AME for transcodes

[Andrae Palmer]

I'm exploring using AME for transcodes on a 12 core Mac Pro. REDCine-X is so slow for CPU transcodes and I would love to utilize the multicore features of AME for transcoding. Is there a way to drag R3D files from the Premiere Pro bin into AME? Also is there away to drag a RED folder into AME and have it only process the R3D files?

 

[Tom.Wong]

have you tried and compared encoding out of AE over AME?

 

[Andrae Palmer]

No. I want to use Adobe Media Encoder to batch transcode a bunch of R3D files to Apple ProRes. The same way you can easily make bins in REDCine-X and transcode to individual files. The reason I'm looking into using AME is because I have a 12 core Mac Pro and AME is multicore optimized.

 

[Tom.Wong]

you can drag your r3ds directly into AME, and you can even edit your source settings if you right click or ctrl click on the file in your queue to do your looks. easiest way to mass select r3d is to open up rcx, open up your list of r3ds in your browser column, click and drag that into AME, works like a charm.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

let us know what you get for encode times. I'd still recommend a RR for large batch processing but it's always good to have options to turn to when you need them.

 

[Andrae Palmer]

you can drag your r3ds directly into AME, and you can even edit your source settings if you right click or ctrl click on the file in your queue to do your looks. easiest way to mass select r3d is to open up rcx, open up your list of r3ds in your browser column, click and drag that into AME, works like a charm.

I tried dragging files from the bin in Premiere Pro CS5.5 to AME and it wasn't working. Will try your suggestion now and see if it works for me.

let us know what you get for encode times. I'd still recommend a RR for large batch processing but it's always good to have options to turn to when you need them.

Sold my RED Rocket Card a while back. Upgraded my workstation to a 12 core and I'm quite happy without the RR card... except for using programs that are not multicore optimized to render out files. Davinci, Premiere Pro and even Smoke is working quite well without the card. Just wish REDCine-X could utilize all the cores that I have.

 

[Andrae Palmer]

Thanks Tom for the tip on dragging from RCX into AME. Is there a way to select debayer settings?

 

[Ray Tragesser]

Hi Andrae,

Why not set up a watch folder inside AME with the appropriate ProRes Setting and let it rip? After you set up the watch folder, you simply drag your .R3D files inside and AME will start processing very quickly.

 

[Andrae Palmer]

Hi Andrae,

Why not set up a watch folder inside AME with the appropriate ProRes Setting and let it rip? After you set up the watch folder, you simply drag your .R3D files inside and AME will start processing very quickly.

The problem is that I would have to find the R3D files one by one and then drag em to the watch folder... unless I can drag from RCX browser window to a watch folder. Will try it now and see if it works.

Dragging from RCX to the watch folder works. When I drag file sinto the watch folder... are they getting copied to that file folder?

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Watch folders will not work due to files being copied to the watch folder. Unless some type of soft linking can be used.

 

[Tom.Wong]

when you right click on the clip in AME in the queue, and click "source settings" there is a pull down that says "debayer detail" i assume "high" is max debayer.

 

[Tom.Wong]

only crappy thing is, source settings don't apply globally to your queue even if you have the whole queue highlighted so you gotta change settings one at a time. it looks like you can save presets though which might save you some time. best workflow with that is to save your RMD in rcx, and when you load it up in AME, it will automatically link to your RMD look.

 

[Subhadip Sen]

I have never done this, but I think this should work:

Open up the folder in Finder/Explorer with the R3D files, search for *.r3d, select all and drag-and-drop to AME.

Then select-all in AME, right click and change export settings as you want. Hit start and that should be it.

As Tom points out, Source settings don't save across the queue, but export settings do. Should be High debayer by default though.

 

[Andrae Palmer]

when you right click on the clip in AME in the queue, and click "source settings" there is a pull down that says "debayer detail" i assume "high" is max debayer.

Thanks Tom! Sucks that I will have to one by one change source settings to "Medium"... guessing that Medium is the same as 1/2 res.

 

[Tom.Wong]

Thanks Tom! Sucks that I will have to one by one change source settings to "Medium"... guessing that Medium is the same as 1/2 res.

let's see some benchmarks already!

 

[Andrae Palmer]

AME: A 30 second R3D clip (2048 x 1152) with 738 frames... takes precisely 60 seconds to transcode to Apple ProRes 4444. The source was on a GRAID 2TB drive connected via FW800 and the destination was an internal 7200 RPM drive. The debayer detail was set to "Medium".

The same clip in REDCine-X took two minutes and six seconds. Debayer values set to 1/2 Good.

12 core Mac Pro - 2.66 GHz.
24GB RAM
Quadro 4000
Adobe Creative Suite 5.5

 

[Andrae Palmer]

33 second RED clip (4096 x 2304) with 795 frames... takes precisely 59 seconds to transcode to Apple ProRes 4444. The source was on a GRAID 2TB drive connected via FW800 and the destination was an internal 7200 RPM drive. The debayer detail was set to "Medium".

The same clip in REDCine-X took three minutes and fifteen seconds . Debayer values set to 1/2 Good.

12 core Mac Pro - 2.66 GHz.
24GB RAM
Quadro 4000
Adobe Creative Suite 5.5

 

[Andrae Palmer]

There you have it. Adobe Media Encoder is over 3x faster than REDCine-X for 4k footage and over 2x faster for 2k footage. If we could solve the problem with changing the debayer value setting on a selection of files then I could begin using AME for transcodes.

 

[Santiago Marti]

Andrae, if you right click a clip in premiere's project window you can choose export and it will send it to AME. Maybe you could select a bunch of clips, change their debayer settings and then export selected clips directly to AME.

 

[Mennovandijk]

As with a watch folder you can make aliasses from the R3d clips and move these into the watch folder instead of copying the whole R3D

 

[Andrae Palmer]

REDCine-X:

AME:

I'm now thinking debayer detail is not the same due to not noticing a significant difference in rendering times when it's switched from medium to high in AME. Does AME always transcode at full debayer? I don't see an equivalent option as in RCX export out presets. If it's transcoding at full debayer these transcode times are pretty excellent. Of course if we could drop it to 1/2 res then I'm sure we would have something approaching realtime transcodes.

As with a watch folder you can make aliasses from the R3d clips and move these into the watch folder instead of copying the whole R3D

Does seem rather cumbersome.

Andrae, if you right click a clip in premiere's project window you can choose export and it will send it to AME. Maybe you could select a bunch of clips, change their debayer settings and then export selected clips directly to AME.

I'm not seeing an option for export after right clicking on the clip.