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Doc Maik
Legend
February 28, 2019
Answered

Auto-save and other trouble

  • February 28, 2019
  • 1 reply
  • 1191 views

Hi all!

1. Problem: Auto-save

My AE 2019 installation is set to auto-save every 5 minutes, but then it should a) generally create that extra subfolder to store several backups from last save and b) 5 minutes after I opened a project write the first save. But it doesn't do that. A few days ago I worked with Premiere, dragging an AE comp onto the time line which I later wanted to replace with another comp and suddenly either Premiere or AE overwrote the source AE project so it was blank afterwards, killing the last hours of work. In this moment I looked for the auto-save folder, which wasn't there and also couldn't be found anywhere else. Premiere, however, had created such a folder. A bug or what am I missing?

2. Problem: Quicktime codecs

Some years back I created a MOV from within AE, maybe it was CS5. I used one of the Quicktime codecs with alpha. Now, when opening the old project in AE 2019, it says it doesn't support loading that MOV because of the codec. What I'm wondering now: does AE have it's own Quicktime export codec or not? Or  maybe did I have Quicktime installed back them and the old AE would use the codec?

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Doc Maik

    1) So far I only have one project. I don't use AE that often. What I don't know: will AE save the file after 5 minutes no matter if you have changed anything or not? If not, that would explain the last auto-save time stamp. If you open a project and start to work on it, then there should be a new auto-save 5 minutes after your last click and if you leave it open in the background for some hours - no further auto-save. That's logical.

    2) Well, back then there was no PNG in Quicktime, if I remember correctly. My problem is that I seem to have lost the source project and the only thing I could do is to transcode the MOV with some tool being able to read TGA codec and to convert alpha correctly, let's say to PNG.

    Thanks.


    In addition to my trouble, I found this. Dropped support for QuickTime 7 era formats and codecs 

    Probably helpful for other stumbling over this problem.

    The next step, to transcode vom Quicktime TGA, which supports alpha channel, to another format with alpha that AE and PP can import was not so easy as I thought at first sight. While most video players and also converters could easily load the source MOV, they had no option to export AVI with RGBA codec or perhaps MOV with Animation codec.

    MeGUI - can open MOV via AviSynth, but only export MKV and MP4

    Handbrake - same as MeGUI

    VCDS Video Converter - nice set of options, can also export Quicktime (but no alpha codec) and since QT is dead, it's no option

    What finally worked was VirtualDub. Steps:

    1. Install VirtualDub mit FFMPEG plugin as Quicktime import filter

    2. Open MOV (TGA codec)

    3. Set color depth of input and output to 32 bit

    4. Set normal recompress

    5. Configure the export to use, for example, the lossless Lagarith codec and set it to RGBA

    6. Export to AVI

    7. Import to AE - works! The alpha background is now transparent again

    1 reply

    Szalam
    Community Expert
    SzalamCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    March 1, 2019

    1. Where do you have your preferences set to make the Auto-Save?

    2. Apple deprecated a lot of QuickTime stuff. Adobe wrote some of their own readers/writers for some codecs to be able to keep stuff working. What codec did you use?

      D
      Doc MaikAuthor
      Legend
      March 5, 2019

      Thanks for helping.

      1. "Next to project", else I wouldn't ask. The funny thing is, last time I worked on the project, that folder was created, but a) with only 1 save in it and b) that save was made exactly 3 hours before I saved the actual project the last time on that day.

      2. TGA

      Szalam
      Community Expert
      SzalamCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      March 6, 2019

      1. That's strange. I haven't really heard of a lot of people having issues with autosave in recent versions of AE. Have you seen this sort of behavior in other projects or just the one?

      2. Oooh. TGA! That's something I haven't heard of in a long time. Most folks I know have been using PNG instead. If you have a Windows machine, you might consider installing QuickTime to get some of those older codecs to work. You can choose during the QuickTime install which components to install. The web player is the part that's "insecure" that everyone was freaking out about, so if you just install the required components, you should be fine.

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