Show Deprecated Formats in Output Module Settings don't appear in my output option!

[EvilMadness]

Hello I'm new at using Adobe After Effects CC 2014 and all the help guilds I look up for After Effects say to change your video output to something like h.264 (MP4) out fit I need to click on the check box called 'Show Deprecated Formats in Output Module Settings', BUT will doesn't appear on my options area. Only three options are in that section, but nothing named that. Can someone please help me with this problem?!

[scattar]

I don't anyone here is saying how bad the software is. We all love After Effects. It is by far the best piece of software on the market for motion graphics. Some of the new updates are great and I'm so happy with the improvements made to mulitproccessing - still not 100% reliable but much better than previous versions. Our gripe is that a heavily used feature that has been in place for years has been stripped away and the alternative is not as favourable.

Media Encoder is great, I use it all the time and I always use it when doing final deliveries. I have absolutely no issue with the quality that comes out of it. My issue is with the smoothness of the workflow when it comes to firing out works-in-progress of multiple versions.

1) Having a 12-core processor and only being able to use one of them feels like a kick in the teeth.

2) I either have to have AME running in the background taking up resources or wait for what seems a completely ridiculous amount of time for it to boot up. Right now it seems to hang whilst loading various exporters (same on Premiere boot up). In fact, while I was writing this it just crashed on boot up (twice), it can't seem to get past ExporterAVI so looks like I'm going to need a restart.

3) If I amend a comp no longer do I just have to select the output module, ctrl+shift+D and hit render. I have to export the comp again to AME (more waiting) as duplicating the AME output will render from an old version. Then I have to direct it to export to the correct place as it always defaults to the AE project folder and make sure it overwrites the last version if I'm not doing incremental versions. If there was an option for AME to export to the last place it exported to and to overwrite any files in there with the same name rather than putting _1 after everything this would sort out a few gripes. Unfortunately it doesn't, so when I have made small amends to 5 or 6 comps for example I've probably now got another 50 or so clicks more than I had in older versions of AE to get things rendered out.

All of the above means that time gets added onto my workflow.

Watch folders do not cut it for me. I don't need large copies of works-in-progress on my drives and also having the indignity of rendering/encoding things twice.

*EDIT*

Just tried exporting a comp to AME. AME crashed on boot up taking AE with it. Now I have restart my machine. Simply not good enough.

[Gino_Scarpino]

Hey Todd, I can't help but respond to Adobe's "explanation" as to why this change was made. And I quote,

"The reason that we removed the H.264, MPEG-2, and WMV exporters from the After Effects render queue is simple: Maintaining these exporters in After Effects took quite a lot of work, and fixing several significant bugs in these exporters would take even more work." Wow, you literally, before any other reason(s) use a, "this is just too much work" excuse. That's sad. Just saying.

"We could have done this work, but it would have subtracted a lot from the resources that we had available to develop other features and fix other bugs." FYI, features that a good percentage of your user base doesn't use and/or need. You must know this. Some nice new video production features for sure, but I make software, as do A LOT of us and we'd prefer you spent time keeping the software we have running vs. cutting perfectly good features for sake of features we won't use.

"Since Adobe Media Encoder already had superior H.264, MPEG-2, and WMV exporting capabilities, it was more prudent to rely on Adobe Media Encoder for export of these formats." I think Takasaurus documented the truth of this matter above. And nicely done. If by "superior" you mean slower. You're right. However, I question your use of the word "superior."

"This allowed the After Effects team to focus our efforts on animation, motion graphics, compositing, and digital imaging features—our core areas." OK, focus up, but then why do you render at all? If you don't have the resources to maintain deprecated formats, why would I trust you with a full res render? Those must be super easy to maintain, right?

My dad used to say, "Your excuses are your own. You should probably keep them to yourself because the rest of us are getting things done."

[Motti_Hen]

Hi,

I'm so disappointed with this change.

I not even talking about the need to import all the presets and preferences manually because 2014 version is a separated install. I did all that and spent hours making the new version work like the old one I'm used to.

After doing all this, I made a video and found there is no way to save a WMV format from After Effects.

I read about the solutions here but all of them makes me work harder.

It just makes me do more steps in order to get the result I need.

I make a lot of different unconventional sizes of videos for different LED Screens, therefor I can't use the watch folder option since it saves the file with the frame size saved in the preset.

With After Effects render I only have to have one preset and the video will be saved according to the composition frame size. With Media Encoder I must make a preset for each frame size I want and then make a watch folder for each preset.

And if I just export the composition to Media Encoder and drop the one preset that I have on the comp name I always have to change the "Source Scaling" option to "Change Output to Match Source Size". also - too many steps!

another thing is that when I had a revision I could always duplicate the last render on after effects and it would automatically save the file with the same name and the same location as the other one. With Media Encoder I just can't do it!

~~ it's important for me to say - After trying to contain the changes I decided to go back to CC Version and leave the 2014 aside until you will add this render option back. It's really a downgrade for me and for everyone in my office ~~

[Gino_Scarpino]

Me and other motion designers on my team have also uninstalled AE 2014. I continue to evangelize this mistake on Adobe's part to all motion designers on campus. The response has been TOTALLY UNANIMOUS, we hate this change and wish Adobe would fix what they broke.

[DarkRoomFX]

~~ it's important for me to say - After trying to contain the changes I decided to go back to CC Version and leave the 2014 aside until you will add this render option back. It's really a downgrade for me and for everyone in my office ~~

We did just the same. Uninstalled all 2014 versions from computers, and I know few colleagues, who did just the same. The differences between two of these are subtle and not rendering out H264 right from AE is a major headache. In pre-subscription times no-one would buy this version, just like it was with CS4.  I hate encoder and if I want to render in BG, I'd use a wonderful BG renderer. One of the weirdest decisions made by Adobe team by far. Total bummer.

[-**-]

uuuusssinnnggg AAAMMMEEE fffooorrr eeexxxppoorrt iiss soooo ssssslllooowwww.

[Szalam]

-**- wrote:

uuuusssinnnggg AAAMMMEEE fffooorrr eeexxxppoorrt iiss soooo ssssslllooowwww.

Then render into an intermediate codec from AE and use that in AME to create your final deliverable. This is what I did even before they removed the h.264 encoder from AE. 

[TLWestgate]

So the answer to Adobe removing convenience for us is to render everything twice?

[-**-]

Ooobbbvvviiooouusssllly, yyyyyeeesss.

(btw this is what I do since CC 2014: rrreeennnddeerrr aaallllll ttwwiiiccceee, eessppeeccciiiallly ffuuun  wwwiittthhh  mmmaakkkinnnggg hhh2222666444 ppprreeevvvsss fffrrroomm FFXXX 55555kkkk EEEEpppiiiccc fffoootttaaagggeee)

[Takasaurus]

I did a few comparison tests.  A 6 second piece with some layers and effects. Ran it through CC and CC 2014. AE & Encoder.   Here are the results.

ADOBE • Export Comparisons

6 Second Timeline – 1080p – 29.97

Encoder CC2014 - H.264 - VBR 2 Pass  8/20  – 16 Min render - 

Much Darker than AE - Enormous compression artifacting -  Looks like crap.  4 mb file size

After Effects CC2014 - H.264 Quicktime 100% - 4 minutes –

Color is OK - Much compression artifacting -  88mbs!!!

***After Effects - CC - Using Main Concept Deprecated H.264 Format – 6 mins -  VBR 2 Pass 6/12 –

Color EXACTLY what I see in After Effects – Barely noticable compression – 4.5 mbs

Encoder CC2014 - H.264 – Apple iPad – VBR 2 – 5/6 -  29.5  Min render - 

Much Darker than AE – Marginally better compression artifacting then first Encoder Test - Looks like crap.  6 mb file size

ADOBE RECOMMENDED APPROACH:

AE CC 2014 Render – Losseless Quicktime – 4.75 minute Render – Looks Perfect. 740mb

ENCODER CC 2014 RENDER – .5 minute render - H.264 – VBR 2 Pass 8/12 –

Color is spot on – Compression artifacting is still significant.  6 MB file

ENCODER CC 2014 RENDER v2 – .5 minute render - H.264 – VBR 2 Pass 12/20 –

Color is spot on – Compression artifacting is Much better but still not as good as CC Deprecated Main Concept.  10 MB file. Can’t send via e-mail.

BOTTOM LINE RESULTS

Main Concept Deprecated H.264 creates a much higher quality H.264 in less time and a smaller file format that can be sent by email to clients.

Directly rendering H.264 thru Encoder is useless. Color and contrast shift is enormous. Compression is horrible.  File sizes are much larger.

ADOBE WORKAROUND - Add an extra minute or two to jump through the hoops of having to render out a Losseless through AE, bring that into Encoder….  Takes a minute or so longer on a 6 sec piece. Longer pieces will be exponentially longer render times.

Final image quality still isn’t as good as the CC Deprecated H.264 even at high VBR.  Plus the files are larger.

---------------

With all due respect…  Please put Main Concept format back into AE.  It is a real pain to have do the extra workaround for a lesser quality output.  And it just doesn't make sense.

[anniemaybuxton]

Hey Takasaurus. Would you have any advice for exporting a moving image to be fit for an iPad? H.264 isn't good enough quality and Quicktime isn't compatible with the iPad.

[Roei Tzoref]

Hey Takasaurus. Would you have any advice for exporting a moving image to be fit for an iPad? H.264 isn't good enough quality and Quicktime isn't compatible with the iPad.

what exactly is the issue? I recommend you post it in a new thread with all the information so users can try to help you

[Szalam]

anniemaybuxton  wrote

Hey Takasaurus. Would you have any advice for exporting a moving image to be fit for an iPad? H.264 isn't good enough quality and Quicktime isn't compatible with the iPad.

H.264 is great quality. Blu-ray disks are encoded with it. There is probably something awry with your settings that we can help fix. As Roei says, make a new thread and we can try to help you.

[Bryan Sliwowski]

What all others have said. Please give us our workflow back, this clunky export to AME is a royal pain. It has locked up my computer once, not opened AME another time and on several tries has opened AME but then the comp I chose to Export out to AME didn't show up in AME's queue.

I'm also a little upset that you admit that AME, which you want us to use, has issues.  You have to give us an even clunkier work around for your product producing darker end video.

[jtopenshaw]

When our workflow becomes longer with a new version of AE, this is the same as making AE slower in our eyes. The number one request is to make AE faster, so everyone that used deprecated settings is not a happy camper.

Adobe has a good idea of how many people actually use that work flow, hence their decision of supply and demand.

I used deprecated settings every week for a specific job I do, so you know what camp I'm in. The squeaky wheel gets the oil is true. This action can only be overturned by more people letting Adobe know our needs. They are betting that it does not matter to enough people, which I'm afraid they may be right. Who wants to spend the time for this cause? I can re-render a whole lot of files in AME while this battle goes on.

So for AE CC 2015 my request is for a faster version of AE for all situations!! This oil can is dry.....

[JDKosmides]

For one of our many media production workflows, we typically export to FLV from AE and PR, then embed the FLV into a flash timeline and export as SWF when making video for some hardware.  The SWF runs on a proprietary piece of hardware and codecs for WinXP Embedded (outdoor payment kiosk, about 1200 in the field) and our entire production workflow is now broken.  We've used this process for years now.

Now, my team and I are forced to log issue requirements to OUR R&D team to move away from FLV/SWF and towards a different file format because YOU arbitrarily decided that it was time to retire this format. You're taking time away from our company developing features for our customers, and instead we've got to code around your decisions. Will you pay for our R&D?  To whom at Adobe should I send the invoice?  Or, would you rather pay for upgrading our customers to all Win7 embedded, and all the hardware costs involved in that?  Who should I talk to at Adobe about this?  You're costing us time and money.

You're forcing us to use old versions of AE to produce media for FLV, instead of simply including the older codecs with the release.  There isnt any R&D cost in maintaining old codecs, that line above is total BS.  You could have kept them exactly the same when you compiled the new EXE's, instead you chose to remove them because you wanted to push the market in one way or another.  The market should decide how it wants to work, it shouldnt be arbitrarily decided by some suit at Adobe, or some meeting of suits. 

What harm could LEAVING THE CODECS IN do to your product?  I'll tell you - None.  There is simply no cost at leaving in your proprietary codec in the software.  It's yours, you dont have to pay licensing or royalties.  What possible justification could you have?

I've said this before and i'll say it again, it's too bad there isnt much competition today for this software market.  If there was a comparable suite of products, i'd make the switch.  I'm quite tired of heavy handed Adobe making sweeping changes and then forcing us to use outdated versions to continue workflows, instead of making it easier for makers of media to do their jobs.  Now you're forcing us to take up more HD space keeping all these old legacy applications installed.  Bad business, Adobe.  Bad business.

[TLWestgate]

I'll add my voice to the chorus. Please, Adobe, put MP4 export capability back into AE.

[louiesolomon]

Would just like to add that the removal of h264 export means that I will not be able to use After Effects CC 2014 in my workflow.

[Rick Gerard]

I'm rendering h.264 every day and I use CC 2014, I just render with the AME because, first, I can save my AE project, send it to the AME, then keep working on the next project or scene while AME is churning out the render (read that as no lost productivity waiting for a render), and second, if the project will benefit from features not supported by AME such as MP rendering (only about 5% of my work currently) or the project must be delivered in multiple formats I render a DI (digital intermediate) for archival purposes and use AME to render the deliverables while I work on something else, or third, if the project is using Dynamic link or is longer than a couple of shots I edit the final in Premiere Pro instead of trying to build a movie in AE, which is about the worst NLE anyone ever used, and PPro uses AME to render all of it's output. Adobe didn't cripple h.264 rendering, they actually made it better (compare results using CC by overlaying renders at the same compression settings exactly and using the difference mode). All you have to do is learn to streamline your workflow to make your production more efficient. I don't know about you but my clients stopped paying my full rate for rendering a very long time ago. Most of my clients pay by the job and not hourly anyway. I'd rather be making $$ for every hour I spend not with my family than sit on my butt drinking coffee while waiting for a render. Just my 2¢. . .

[louiesolomon]

Rick,

Do you mind sharing your render settings for both After Effects render queue and Adobe Media Encoder render queue?  In my experience, AME takes a significantly longer time to render h264 than the built in rendering, and as @Takasaurus pointed out, render quality may not be on par either.

[Rick Gerard]

1. Make sure you allocate enough memory to AME (other apps).

2. I have run side by side tests with AME and Render Cue in CC by setting the data rate to 20 and matching the settings. Take both renders into AE and put one on top of the other, then set the blend mode to difference. You'll immediately see that AME, especially CC14 does a better job than the Render Cue ever did, especially if you turn on Multi Pass Rendering.

I just use the YouTube and Vimeo defaults then jack up the data rate to the max recommended by both services. Simple as that. Even the factory defaults give great results.

The render times don't matter that much to me because I'm always working on something else while I'm rendering. I've been at this long enough that I know what I'm going to get before I render. I haven't been surprised by a render in several years. To me it is just like shooting film, which I still do. Once I got a handle on the technique I was never surprised when I got film back from the lab. After my first 6 months behind the lens of a film camera I never missed a single shot because of exposure or other technical problems. In the last several years I have not had to re-render more than a couple of comps because of a technical mistake I made.

[Soundgarden]

Rick Gerard:  ...I just render with the AME because, first, I can save my AE project, send it to the AME, then keep working on the next project or scene while AME is churning out the render (read that as no lost productivity waiting for a render)...

How can you keep working on another file when Adobe clearly states that their recommended way of creating H.264 files renders AE CC 2014 unusable during the process?

The fastest way to create videos in these formats using Adobe Media Encoder with After Effects is to use the After Effects render queue to export a losslessly encoded master file (e.g., using the PNG video codec in a QuickTime .mov container file) to a watch folder that Adobe Media Encoder monitors. You can assign encoding presets to a watch folder in Adobe Media Encoder so that it automatically encodes using whichever settings you have specified. One advantage of using this method is that it uses After Effects performance features for rendering (such as GPU acceleration and multiprocessing where applicable) and Adobe Media Encoder performance features for encoding (such as parallel encoding). The disadvantage of using this method is that it occupies the main After Effects application for the entire rendering operation, during which time you can’t use After Effects for anything else.

[TLWestgate]

You shouldn't assume everyone needs to work on a second project while the first is rendering.

[Soundgarden]

I am not assuming, but Rick (the lone wolf applauding Adobe's decision to take something away that everyone uses...except Rick) stated the advantage of taking away Deprecated Formats is AE was the improvement of workflow...which by Adobe's own recommendations does not exist... it actually makes your workflow longer.

[Soundgarden]

What's really really funny to me is that Adobe is removing "Deprecated" Formats but then telling you to use deprecated Adobe CC (12.2.1) if you still need access to them.  Will Adobe listen and bring them back?  No, I highly doubt it.  They are tooooo big a company to listen to their users.  I mean.. Microsoft for example refused to bring back their START button/menu when they took it away...

Sarcasm.  In fact, ppl complained so much not only did 8.1 bring back a fake start button...Windows 10 is bringing it completely back.