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luisleitl
Participant
January 16, 2018
Question

x264 PRO License and Alternatives

  • January 16, 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 5186 views

Hello there,

i am working on a VR/360° video project at the moment. The short/animation is finished and now i want to export this video in Premiere or Media Encoder as a MP4/h264 file with a resolution of 5120x5120. But because the resolution is above 4K the H.264 through AME doesn't work. So i searched for another options and found the x264 Pro plugin and now i´ve got a few questions because the support of 3amDigitalStudios isn't replying my mails:

1. Can i use the plugin on a mac and a windows pc at the same time after purchasing it or do i need two licenses for that?

Or is there a way to switch the plugin license from one operation system to the another one?

2. Is the plugin still worth to buy it? The fact that the support doesn't answer me (and i saw on many posts of other users that i´m not the only one) and the fact that i can't find very much information about them gives me a bad feeling. Or am I just bad in searching?

3. Are there any alternatives or is there another way to export H264 files above a 4k resolution through AME?

For example for my named 360° project?

I hope you can help me with my questions.

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    3 replies

    Averdahl
    Community Expert
    AverdahlCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 20, 2018

    Do not buy it.

    I used to recommend X264 Pro but since i have had problems with it since CC2017 was released and since the developer dont care about it anymore (as you have noticed) that plug-in is as dead as dead. I got error messages and could not export anything with it since CC2017.

    Today i use the x264 plug in from TMPGenc but AFAIK it does not (yet) support VR/360 exports. For Blu-ray or 2D video it outperform X264 Pro. The built in H.264 encoder is often good enough but have problems with fine details/aliasing.

    TMPGEnc Movie Plug-in AVC for Premiere Pro - Export Premiere Pro projects using the TMPGEnc H.264 encoder.

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    luisleitlAuthor
    Participant
    January 20, 2018

    Averdahl  schrieb

    Do not buy it.

    I used to recommend X264 Pro but since i have had problems with it since CC2017 was released and since the developer dont care about it anymore (as you have noticed) that plug-in is as dead as dead. I got error messages and could not export anything with it since CC2017.

    Today i use the x264 plug in from TMPGenc but AFAIK it does not (yet) support VR/360 exports. For Blu-ray or 2D video it outperform X264 Pro. The built in H.264 encoder is often good enough but have problems with fine details/aliasing.

    TMPGEnc Movie Plug-in AVC for Premiere Pro - Export Premiere Pro projects using the TMPGEnc H.264 encoder.

    Okay thats a clear answer thank you!

    2 Questions about TMPGenc:

    a) Is it possibly to render my VR video in the 5k resolution with this plugin? So that i have a simple 5120x5120 H264 file in the end? That there aren't VR settings in the plugin is not a big deal because i can inject the VR Metadata with a separate tool.

    b) Is there a Mac version for that plugin too? i could only find a windows version.

    Or does anyone know other options too?

    Roei Tzoref
    Roei Tzoref
    Legend
    January 20, 2018

    Or does anyone know other options too?

    if you don't mind using Ae as your encoder, you can purchase aftercodecs. I am very pleased with it. all the questions or problems I had were answered promptly by the author. this is my go to X264 codec. AfterCodecs - aescripts.com  try it!

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    excited_Genie16B8
    Legend
    January 20, 2018

    I tried to buy the plug-in once.  It just wasn't working on my system.  The company's response was basically "Oh well."

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    luisleitlAuthor
    Participant
    January 20, 2018

    I am using the test-version on my Mac at the moment. It works on my system and i like it a lot. But yeah because of the fact that the support doesn't show any interest in his customers makes me believe that i won't be able to change my license from my mac to my windows pc or to use them on both. Their user guide-pdf says that you have to send them an email if you have hardware changes but i don't know if i understood that right. I don't want to buy the plugin > want to change to my windows system > but can't do that because their support won't answer me.

    Is there really no one who uses that plugin and/or can answer my questions in my first post? I found a few posts which say that this is one of the best encoder plugins in the world and YouTube also recommend that plugin on their support page for VR uploads. But my bad feeling is growing

    Jeff Bugbee
    Community Expert
    Jeff BugbeeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 19, 2018

    I've never tried editing/exporting anything in that high of a resolution. That being said, can you try to export in HEVC (H.265)? It supports 5120x5120.

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    luisleitlAuthor
    Participant
    January 20, 2018

    Unfortunately a resolution like this is necessary for the best vr/360° experience. And yeah I thought of the H265 codec too at first but the problem is that this project is going to be uploaded  on YouTube. And YouTube doesn't support H265 Videos and recommends H264.

    Having said that my H265 Renderings also look all like **** because I mess up the render settings everytime. But that's not important because I can still only use the H264 codec.

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