• imageAfterCodecs

    Native exporter for AE bringing you ProRes on Windows, h264 (x264 and x265) codecs for excellent quality and lightweight videos. Currently only compatible with Windows. Mac version coming soon.

    https://aescripts.com/aftercodecs/

  • Interesting! Have you noticed an improvement about "shade banding" with those lossy codec? One of my biggest problem since years (with H264 codec of course). Thanks!
  • Not for Adobe Premiere too?

    Wondering if there is any benfit - i a'm using:

    3am Digital Studios x264pro
    and TMPGEnc Movie Plug-in AVC for Premiere Pro.


  • Is this authorized by Apple to use the ProRes codec?   I love the concept here, but I'm worried about weird artifacts that might get rendered.

    -From the Apple site.

    In some instances, unauthorized codec implementations have been used in third-party software and hardware products. Using any unauthorized implementation (such as the FFmpeg and derivative implementations) might lead to decoding errors, performance degradation, incompatibility, and instability. 
  • Not for Adobe Premiere too?

    Wondering if there is any benfit - i a'm using:

    3am Digital Studios x264pro
    and TMPGEnc Movie Plug-in AVC for Premiere Pro.


    It is AE for the moment but a Premiere Pro version is on the roadmap. You can try the free trial and check out the quality for yourself. Here is an 8k test another customer just posted to YouTube, set the resolution to 8k and pause on any frame to check out the quality: 


  • yosh nak said:
    Is this authorized by Apple to use the ProRes codec?   I love the concept here, but I'm worried about weird artifacts that might get rendered.

    -From the Apple site.

    In some instances, unauthorized codec implementations have been used in third-party software and hardware products. Using any unauthorized implementation (such as the FFmpeg and derivative implementations) might lead to decoding errors, performance degradation, incompatibility, and instability. 
    AfterCodecs uses ffmpeg under the hood.
  • Hello, I just tried your plugin and I noticed a lot of artifacts. I imported a ProRes4444 with alpha channel and encoded it with AfterCodecs in ProRes4444+Alpha and there are a lot of artifacts visible :


    Is it normal ? Or did I miss something ?

    thx
  • Interesting! Have you noticed an improvement about "shade banding" with those lossy codec? One of my biggest problem since years (with H264 codec of course). Thanks!
    You can use the trial to export x264 / x265, re import the footage back to AE and use "Difference" Mode + Exposure effect to see the differences between the original and the compressed video. Note : compression adds blocky artefacts and blurry zones, a lot of color banding are due to the LCD screen that you are using ! (I think most LCD panels are in 6 bit per channels ?)
    However, I might increase color accuracy by adding x264 10 bit / x265 10 bit and feeding ffmpeg with high depth source (if your source is high depth of course).

    Not for Adobe Premiere too?

    Wondering if there is any benfit - i a'm using:

    3am Digital Studios x264pro
    and TMPGEnc Movie Plug-in AVC for Premiere Pro.
    The plugin is only for AE as of now but more software could be added if there's enough demand (Premiere Pro, Cinema4D...)
    Your x264pro plugin is great and has tons of parameters AfterCodecs doesn't have yet. Note that AfterCodecs will evolve over time and might be more powerful later.

    yosh nak said:
    Is this authorized by Apple to use the ProRes codec?   I love the concept here, but I'm worried about weird artifacts that might get rendered.

    -From the Apple site.

    In some instances, unauthorized codec implementations have been used in third-party software and hardware products. Using any unauthorized implementation (such as the FFmpeg and derivative implementations) might lead to decoding errors, performance degradation, incompatibility, and instability. 
    This ProRes is not authorized by Apple. Apple software and Quicktime might detect it and refuse to use it. Software providers pay Apple a large fee for ProRes so it's in Apple interest that you use officially supported softwares. Please use the trial to test ProRes an. My advice would be to not use AfterCodecs' ProRes for Broadcast but use it for every others needs.
  • I test the trial but after exit AE the plugin crashes AE (CC2017.2):

    Problemsignatur:
      Problemereignisname:    BEX64
      Anwendungsname:    AfterFX.exe
      Anwendungsversion:    14.2.0.198
      Anwendungszeitstempel:    58edc138
      Fehlermodulname:    StackHash_bee9
      Fehlermodulversion:    0.0.0.0
      Fehlermodulzeitstempel:    00000000
      Ausnahmeoffset:    PCH_B9_FROM_ntdll+0x0000000000090C6A
      Ausnahmecode:    c0000005
      Ausnahmedaten:    0000000000000008
      Betriebsystemversion:    6.3.9600.2.0.0.256.48
      Gebietsschema-ID:    1031
      Zusatzinformation 1:    bee9
      Zusatzinformation 2:    bee9a47c80a68100f3efab088603737d
      Zusatzinformation 3:    4bce
      Zusatzinformation 4:    4bcee3f9d05b8fad15d5e6f0af645cf1

    After this report i will get the next:
    Problemsignatur:
      Problemereignisname:    APPCRASH
      Anwendungsname:    AfterFX.exe
      Anwendungsversion:    14.2.0.198
      Anwendungszeitstempel:    58edc138
      Fehlermodulname:    StackHash_4e92
      Fehlermodulversion:    0.0.0.0
      Fehlermodulzeitstempel:    00000000
      Ausnahmecode:    c000041d
      Ausnahmeoffset:    PCH_26_FROM_USER32+0x0000000000002FC6
      Betriebsystemversion:    6.3.9600.2.0.0.256.48
      Gebietsschema-ID:    1031
      Zusatzinformation 1:    4e92
      Zusatzinformation 2:    4e92b44aabe9cae62b0a94ed4a97c895
      Zusatzinformation 3:    f22a
      Zusatzinformation 4:    f22ae48e06c72bbd5cf4d29b09f93e6a

    When i remove the plugin all is ok.
    Maybe the problem had to do with some bit of ram that was not "cleaned" before used (i guess).

    System: 6950X 128GB RAM with Windows 8.1 pro 64-bit
  • I test the trial but after exit AE the plugin crashes AE (CC2017.2):

    Please open a support ticket
  • I test the trial but after exit AE the plugin crashes AE (CC2017.2):

    Please open a support ticket
    Thanks but for now i have enough for testing and reporting.. last 3 days i reported for the stardust plugin but the dev solved the problem.
    Maybe later..
  • Hello, I just tried your plugin and I noticed a lot of artifacts. I imported a ProRes4444 with alpha channel and encoded it with AfterCodecs in ProRes4444+Alpha and there are a lot of artifacts visible :


    Is it normal ? Or did I miss something ?

    thx
    I fixed this I will update AfterCodecs this week with the bug fix. Thank you for this report !

    I test the trial but after exit AE the plugin crashes AE (CC2017.2):

    Please open a support ticket
    Thanks but for now i have enough for testing and reporting.. last 3 days i reported for the stardust plugin but the dev solved the problem.
    I'll look into that thank you for reporting it.
  • Is mac version will be available before May 23?

    Because I want to know if I can buy it with the discounted promotional code before end 
  • How many PCs can I install in the sametimes? thx
  • Is there an option to export the PRORES as interlaced?
  • I guess this wont work with MediaEncoder? Would be cool if you could render from Premiere with this.
  • How many PCs can I install in the sametimes? thx

    The license allows for the software to be installed on up to two computers as long as they are not being used at the same time. If you need to install it on more than two computers or use them at the same time you will need additional licenses.
    Is mac version will be available before May 23?

    Because I want to know if I can buy it with the discounted promotional code before end 

    If you purchase it now you will get the mac version for free when it is released.
  • Is there an option to export the PRORES as interlaced?
    You can put what you want in the video content but there won't be any metadata about interlacing in the file. Please use the trial to make up your mind !
    I guess this wont work with MediaEncoder? Would be cool if you could render from Premiere with this.
    The plugin is not available yet for PP/AME but this will come don't worry
  • Can't wait for the Mac version! Is there any way to get an email when that arrives?
  • Can't wait for the Mac version! Is there any way to get an email when that arrives?
    Defintiely, you can sign up here (make sure to check the 'also notify me of new products' option): https://aescripts.com/subscription/
  • I would buy this in a heartbeat if you included a plugin for Premiere Pro. I'm OS-agnostic but the lack of ProRes rendering support in Win 10 is almost crippling. DNxHD is great (I come from the Avid world) but not many people have the knowhow to install the Avid codecs. As it stands this would be very useful to me in AE and would be a no-brainer if you developed a plugin for PP.
  • Hi there,

    Our studio uses a big mix of Mac and PC.  We prefer to work with ProRes as much as possible, but our current PC ProRes codecs are dodgy at times.  I was really excited to here about this plugin, so we took it for a spin.  There are definitely some pipeline issues with having to use the format dropdown instead of out normal output settings when going back and forth on a Mac and PC, but that is workable for us.  

    The big issue we are having is the codec metadata display after rendering.  In the project panel, the codec is displayed as "Lavc57.64.101 prores_ks".  This is displayed no matter which ProRes format we are using.  There are no extra options in AE that will display the format.  We also checked Premiere, and none of the metadata columns display the additional information we need.  The only way we can see it is to right click the file and select "MediaInfo", which is not going to work for us if we have to quick-check codecs on 100 files.  Not sure if there is anything that can be done about this, but unfortunately we can't fit this otherwise amazing codec into our pipeline without that information.

    We'll keep watching for updates and responses and hopefully this can be fixed in the future :)
  • Hi there,

    Our studio uses a big mix of Mac and PC.  We prefer to work with ProRes as much as possible, but our current PC ProRes codecs are dodgy at times.  I was really excited to here about this plugin, so we took it for a spin.  There are definitely some pipeline issues with having to use the format dropdown instead of out normal output settings when going back and forth on a Mac and PC, but that is workable for us.  

    The big issue we are having is the codec metadata display after rendering.  In the project panel, the codec is displayed as "Lavc57.64.101 prores_ks".  This is displayed no matter which ProRes format we are using.  There are no extra options in AE that will display the format.  We also checked Premiere, and none of the metadata columns display the additional information we need.  The only way we can see it is to right click the file and select "MediaInfo", which is not going to work for us if we have to quick-check codecs on 100 files.  Not sure if there is anything that can be done about this, but unfortunately we can't fit this otherwise amazing codec into our pipeline without that information.

    We'll keep watching for updates and responses and hopefully this can be fixed in the future :)
    Hi Mike,
    I'll investigate this. You want the file's metadata to say what variant of ProRes it is, right ?
    About going back and forth between Mac and PC, maybe you could create an Output Module Template it'll be faster (there's a little down arrow at the left of the output module name and you can click "Make Template...". I'll also look at if a script would be able to convert automatically the output module presets.
  • I would buy this in a heartbeat if you included a plugin for Premiere Pro. I'm OS-agnostic but the lack of ProRes rendering support in Win 10 is almost crippling. DNxHD is great (I come from the Avid world) but not many people have the knowhow to install the Avid codecs. As it stands this would be very useful to me in AE and would be a no-brainer if you developed a plugin for PP.
    A PP/AME plugin is planned :)
  • If i purchase now for Win, will i be eligible for a Mac license as well?
  • If i purchase now for Win, will i be eligible for a Mac license as well?
    Yes of course !
  • Hi,

    I am stil on AE CS6 (old, I know...). Any chance that AfterCodecs will run on that?

    Thanks!

    Christian

  • I am stil on AE CS6 (old, I know...). Any chance that AfterCodecs will run on that?
    There are some breaking changes in the AE API ; that would involve too much additional work and testing so we don't plan on supporting CS6 as of now sorry.
  • Can i add my own FFMPEG command line encoder settings??
    This is program with wide opportunities. I want my settings.
  • mike axel said:
    Can i add my own FFMPEG command line encoder settings??
    Not yet, but in a future version yes of course.
  • Hi Sirs.

    I´m trying the plugin and I found one annoying problem.. It doesn't matter what It keeps saying that FFmpeg was found but not a good enough version..

    I've tried uninstalling , manual installation and all possible option I could think of.. 
    Could you help me to get the green message saying that it found FFmpeg and It´s all perfect?

    thanks for everything and congrats for the great work
  • Hi Sirs.

    I´m trying the plugin and I found one annoying problem.. It doesn't matter what It keeps saying that FFmpeg was found but not a good enough version..

    I've tried uninstalling , manual installation and all possible option I could think of.. 
    Could you help me to get the green message saying that it found FFmpeg and It´s all perfect?

    thanks for everything and congrats for the great work
    Hi Andres,
    We're sorry for this inconvenience. Please fill out a ticket so that we can study this bug !
    Note : when rendering no matters what this text says it's using the ffmpeg it has found.
  • Dornisoft said:
    Hi Sirs.

    I´m trying the plugin and I found one annoying problem.. It doesn't matter what It keeps saying that FFmpeg was found but not a good enough version..

    I've tried uninstalling , manual installation and all possible option I could think of.. 
    Could you help me to get the green message saying that it found FFmpeg and It´s all perfect?

    thanks for everything and congrats for the great work
    Hi Andres,
    We're sorry for this inconvenience. Please fill out a ticket so that we can study this bug !
    Note : when rendering no matters what this text says it's using the ffmpeg it has found.
    I understand and realized that still works but it´s just frustrating I guess..
    watch the tutorial and see that green message that I never get.. rsrsr but that´s allright.. thanks anyway I'll fill out the ticket even though I'll write the same thing..

    thanks for the incredibly fast answer.
  • I understand and realized that still works but it´s just frustrating I guess..

    watch the tutorial and see that green message that I never get.. rsrsr but that´s allright.. thanks anyway I'll fill out the ticket even though I'll write the same thing..

    thanks for the incredibly fast answer.
    Tickets are best suited for tracking bugs, just copy paste what you wrote here.
  • Dornisoft said:
    I understand and realized that still works but it´s just frustrating I guess..

    watch the tutorial and see that green message that I never get.. rsrsr but that´s allright.. thanks anyway I'll fill out the ticket even though I'll write the same thing..

    thanks for the incredibly fast answer.
    Tickets are best suited for tracking bugs, just copy paste what you wrote here.
    already did, thanks a lot
  • Great to finally have this in After Effects.

    Just wondering if there is a way to manually set the bitrate of h264/5 outputs? or is it just the quality slider? Roughly what bitrate will you get with the slider at 100%?
  • Great to finally have this in After Effects.

    Just wondering if there is a way to manually set the bitrate of h264/5 outputs? or is it just the quality slider? Roughly what bitrate will you get with the slider at 100%?
    Yes I could add a bitrate/quality selection, what would be the use for you for example ?
     I'm going to do some tests to give an approximate range of bitrate according to the quality chosen.
  • Dornisoft said:
    Hi Mike,
    I'll investigate this. You want the file's metadata to say what variant of ProRes it is, right ?
    Thanks!  Yes, we would like the metadata in AE and Premiere to display what variant of ProRes the file is using.  
  • Guess I can't post images :(
  • Guess I can't post images :(
    You can post images, i just don't think those urls are direct image links. Please open a support ticket instead.

  • Dornisoft said:
    Hi Mike,
    I'll investigate this. You want the file's metadata to say what variant of ProRes it is, right ?
    Thanks!  Yes, we would like the metadata in AE and Premiere to display what variant of ProRes the file is using.  
    Thank you for the screenshot. I will release a new version of AfterCodecs this week with the feature you requested.
  • Bought your plugin. Went to test it. Get this error: 

    FFmpeg was not found on your computer !Please press the Download button in the Settings tab or do it manually from https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/

    I hit the download button. It says it downloads it. I can see that it installs it. I get the same error.

    I repeat about 6 times. I try creating a new directory on a different drive and put the ffmpeg files there. I direct the path to look there. I get the same error.

    Help?
  • Dornisoft said:
    Great to finally have this in After Effects.

    Just wondering if there is a way to manually set the bitrate of h264/5 outputs? or is it just the quality slider? Roughly what bitrate will you get with the slider at 100%?
    Yes I could add a bitrate/quality selection, what would be the use for you for example ?
     I'm going to do some tests to give an approximate range of bitrate according to the quality chosen.
    If you could display the approximate range of bitrate next to the quality slider then that would be perfect. You could even just write it in the help section when you hover over the slider. It's just that some clients want certain bitrates and its hard to know what bitrate you are encoding when all you have is a 0 > 100 slider. 
  • Bought your plugin. Went to test it. Get this error: 

    FFmpeg was not found on your computer !Please press the Download button in the Settings tab or do it manually from https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/

    I hit the download button. It says it downloads it. I can see that it installs it. I get the same error.

    I repeat about 6 times. I try creating a new directory on a different drive and put the ffmpeg files there. I direct the path to look there. I get the same error.

    Help?
    Hi Jonathan,
    We're sorry for this inconvenience. If you could fill out a ticket that would be great, I'll be able to follow you that way.

    If you could display the approximate range of bitrate next to the quality slider then that would be perfect. You could even just write it in the help section when you hover over the slider. It's just that some clients want certain bitrates and its hard to know what bitrate you are encoding when all you have is a 0 > 100 slider. 
    Ok I'm going to do that (not in the next version though) thank you for the info
  • I test the trial but after exit AE the plugin crashes AE (CC2017.2):


    Hello, I just tried your plugin and I noticed a lot of artifacts. I imported a ProRes4444 with alpha channel and encoded it with AfterCodecs in ProRes4444+Alpha and there are a lot of artifacts visible :


    Hi there,

    Our studio uses a big mix of Mac and PC.  We prefer to work with ProRes as much as possible, but our current PC ProRes codecs are dodgy at times.  I was really excited to here about this plugin, so we took it for a spin.  There are definitely some pipeline issues with having to use the format dropdown instead of out normal output settings when going back and forth on a Mac and PC, but that is workable for us.  

    The big issue we are having is the codec metadata display after rendering.  In the project panel, the codec is displayed as "Lavc57.64.101 prores_ks".  This is displayed no matter which ProRes format we are using.  There are no extra options in AE that will display the format.  We also checked Premiere, and none of the metadata columns display the additional information we need.  The only way we can see it is to right click the file and select "MediaInfo", which is not going to work for us if we have to quick-check codecs on 100 files.  Not sure if there is anything that can be done about this, but unfortunately we can't fit this otherwise amazing codec into our pipeline without that information.

    We'll keep watching for updates and responses and hopefully this can be fixed in the future :)
    Bugs fixed and metadata all in the latest version 1.1.2 !
  • Tried the update:

    AE 2017 ist still crashing during exit AE:

    Problemsignatur:
      Problemereignisname:    BEX64
      Anwendungsname:    AfterFX.exe
      Anwendungsversion:    14.2.0.198
      Anwendungszeitstempel:    58edc138
      Fehlermodulname:    StackHash_bee9
      Fehlermodulversion:    0.0.0.0
      Fehlermodulzeitstempel:    00000000
      Ausnahmeoffset:    PCH_B9_FROM_ntdll+0x0000000000090C6A
      Ausnahmecode:    c0000005
      Ausnahmedaten:    0000000000000008
      Betriebsystemversion:    6.3.9600.2.0.0.256.48
      Gebietsschema-ID:    1031
      Zusatzinformation 1:    bee9
      Zusatzinformation 2:    bee9a47c80a68100f3efab088603737d
      Zusatzinformation 3:    4bce
      Zusatzinformation 4:    4bcee3f9d05b8fad15d5e6f0af645cf1

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  • Tied the update:

    AE 2017 ist still crashing during exit AE

    Please open a support ticket for best handling of this issue https://aescripts.com/contact/?direct=1
  • Thanks for the update, indeed the bug I reported last week has been fixed !

    > Another question, is there any chance that your exporter will support higher resolution in the future ? Or is this a limitation of the FFMpeg encoder ?
    I'm on a current project with comps in 14716x2368 pixels.

    > Last question, I did a first export with AfterCodecs in 444, a second export in PNG sequence then I exported this sequence whitin Media Encoder on a Mac in ProRes444. Both files looks good almost the same (I supperpose the 2 files in Difference blending mode) ! My only concern is about the file size. The one encoded with AfterCodecs : 921mo, the one from MediaEncoder on a Mac : 551mo. Why such a difference ? Is your plugin not supposed to export lighter files ?
  • > Another question, is there any chance that your exporter will support higher resolution in the future ? Or is this a limitation of the FFMpeg encoder ?
    I'm on a current project with comps in 14716x2368 pixels.

    > Last question, I did a first export with AfterCodecs in 444, a second export in PNG sequence then I exported this sequence whitin Media Encoder on a Mac in ProRes444. Both files looks good almost the same (I supperpose the 2 files in Difference blending mode) ! My only concern is about the file size. The one encoded with AfterCodecs : 921mo, the one from MediaEncoder on a Mac : 551mo. Why such a difference ? Is your plugin not supposed to export lighter files ?
    x264 supports up to 4K (8 millions pixels) whereas 14716x2368 is 34 millions pixels..
    Maybe x265 or WebM supports your resolution (8K -> 33 millions pixels), but that depends on a lot of factors and also framerate so you'll have to test that (WebM is coming soon)

    The lighter files are with x264 / x265, ProRes is useful because it's available for Windows but the encoder are about the same than thoses of Apple. Concerning the filesize / 444 quality I'll do some test when I'll have a Mac.
  • Dornisoft said:
    > Another question, is there any chance that your exporter will support higher resolution in the future ? Or is this a limitation of the FFMpeg encoder ?
    I'm on a current project with comps in 14716x2368 pixels.

    > Last question, I did a first export with AfterCodecs in 444, a second export in PNG sequence then I exported this sequence whitin Media Encoder on a Mac in ProRes444. Both files looks good almost the same (I supperpose the 2 files in Difference blending mode) ! My only concern is about the file size. The one encoded with AfterCodecs : 921mo, the one from MediaEncoder on a Mac : 551mo. Why such a difference ? Is your plugin not supposed to export lighter files ?
    x264 supports up to 4K (8 millions pixels) whereas 14716x2368 is 34 millions pixels..
    Maybe x265 or WebM supports your resolution (8K -> 33 millions pixels), but that depends on a lot of factors and also framerate so you'll have to test that (WebM is coming soon)

    The lighter files are with x264 / x265, ProRes is useful because it's available for Windows but the encoder are about the same than thoses of Apple. Concerning the filesize / 444 quality I'll do some test when I'll have a Mac.
    Thank you for your quick answer. I know x264 is limited. It is why we render those big files only in ProRes. So i do precise my previous quesion, will your encoder be able to export those big files in ProRes (not x264 or x265) in a future update, or is it not possible ?
  • Dornisoft said:
    > Another question, is there any chance that your exporter will support higher resolution in the future ? Or is this a limitation of the FFMpeg encoder ?
    I'm on a current project with comps in 14716x2368 pixels.

    > Last question, I did a first export with AfterCodecs in 444, a second export in PNG sequence then I exported this sequence whitin Media Encoder on a Mac in ProRes444. Both files looks good almost the same (I supperpose the 2 files in Difference blending mode) ! My only concern is about the file size. The one encoded with AfterCodecs : 921mo, the one from MediaEncoder on a Mac : 551mo. Why such a difference ? Is your plugin not supposed to export lighter files ?
    x264 supports up to 4K (8 millions pixels) whereas 14716x2368 is 34 millions pixels..
    Maybe x265 or WebM supports your resolution (8K -> 33 millions pixels), but that depends on a lot of factors and also framerate so you'll have to test that (WebM is coming soon)

    The lighter files are with x264 / x265, ProRes is useful because it's available for Windows but the encoder are about the same than thoses of Apple. Concerning the filesize / 444 quality I'll do some test when I'll have a Mac.
    Thank you for your quick answer. I know x264 is limited. It is why we render those big files only in ProRes. So i do precise my previous quesion, will your encoder be able to export those big files in ProRes (not x264 or x265) in a future update, or is it not possible ?
    I can't answer for now, I'll do some tests. Are you currently able to use ProRes for your giant comp ? Please open a support ticket it's better for discussion