From: "Chris Zwar" <chris@chriszwar.com>
To: "After Effects Mail List" <AE-List@media-motion.tv>
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Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 00:33:08 +0000
Subject: Re:  [AE] [OT] Batch compression options
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Thanks everyone for your suggestions.  For the record here's a bit more i=
nfo-

-The many compressions are projector splits for a watchout job.  I've jus=
t checked and we have about 70 individual animations that will be split b=
etween either 7 or 11 projectors each.  So a revised and more accurate to=
tal is that we'll be compressing between 500 and 750 clips.

-Delivering MP4s is not an option.  This is an important, one-off launch =
event with an international cast.  People fly in from all over the world,=
 do their thing once and that's it.  The watchout crew won't risk any hic=
cups or tech problems.  They've given us very precise compression specs a=
nd that's what we'll stick to.  Even though watchout can probably handle =
all sorts of stuff, for this event that's been worked on for months we ju=
st do what we're told - no-one will risk making a global CEO looking like=
 a muppet in front of a blank or frozen screen.

-I've had a quick look at FFMPEG but I can't see if it can encode to WMV-=
9's pro codec (ie. VC1), which is what we compress to.  I'm happy to expe=
riment with FFMPEG but a quick google search seems to indicate that it ca=
n only decode VC1, not encode to it.  Is this old news?  Is it something =
we can work around with flip4mac, or do we have to use specific encoder l=
ibraries for ffmpeg?

-Now that I've had a chance to work on the project for a bit I can see th=
at although there are loads of compressions, it's not as painful as I fir=
st thought.  Actually it's doing the projector splits which is more tedio=
us.  AE makes this quite painless with the ability to name outputs based =
on project name and comp name, so now I have set up an output template it=
's all pretty smooth.

So although there are still lots of clips to compress, it's actually not =
as painful as I thought and it's actually render output options in AE whi=
ch are doing a lot of the work.

Cheers,


-Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Oakley [mailto:steveo@practicali.com]
Sent: Monday, July 22, 2013 01:56 PM
To: 'After Effects Mail List'
Subject: Re: [AE] [OT] Batch compression options

deliver MP4's which AME can do. MP4's will work native on windoze back to=
 XP. AME can use a watch folder which would make this simple. otherwise a=
dobe apps don't see F4M as a codec. don't say how many times its been FR'=
d.

the alternative may in fact be to buy an older PC and set that up

S

On Jul 21, 2013, at 7:30 PM, "Chris Zwar" <chris@chriszwar.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> This is a bit OT, but compression isn't normally my thing.
> 
> I'm working on a project where we will be supplying roughly 1000 indivi=
dual clips as wmvs.  We're all working on Macs with no Windows machines a=
round, and rendering from After Effects to image sequences.
> 
> Just wondering what the best tool is to convert / compress the image se=
quences to wmvs.  The main thing we want is one where we can save the ren=
der queue and selectively re-queue items as they are revised.  I guess in=
 my mind I think of the After Effects render queue, where you can tick an=
d un-tick items, or re-queue items to render again and so on.  The thing =
is that these clips will be tweaked, rendered, revised, re-rendered and s=
o on.  So it's not just a matter of doing a batch conversion once, it's a=
 matter of selectively revising and re-delivering over a period of weeks.=
  We will always be rendering the image sequences to the same "final" fol=
der, so the source files won't be moving.
> 
> We will purchase flip-4-mac licences to render to wmvs, but not really =
sure about what the options are to work from image sequences and being ab=
le to save a batch compression queue.  We have compressor somewhere, and =
can easily download MPEG streamclip.  I haven't really played around with=
 the Adobe Media Encoder to know what it's capable of.  Not sure if I can=
 convince them to spring for something like Squeeze, but if it's really a=
wesome then maybe I can.
> 
> It will be tedious to set up 1000 compressions so I really only want to=
 do it once... any suggestions are welcome.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> 
> -Chris
> 
> 
> 
> 
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