Batch exporting clips to Media Encoder with Source Range In/Out

Report · May 21, 2018

Hi,

I have about 300 clips that I've edited the in and out points. I need to send these edited clips to a client for review. But when I use the batch export feature, by selecting the 300 clips and choosing export, there is no option in the dialog to choose either, source range...entire clip, clip in/out, custom as there is in the single clip export window. So I assumed I can do this in AME.

If I export these clips to AME, they all come in set to entire clip range. That's not what I need. I can not for the life of me figure out how to change all of the settings to clip in/out. If I select the entire batch and click settings, I get a warning I will be changing all of the clips. OK, then I change the source range to clip in/out. Then OK. Only the one clip changes. All others are still entire clip range.

Because it will take me an hour to manually open every one of the clips and change the source range, I thought maybe someone here has been there done that. These are clips that I am adding timecode burn and down scaling for client review. Hence the need to do this. I wonder if Prelude would be better.

thanks DB

Report · May 21, 2018

What you needed was to make Subclips in the Source monitor, rather than just settting the in/out point. Set the in/out, right-click "Make Subclip" ... you can then name the subclip, and make sure the 'restrict' option is selected. Then select the group in the Project panel bin, right-click, export media (Ctrl/Cmd-M) and you send the entire group to exporting.

Edit: you can select the batch of clips as you've got them, from the bin, then queue the whole thing to ME. In Encoder, click on each one and select as range at the bottom of the preview panel 'clip in/out'. It means you'll have to click a bunch of times, but you can get it done. I can select a group, and even though it says I'm replacing the settings for the group, it always exports the first as clip in/out, the rest as full clips.

Neil

Report · May 22, 2018

Thanks Neil,

That certainly would work. Unfortunately, in my case I still needed to work with the entire clips and utilize the In/Out points which will change moving forward in post. So subclips would result in loss of that heads and tails media from the original. I just wanted to export the in to out and still work with the entire clip. It works with Sequences, if I export a bunch of sequences, as long as the work area is off, it will default to Sequence in/out range.

Report · Nov 03, 2018

I have the same issue but in a different situation. I have a need to create a short video clip (5 sec) of each of several hundred still images. I was doing this by batch importing the stills with a default duration of five seconds, then using the process you describe to encode them in media encoder. Unfortunately, it appears that importing stills this way makes the media length several hours long and sets the in and out points set to five seconds. Therefore, when I use this batch export method, media encoder tries to create a video several hours long out of each. I can't use subclips because these are stills. I was hoping that someone might have figured out a different batch export method, a way to use in/out points during batch export or might have a suggestion on how to batch import stills with a media length that is user setable. In the absence of a new suggestion, I will use Neil's "edit" suggestion, even though that will require several hundred mouse clicks in media encoder.

Report · Nov 04, 2018

I've never tried this with stills, but with clips, you can select multiple clips in a bin, export/queue to Media Encoder and export them individually.

When you have stills imported with a default time, it doesn't work the same way?

Or have you tried that?

Neil

Report · Nov 04, 2018

The "export multiple selected items from the program panel" method does work fine with stills, as long as what you want is the entire length of the clip. Unfortunately, importing a still with a default duration does not change the fact that Pr imports that still with what I consider to be infinite length (many hours). I suspect it does this so that you could, after importing with a short duration, decide to extend that still for the entire length of a feature film (rather boring movie, but still). If Pr imported the still with the same length as its duration then you would not be able to extend beyond the default duration.

That was why I kept this post associated with this original issue. I import my stills with a 5 second duration, which means Pr creates a clip that is many hours long with in/out points set for a 5 second duration. I then select all the clips, choose "export media". The window comes up where I can select the codec, etc, etc, but what does not come up is the Preview panel where you can select "entire clip", "in/out points" and "custom". It just sends it to media encoder with "entire clip". In the case of stills, that is several hours. Hence, I have the same issue as dbeaty2.

Thanks for responding so quickly... even over a weekend!!

Report · Nov 04, 2018

Huh. So it treats stills differently depending on whether you drop them on a timeline or export from a bin ... weird!

Neil