Bug 506718

Summary: Insane RAM usage on export while using color clips + transform to cover things and using CPU encoding
Product: [Applications] kdenlive Reporter: Ángel Navarro <jesusnavarrojr188>
Component: Rendering & ExportAssignee: Jean-Baptiste Mardelle <jb>
Status: REPORTED ---    
Severity: crash Keywords: efficiency-and-performance
Priority: NOR    
Version First Reported In: 25.04.3   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Arch Linux   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments: High RAM usage + low RAM alert + plasmashell crashed, all in the same picture

Description Ángel Navarro 2025-07-07 12:11:49 UTC
Created attachment 183039 [details]
High RAM usage + low RAM alert + plasmashell crashed, all in the same picture

SUMMARY
Kdenlive took 5.6 GB of memory to encode mild 1440p30 video, which is crazy for a simple cut and simple covering stuff with squares), which triggered OOM, crashed plasmashell and made my system run like a crawl.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Put your project in 1440p30 and put something in it (a video in my case)
2. Put many color clips (at least 7) and use transform to make them cover subjects
3. Export with any codec with slow CPU encoding- could be x264 in veryslow mode

OBSERVED RESULT
Kdenlive uses an insane 5.6 GB of memory for cutting a video and covering stuff with black squares

EXPECTED RESULT
Kdenlive should use a VERY lower amount of RAM on encode time- at least low enough to make the system usable

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Windows: 
macOS: 
(available in the Info Center app, or by running `kinfo` in a terminal window)
Linux/KDE Plasma: Arch Linux
KDE Plasma Version: 6.4.2
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.15.0
Qt Version: 6.9.0

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION