What has Adobe Media Encoder CS 5.5, got to do with Exporting iMovies? It is now stopping the Export of a 5 hour .Mov = 40 hours of wasted time, sofar!
Never experienced it before - before Lion. There is a queue of 6 attempts which I didn't see till now, because the Menu came up behind the iMovie screen.
Everything is either Waiting or Failed.
How do I dump this twit idea?
Ted
OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)
The idea of the Encoder is to do just what it says. It pre-encodes your assembled video from Premiere Pro for whatever format your final project is going to be; a DVD or Blu-ray disk, web video, etc.
What final format you encode for determines whether or not it's in a "ready to play" state. If you chose DVD or Blu-ray disk encoding, you get video that's ready to bring into Encore so when you're authoring your disk, the encoding for all of the video you're going to use in your assembled disk is already done, and the final VIDEO_TS or BDMV gets built very quickly. Such encoded video will play in QuickTime, but the video and audio are normally separate files out of Encoder, not combined.
iMovie probably doesn't understand these encoded sequences since it's job is like Premiere. You're assembling raw still images, video and audio clips, not pre-encoded data. iDVD might understand the output from Media Encoder since its function is similar to Encore. You're authoring your disk (adding menus, buttons, etc.).
Thanks Kurt,
Afraid I didn't understand much of your answer (I'm boasting about the much!). I'm using the basic iMovie setup, no Premiere Pro, VIDEO_TS, or BDMV
I'm trying to make a video to play on a computer, and probably thru a Projector, using iMovie. Something I've done several times in the past without encountering this Encoder. Never seen it, never heard of it, never want to!
Normally I put in Titles and cut the original up into shorter sections. This time I had to add a load of Titles and sub-titles over the actual movie. Looked great as a Project, then I started to Export. Made a short MOVIE section first as a check, looked good but NO TITLES. Changed to QUICKTIME and after a day and a night of Exporting couldn't find the final jobs anywhere. Eventually I found the Adobe Media Encoder screen, hiding behind my iMovie screen.
No explanation of why its there or what it's doing. Except that what ever it should be doing doesn't work. These exports are all in MP4 format. Made new Exports (.m4v) using lower quality set-up. Latest version has not bad video, but the Titles are washed out and the 16x9 original screen format is lost.
Apple give you various options when Exporting but I've never seen an explanation of these options, what gives me the best quality, what exports quickest. My first try on this job ran 22 out of the expected 24 hours and then gave me an Error -50 message. Again Apple seem not to publish any list of such messages.
Sorry Kurt for dumping all my woes on you, but you did already try to help me.
Are you German or are you using a play name, like mine?
Ted
I'm using the basic iMovie setup, no Premiere Pro, VIDEO_TS, or BDMV
VIDEO_TS and BDMV aren't applications. They're the completed folder types you save to burn to a DVD or Blu-ray video disk.
Eventually I found the Adobe Media Encoder screen, hiding behind my iMovie screen.
Any idea where it came from? Media Encoder isn't a free app. It gets installed with purchased Adobe products that it's related to. Which would be pretty much any of Adobe's suites or single title video apps.
These exports are all in MP4 format. Made new Exports (.m4v) using lower quality set-up.
That just means Encoder is using whatever is its current default. You can make all kinds of settings changes.
Are you German or are you using a play name, like mine?
It's my real name. Born in the U.S. myself. Grandparents (great grandparents?) came over from the NE end of Hungary, nearer to Germany. Probably accounts for the somewhat common German last name. Couldn't tell you why my parents picked Kurt (German spelling) rather than the more Americanized Curt.
Since I use Adobe's video suite, I don't know much about iMovie or iDVD. I'll try to send some help your way from people who do use it.
No idea at all where the thing came from.
And I've never exported to DVD or Blu-ray. Which is the best quality? I have only ever exported using MOVIE and QuickTime. Sometimes got better looking results with smaller files, strangely enough.
I use Adobe Suite 5.5 possibly the AME came with it. I'll try to find it and kill it as soon as my latest attempt ends - about 14 minutes now - wish me luck!
If I have no luck I'll have a last try - after getting AME out of my life. Sounds dramatic huh! - Any suggestions for the set-up?
My rude question about your name came because I saw a connection between Kurt = short and Lang = long.
Sorry, just the way my mind works, when it does work.
About 10 minutes now - Fingers crossed.
Ted
Which is the best quality?
Blu-ray, by far. DVD is the same resolution as the analog TV signals that went the way of the Dodo. In other words, tiny. Only 720 pixels by 480 pixels. And stretched in the height at that to 540. The actual video is squashed in the height. Stretched height pixels is U.S. NTSC standard. European analog PAL is stretched in the width.
DVDs are sharper than VHS because a DVD is saved at full analog resolution of 720 x 480. VHS is only 720 x 200, so stretched even further in the height back to square format. I think Betamax used full 720 x 480.
Anyway, full HD video is 1920 x 1080. Obviously, quite a bit more pixel information for a sharper image, and is a square pixel format. No stretching in either direction.
Sometimes got better looking results with smaller files, strangely enough.
All depends on your settings. In the same format, the main difference is bitrate. The higher the bitrate, the better the quality. You just can't set it so high that a set top player (mainly older ones) can't decode the video fast enough and skip.
My rude question about your name came because I saw a connection between Kurt = short and Lang = long.
No problem. I saw it as a question of curiosity, not rudeness.
The time came up and then the normal 20 hours extra message - that came down to 2 hours in about 2 minutes, Still says 2 hours but counting. In the mean time I've found the Encoder in my Applications and deposited it in the Trash till after this game is finished.
BUT something VERY strange came up. To take up some of the time I opened a regular Joke file that comes to me. Knew the joke so opened my Star Sign, this is what it said:
Aquarius
Sunday, February 24, 2013
You can rely on powerful allies to lead you in the right direction today. However, don't expect others to sugarcoat what they tell you. If you have to swallow a bitter pill of reality, then do it as gracefully as possible. There's no need to make anything look better than it actually is now, since whatever isn't working should just be set aside. Instead of wasting energy on an outdated plan, consider creating a brilliant new one, altogether.
Isn't that exactly the right philosophy for the Support Community?
Thank you 'powerful allies'.
Ted
That LARGE Export worked well, Wide screen, and all the Titles, but I had to tell it to open in QuickTime.
After my success with the Large, I set up a new 1080 Export - 18 hours only - and went home.
Got the -50 Error message again this morning. Ah well!
I obviously need to spend a couple of days experimenting with small Projects. Perhaps I'll move on to FCP 10.
John and Kurt, thank you both for your help. My associate has just left for Korea with 3 versions of the job.
I'm going home early after setting up nearly 300 Gb to move over to our Media Server. The extra space should improve the next job.
Ciao and Tschuess
Ted
Adobe Media Encoder CS 5.5.
