devices are very power-hungry.
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Dave Kimura said:
it completed my transcoding in 2 minutes. With the Hardware Accelerated Apple H.264 enabled, it took 8 minutes.Are you saying that hardware-accelerated encoding is slower than normal encoding on the same computer? Can you provide more details on the sources and export settings?
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CraigS That's correct. The Hardware Accelerated Apple H.264 option is slower than the normal settings. To reproduce the issue, I went to export the project and I normally use the Web - High settings.
In an attempt to see if the hardware acceleration provided any significant benefits, the only setting change I made was Customize -> and selected the hardware codec.
The 8 minute remaining export is the one that occurred with the Hardware Accelerated Apple H.264 enabled. The 2 minute remaining export was with the Web - High (CPU based encoding).
The project in question was fairly small considering what I normally do and is all screen recordings (no motion video). -
CraigS It is probably also good to note that this likely is not an issue with Screenflow at all, but the VideoToolbox encoder with Apple. I tried converting a video with Handbrake with x264 and the H.264 VideoToolbox and found the same issue where the hardware accelerated encoding took 8 minutes and the CPU based encoding took 2 minutes.
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Dave Kimura Final Cut Pro exports significantly faster on Monterey on the new MacBook Pro M1 Pro than on the older MacBook Pro 13 M1, so Apple have ensured Final Cut Pro X takes advantage of the newer chip.
So I wonder if other apps like Screenflow and others aren't? Watching GPU usage during export (with MenStats) it looks like no GPU is being used and not much CPU either?!
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Plegilink I honestly don’t think that is the case. I think the Prores encoders are different than the media encoders for other things. Also, I’m not positive, but I experienced the same thing with handbrake, so I think that this is an Apple limitation or issue with their Videotoolbox when using H.264.
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Plegilink It would be hard to make a direct comparison with FCP for several reasons including the source material.
Perhaps if one imported only the same MP4 clip in both FCP and ScreenFlow and then exported with matching settings you could eliminate variables such as ProRes. Keep in mind Apple does not use x264 at all. You might also have to look at CPU, GPU, Memory utilization when exporting (Activity Monitor) to see if they're being handled differently that ScreenFlow or HandBrake.
If one has Premiere Pro one could compare Adobe Media Encoder to HandBrake. In that variation, you could use Apple Compressor as well (again it's not using x264). -
Dave Kimura you could be right. I tested handbrake on M1 MBP 13 and export was 8min24sec. Test exact same file and export settings on M1 Pro MBP 14 and export was 5min28sec, CPU was around 94% in both case so handbrake seems to be taking Ada vantage of the extra cores on M1 Pro and cautious why the GPU remained at 0% on both…
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Plegilink Can you test Handbrake x264 vs its hardware-accelerated on the M1 Pro to see if it's slower?
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CraigS Sure, the "Default" "Fast 1080p30 profile" uses H.264 (x264) which took 5min28sec.
Which is the other mode from the dropdown menu you want me to test?
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Tested 13" M1 MBP Monterey 12.0.1. Nothing else running
10 minute screen recording.
Export Web High Single Pass 1920x1080 Letterbox
5 minutes 42 seconds
changed to Hardware Accelerated
2 minutes 1 second.Monterey on M1 works as expected.
Issue may therefore be specific to M1 Pro
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Plegilink said:
Which is the other mode from the dropdown menu you want me to test?H.264 VideoToolbox. That'd the typical hardware accelerated mode ScreenFlow uses.
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CraigS H.264 VideoToolbox took 25min8 secs.
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Plegilink That certainly seems to indicate an issue with Hardware Accelerated encoding. Thanks.
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I tested the exact same recording on the M1 Max Macbook Pro (left) and the M1 Macbook Pro (right). Using the "Fast" hardware encoding setting, it took significantly longer with the M1 Max.
I know that this is a bit repetitive. I finally had the time to directly test an "apples to apples" comparison with the M1 and M1 Max. I know that this isn't a Screenflow issue as it does appear to be something more globally affected the M1 Max, but hopefully Screenflow's pull in raising this issue to the Apple devs can yield some results more so than what I can.
Or, did Apple reduce the number of media encoders on the M1 Max to make room for more ProRes?
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Dave Kimura We certainly can and do raise these issues with Apple. Thanks for testing.
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FYI, just adding a +1 that I have the same issue. Testing video encoding/export speeds (with ScreenFlow) was the first thing I tried on my MBP M1X Max and Screenflow on my M1 Air said it'd take 25mins to export a video, M1X Max said 45 mins (and the CPUs, GPU were underutilized).
I understand that this is an Apple/OSX issue, but I'm following this thread too, if you have any useful updates or info about this issue, please update this thread too.
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Tanel Poder Thanks for reporting. As a developer, we notify Apple of issues like these.
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Also try both other non Apple Hardware encoding options under export options and you should get a speed bump using them instead for now.
