When working with Adobe’s software that’s used to edit or create video and audio, whether that’s After Effects, Premiere Pro, Audition, and so on, there’s a dedicated panel to export and render your project. However, in most of their standalone software, you also have the option to send the completed project to the Adobe Media Encoder.
In doing so, a separate application will open, and from here, you can then also export your final project. However, given that the application somewhat mirrors the pop-up render box from the native software you’re using, is there an inherent difference to just simply rendering in the creative application? Let’s take a look.
Continue Working While Rendering
If you’re using the likes of Premiere, we must first acknowledge that when you open the Export panel it’s actually a Media Encoder panel, but opened within Premiere. So, if we’re already opening Media Encoder to a degree, is there a need to open the standalone application?
To explore this, we first need to run through the process of exporting a video through Premiere. With our edit complete, we’d simply navigate to File>Export>Media.
Here, an export panel will pop up, allowing us to select what format we want to render the video in. We can either select the output information or choose from a variety of presets. Upon hitting Export, the edit will begin rendering.
At this point, you won’t be able to return to your edit or do anything else within Premiere because Premiere Pro itself is under intense CPU and GPU processing. It automatically locks itself from further use. And, this is typical of most editing or compositing software. Just like DaVinci Resolve, as soon as you hit render, you need to leave the software alone while it exports your video.
In most circumstances, this isn’t an issue. When I set a project to render, it’s usually a good time to catch up on some reading. Conversely, when it’s deadline day and I could use those twenty minutes of exporting to continue editing the next scene, or perhaps refining the color grading of another project, this is time wasted. This is where Media Encoder comes into play.
Following the same steps as before—File>Export>Media—but instead of hitting export, this time select Queue. Upon doing so, Premiere Pro will send the project to Adobe Media Encoder.
The layout of the application and user interface is similar to Adobe’s other software, so it should take no time to understand the workspace. Our file that we’ve sent to the queue is placed into the Queue panel, and the format and preset we selected in the Export panel have already been applied. However, if you need to adjust the export format, you can do so by finding the format in the preset browser or clicking the format link to re-open the Premiere Pro format dialogue box.
Upon hitting the Export button (a play icon), Media Encoder will render the project.
Now, you may initially think, “Well, what’s different than doing this in Premiere? It’s near enough the same thing.”
Well, because Media Encoder is a separate application, after hitting Export, we can then jump back to Premiere and start a new project or continue editing the project rendering without affecting the export!
As Media Encoder creates a temporary clone of your sequence for the export process, it allows you to continue working on the currently exported edit. If you’re exporting a rough draft for the client to review, this is incredibly efficient as it allows you to continue refining the edit instead of letting that time slip away.
Efficient Batch Processing
Alternatively, you may have other projects that you also need to render. If you use Premiere Pro’s default export option, you have to individually export each project and wait for each project to finish rendering before you can export another. With Media Encoder, you can add each project straight from Premiere’s project manager into the Media Encoder queue and batch process several projects at once. Again, incredibly efficient in comparison to exporting each project one at a time.
Likewise, we can also create multiple outputs for just one video. This is perfect for when you have to do several exports of the same project for various delivery destinations, such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.
For example, if you export a MOV file to upload to YouTube, you’re unable to also post that video to Twitter as, through the desktop application, Twitter only accepts MP4.
In Media Encoder, you can create two outputs on the one project file to render consecutively to have both an MP4 and MOV files. Again, if you did this within Premiere, you’d need to export both the MP4 and MOV render separately. In the image below, I’ve got three separate exports reading for export. A Twitter-friendly video, a standard MOV export for Facebook, and a Vimeo export, all of which I created using the Web Presets.
Adobe’s suite is certainly powerful, and for many creatives, it’s their go-to. However, as different components are spread out over their software, the export process can sometimes get messy. This is especially true if you’re creating videos in Premiere, motion graphics in After Effects, then mastering your audio in Audition.
Again, harnessing the processing power of Media Encoder, we can take those projects and add them to the Media Encoder queue, allowing us to create an organized structure for our exports.
Thanks to Adobe’s Dnyamic Link Server, after importing the composition from After Effects or the project from Premiere Pro, you can also close the creative software and let Media Encoder render the files.
Transcoding
Additionally, Adobe Media Encoder is excellent as a transcoder. The encoder houses a wide variety of presets, far more than you will find in the standard export dialogue box. As a result, you’ll be able to easily transcode your media for low-resolution editing and playback without ever needing to open Premiere.
Not sure what transcoding is? Think of this example. Let’s say you’ve returned from a shoot, and the client wants to select what takes of the product to use. Sending over the original files will be a data-heavy process, and likely a lengthy process, too.
So, it’d be in your best interest to create transcoded files with a form of compression that would nullify the original file size. You can do this in Premiere within the media browser panel and run through the ingest dialog box. However, this is a tedious process.
Instead, you can easily add files to the Media Encoder by simply dropping them into the queue, selecting the compressed format, then exporting the files ready to be transferred to the client. Additionally, suppose you wanted to give the client some visual idea of how the project will look when edited. In that case, you can also apply LUTs inside of the Media Encoder without having to open Premiere Pro or After Effects.
If you only need one output from your project and have no need to continue working while your project is exporting, you can stick with the default export module within Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, etc.
However, if you need to render multiple export outputs or additional projects consecutively, be sure to take advantage of Media Encoder to increase your post-production efficiency.
For more Adobe tips and resources, check out the articles below:
Cover image via monticello.
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