Adobe Media Encoder bug - Media Offline for captions w/ After Effects

[nnnickk]

I've encountered a strange bug. I have captions and an After Effects lower third on two different tracks on a timeline. Using Mac OSX 10.13.4, AME 12.1, Premiere 12.1.

If I render out of Premiere, no problems.

If I send to AME and try to render, the caption track renders as "Media Offline".

If I delete all content such that only the caption and the AE clips exist, the caption track renders as "Media Offline".

However, if I delete the AE content (turning off visibility doesn't do it) then the captions will render normally in AME.

It doesn't matter where on the timeline the two are; if both the captions and the AE clip exist together in the sequence, the captions will render as "Media Offline" in AME. Very weird.

Manual fixes are difficult because I have 50 or so timelines to render.

Anyone come across this?

[adamf21833940]

I am also having this problem. Did you find a fix?

[nnnickk]

Hello,

Nope. Not even with the new update.

My fix is to just output from Premiere and not use Media Encoder. Not really a fix though.

[Zbyszko Rylec]

Same here. Captions goes offline while I do export by AME. They export just fine when I export straight from Premiere. Funny thing - when I put them on new empty sequence - they export fine, but when I than add content of my timeline, they goes offline again. There must be some major problem with captions in general. Since, they have appeard few years ago, the never worked with no issue. The are very unstable, sometimes the export, sometimes not. They refuse to change position, opacity of text block etc. It should be easy thing to work with, for most of professional editors it's everyday job. Why can't Adobe finally resolve this problem?

[NGroven]

I'm experiencing the exact same thing... Really annoying because I have to render 40 timelines with captions and graphics.

Please help us out adobe.... This is a basic feature that we need every day.

[Vinay Dwivedi]

Hi Nick,

I require some more information related to this problem.

What is the format of the caption in question i.e 608, 708 or open?

Is it created in Premiere Pro or in any other application?

What are the export settings (Video format, caption format in cation tab etc)?

What are the files used in the project? (Make and model of the camera would be helpful)

Go to Media Encoder preferences>Media option and post a screenshot of it.

//Vinay

[nnnickk]

Hello,

It's Open caption. It's an SRT file that was imported; captions created inside Premiere work.

You should be able to replicate by doing this (this creates the error for me)

Premiere > New timeline (any kind)

Premiere > new color matte

Drag color matte into timeline

Create a new .SRT file and save it

Premiere > Import (select newly saved SRT file)

Drag Subtitles into timeline over color matte

EXPORT > QUEUE (loads media encoder, works fine)

Now, back in Premiere:

Premiere > Right-click color matte, "Convert to After Effects composition"

AE Loads, Save new project

Back in premiere:

EXPORT > QUEUE (loads media encoder, now notice the error)

I demonstrate here:

Export settings also don't matter. From within Media Encoder no matter what output settings you choose it appears as media offline. I've offset the captions vertically here so you can see the video behind; here are h264 and a quicktime DV output:

Files used in project don't matter. As seen in the demo, you don't need any video files.

Captions overall are pretty buggy. I find the interface to style captions very difficult to use; for example, why is there no easy way to format all the captions simultaneously (aside from manually selecting them, which is cumbersome)? It seems rare that users would ever want to style captions individually. Global styles for captions (in the entire project, and applied to new imports) would be very helpful. For example, if I have 16 timelines and have to import 16 SRT files, I have to manually apply styles to each individually. Time consuming and unnecessary. Also in a number of circumstances, captions do not update on screen after you update them in the interface; that is, I can change the text but what appears in the video (while editing) is the old version (however when attempting to export the correct updated text is used).

Also, if you add a stroke to the text of the captions, any characters with pointy corners (say, "M") will get this:

That makes the stroke unusable in professional contexts, it would be great to have that fixed.

Thanks!

[romang55289850]

I have the same issue... any solution yet?

Thanks!

[Kevin-Monahan · Accepted solution]

Hi nnnickk,

Sorry for the frustration. Please file this bug here: Media Encoder: Hot (139 ideas) – Adobe video & audio apps

I hope the following users can also file:

romang55289850

adamf21833940

NGroven

ziemowitjaworski@gmail.co​

Thanks,
Kevin

[Shannon242122148yc3]

Hi this is 4 years later and still having this issue. Is there a solution?

[Stan Jones]

The entire caption workflow was changed with PR 2021 (PR 15). I do not think this bug still exists, but I was not able to replicate it reliably.

What exact PR version are you using?

Stan

[tonya97710649]

The bug still exists for us in PR/AME 22.5. In our case all captions are embedded 608/708. Exports to AME have the offline media whereever the source file in the sequence has captions.

[Stan Jones]

tonya, the problem nnnickk was describing was captions as "media offline" if there was an AE composition in the timeline. I assumed he was burning in open captions.

I am using PR 22.6.2, AME 22.6.1, and AE 22.6.0.

I just did a simple test where I created a timeline, added captions as subtitles, added a matte and replaced it with an AE composition, and then exported. I used mp4 with captions burned in, and sent to AME. exports normally. I repeated that with the captions as 608.

Then I exported it as MXF OP1a with captions embedded, exported through Media Encoder, and it exported normally, with captions embedded.

Can you describe what you are seeing? Does the problem occur with regular PR Subtitles (the old Open Captions) as well as 608? Burn-in as well as embed?

Stan