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Attempting to render out - this new incarnation of After Effcts no longer offers h.264 and h.264 Blu Ray.. Is this intended?
h.264 - mp4 output is the one we've always used most - and now completely gone...?
Searching for it - I found an h.264 container under the f4v output settings which I've never used. To get an h.264 out - must I go there?
Werlien wrote:
How do I access this I looked in preferences under output and did not find it? If you need to be able to export these formats directly from After Effects, you can re-enable them by setting the preference Show Deprecated Formats In Output Module Settings in the Output preferences category.
The Show Deprecated Formats In Output Module Settings is only available in After Effects CC. That option was removed in After Effects CC 2014.
Even before they removed the option (but especial
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http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2013/04/whats-new-changed-after-effects-next.html
> Searching for it - I found an h.264 container under the f4v output settings which I've never used. To get an h.264 out - must I go there?
No. F4V files are intended for playback via Flash only. The data inside is H.264, but the container format is not intended for uses other than Flash.
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Hi Tim
Shortly after writing the post I found the Composition>Add to adobe Media Encoder Queue (Ctrl+Alt+M) and once that had opened there are more H.264 settings than you can shake a stick at.
Why isn't there some sort of note within the window of after affects to the effect that AME is so much better equipped than it was and the link (Ctrl+Alt+M) highlighted? Would make an awful lot of sense...
Thanks
Dave
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ScubaBadger wrote:
Why isn't there some sort of note within the window of after affects to the effect that AME is so much better equipped than it was and the link (Ctrl+Alt+M) highlighted? Would make an awful lot of sense...
That's a very good suggestion, and something that we considered while designing the changes for AE CC.
There is one notification that we included: at the bottom of the Formats list in the Output Module Settings dialog, there is a bit of helpful text, "More Formats In AME".
We would have liked a more noticeable message, but the other designs we tried tended to make this dialog less usable. When we tried to add something to it, other parts of the dialog got pushed around and it got ugly really quick.
We also did not want to mislead users about what functionality the AME workflow provides. Linking the AE Render Queue and AME could imply that the render settings in the RQ translate to AME, which they currently do not. To be clear, we'd like to do this in the future, but there's a lot of work needed to make that happen. For the time being, AME is a distinctly different render path than the RQ.
Finally, we like to use our blog (http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects) to educate users. It tends to be a more effective and less annoying way to deliver messages like this one. If you don't follow it, I recommend you do. We've been positing a lot of detail about AE CC this week, with more to come.
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Yes I did see the tab "More Formats In AME" but that was grayed out and un-selectable at the time of trying it.
Will definitely follow the blog and save embarrassing myself...
Thanks very much,
Dave
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> Yes I did see the tab "More Formats In AME" but that was grayed out and un-selectable at the time of trying it.
You didn't miss anything. Perhaps I wasn't 100% clear: "More Formats In AME" is supposed to be grayed out and un-selectable.
It's only informational text, clicking it won't do anything. The purpose is to suggest that AME will allow you access to more options. That's all.
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Extremely helpful and it's great to read about the challenges and solutions that you folks come up with. We appreciate your work and the great tools we have thanks to you. We know it can be challenging to please everyone and our hats off to you for the work you're doing. Good luck with your continued work and for you being open to our suggestions!
Chris
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Great info here, thanks for taking the time to educate us about your reasoning in decisions like these. I also use H.264 often, and as a game developer, Steam requires us to submit WMV files to the store. So having both these formats available is preferred. Thanks again
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Thank you very much, this fixed my problem.
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How do I access this I looked in preferences under output and did not find it? If you need to be able to export these formats directly from After Effects, you can re-enable them by setting the preference Show Deprecated Formats In Output Module Settings in the Output preferences category.
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Werlien wrote:
How do I access this I looked in preferences under output and did not find it? If you need to be able to export these formats directly from After Effects, you can re-enable them by setting the preference Show Deprecated Formats In Output Module Settings in the Output preferences category.
The Show Deprecated Formats In Output Module Settings is only available in After Effects CC. That option was removed in After Effects CC 2014.
Even before they removed the option (but especially now), here's what you should be doing: using Adobe Media Encoder to create H.264, MPEG-2, and WMV videos from After Effects
However, if you really want to encode h.264 directly out of AE (which is not recommended), you can choose to Save As CC in CC 2014 and open your projects in the older version and do it there.
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Disappointing. I miss rendering mp4 direct from render queue
"There have been many problems with the H.264 and MPEG-2 exporters in After Effects. The exporters in Adobe Media Encoder (AME) didn't have these problems, and the team that works on AME is continuing to improve these exporters."
- personally i have had no problems with the H264 encoding, whereas I get regular crashes with AME encoding.
- if i want to push out a quick comp i was able to do it rapidly from Render queue, now i have to wait and reset all the paths etc in AME
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Agreed. We always render mass quantities of .mp4 files from the render queue. That's the format needed. I haven't updated AE since we found out that this has been removed. WTF Adobe?! Put this back.
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Szalam,
thanks for the chime in and info.
Rendering out of Media Encoder is a good suggestion - but how long is that going to be with us?
Why is it you say "not recommended" for rendering out of AE - that is after all why Adobe provide rendering resource and links within AE?
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So what do people edit in on PC in Premiere Pro on CC? I've been cutting in H264 for years.
I also have about 40 compositions in AE that for some reason need to be added to AME ONE AT A TIME if I want them in H264 mp4.
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LukeWarmCoffee wrote:
I also have about 40 compositions in AE that for some reason need to be added to AME ONE AT A TIME if I want them in H264 mp4.
You can select multiple compositions in the Project panel in After Effects, then choose Composition > Add to Adobe Media Encoder Queue to add all of them at once.
You can also drag multiple composition icons from the Project panel to the Queue panel in Adobe Media Encoder to add them.
Once in Adobe Media Encoder, you can Shift+select all of the output items in the Queue panel, then change the Format and Preset drop-down selectors to change the preset for all of the output items at the same time.
Also, in Adobe Media Encoder 2014.1 (8.1), you can put your After Effects project files into a watch folder. All compositions in the top level of the project (ie., not in a folder) will be encoded to the preset you choose. More detail here and here.
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Thanks - but could I get a general "This is a good standard codec/compression" to export from AE if I plan on editing the AE composition within Premiere? I don't want to always have to import an AE composition in Premiere, and I really don't want to always have to queue everything up in AME.
For example - if I do a background in AE and I want to put titles over it within Premiere - I don't want to have to render the background fresh every single time. I'd rather render it from AE once at a high enough quality that I both play it in real time within Premiere as well as just render it out quickly within Premiere.
I used to use MP4 for that, always, never without any problems in the last 5 or so years. I tried making MOV m264 files last night and they take longer to render and look like garbage. I've searched online but keep coming up short and I'd expect this is an easy problem with an easy answer.
Thoughts? Thanks
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The new Render and Replace feature in Premiere Pro 2014.1 (8.1) may be helpful for you here.
Otherwise, it sounds like you are asking for a good intermediate codec. There are varying options and opinions here. Apple ProRres or Avid DNxHD are popular. The 2014.1 versions of After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Adobe Media Encoder support native encode and decode of the GoPro Cineform codec, which is a very good intermediate codec; here is a video from Dave Helmly about this codec. H.264, in any container, is not a good intermediate codec. I don't recommend H.264 in a QuickTime container, ever.
I invite others in this community to give their advice on the topic.
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Many thanks Tim!
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To tell you the truth AME crashes on me constantly during encoding, so the assertion that H264 direct out of AE is buggy is not quite the whole story.
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We use the Cineform codec here for a lot of our intermediate files. It is pretty fast to encode and is visually lossless. The file size is pretty nice too. I've heard of some folks using the Lagarith codec, but I have no personal experience with it.
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Hey guys, great job at adding more steps for simple tasks like outputting low res comps for client approval! I really need Adobe to hold my hand like I'm an imbecile, otherwise I might get a cowwupted wender 'n dat would be weeelie baayad.
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I used mp4 for proxy so now I have to use slower PNG sequences. Great stupidity from Adobe
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THIS THIS EXACTLY THIS.
I make loads of low res renders for client review. Using media encoder is just an extra faff and memory hog that I just could do without. It was fine before. It must have taken more effort to take out than leave in, which leads me to think that it's just an effort to force us into the workflow that Adobe wants. I really don't like Adobe right now.
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Exporting h264 natively from after effects is 'not recommended?' But funneling our longstanding render workflows - where we were able to duplicate outputs and export previews and masters simultaneously - into separate steps that involve a broken piece of software is recommended? And for whom? For the benefit of users who are easily 'confused' that these options would be available in both AE and AME? I thought this was a software package for professionals. Thanks, Adobe, for rescuing me from a workflow that had been both efficient and effective.