The Adobe Media Encoder is a video rendering application that comes bundled with
This streamlined workflow helps you quickly encode files for virtually any screen.
You can also create templates that contain your commonly used render and output-module settings and share them with your team to ensure consistent quality and naming on all your renders.
It’s a powerful, yet overlokked application for encoding your video projects into a variety of codecs and file formats.
It’s most often used to create web-friendly video files.
So what exactly is the Adobe Media Encoder? Why do you need it? And how does it make exporting faster?
Let’s find out.
adobe media encoder
What Is adobe media encoder?
Adobe Media Encoder is a powerful and efficient batch-processing tool that provides the ability to encode a wide range of audio, video, and image formats. It’s perfect for encoding video files in high-volume production workflows.
For example, you might use an encoder to convert a number of different versions of a presentation into various formats for playback on a variety of mobile devices.
The Adobe Media Encoder software is available as part of Creative Cloud. This simple-to-use tool supports many different video, audio, and image formats as inputs, including MP3, AAC, JPEG, FLV, MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, Sony XAVC/XDCAM EX, Fujifilm HD and Apple ProRes.
It also supports various output file formats like H.264 and WebP to help you distribute your content across multiple channels for viewing on any device.
Using Adobe Media Encoder with
What Is The Adobe Media Encoder Used For?
Adobe Media Encoder is an application that compresses videos and audio files. It was introduced by Adobe in the 1990s.
The Adobe Media Encoder software can take a video or an audio file and compress it for web use.
The file can be compressed in different formats and there are many different settings you can use to control the compression level.
The compression level will depend on what you want to do with your file. If you are looking to share files online, then a lower compression level is recommended because it will allow for better playback for most users.
If you are uploading files to a site where bandwidth is limited, then higher compression levels will be needed.
For the best quality and playback experience, uploading at 50% quality will give you the best results.
This also makes it possible to upload videos in small sizes, which is important if you are working with limited bandwidth on your server or if there is not a lot of storage space on your site.
You can also change the bit rate that you are using, which will affect how fast the video plays and how clear it looks.
Using Adobe Media Encoder
In this tutorial, I’ll introduce you to the interface and workflow of Adobe Media Encoder.
To start a new project in Adobe Media Encoder, click on File > New Queue or press Ctrl+N. This will open up a window, where you can select the file that you want to encode.
Once you’ve selected your file, click on Open to add it to the encoder queue. The file is then displayed in the queue window with some information about it:
- The name of the file.
- The file format.
- The status of the file (Queued or In Progress).
- The estimated time it will take to encode your video.
In the lower right corner of the queue window, you’ll see how many items are currently in your encoding queue and how long it’s going to take to encode all of them.
Is Adobe Media Encoder Necessary?
Adobe Media Encoder is a free video transcoding tool that can be used by content creators to convert files from one format to another.
However, it might not be worth downloading if you’re not a professional content creator or editor.
This article will help you determine whether Adobe Media Encoder is the right video transcoder for you.
Adobe Media Encoder allows users to create output files in different formats, including Apple ProRes, H.264, and MXF. It supports batch processing, meaning you can use it to convert a large number of files at once (up to 250).
What Can You Do With Adobe Media Encoder?
If you work in film production, television production, or other forms of professional video editing, then Adobe Media Encoder might be right for you.
The software allows filmmakers and other professionals to take footage in any format and turn it into another format they need for editing or posting on the Web.
For example, if your camera shoots in .mov and you’re going to edit with an NLE that only accepts .mp4 files, then Media Encoder.
Adobe Media Encoder Encoding Panel
Media encoder is a complete video production suite, with essential tools for transcoding, recording, and broadcasting professional video content.
AME is easy to use, has a familiar interface based on Adobe CS4 products, and includes all the essential features you need to transcode and export video content.
Description:
AME can be used to convert your media files into different formats and resolutions so they are compatible with various devices and applications.
This includes mobile phones, tablets, HD televisions, digital signs, Blu-Ray players, web browsers, video streaming services (such as YouTube), video editing software (such as Final Cut Pro), and more.
Features:
Convert your media files – AME offers a variety of file conversion options including H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, Windows Media Video 9, Apple ProRes 422, MPEG-2 HDV 1080i50/60 formats.
It also supports outputting 4K Ultra HD content with 4Kp60 QuickTime MOV export options.
Adobe Media Encoder Queue Panel
Queue: The Queue panel is where you set up and manage your encoding jobs. You can set up multiple jobs in the queue, but Media Encoder will only encode one at a time.
Each job you add to the queue gets its own tab in the Queue panel where you can configure and manage it.
Tasks: In addition to setting up multiple jobs within the queue, the Tasks pane lists tasks that were added to the queue for specific jobs.
For example, if you added a task to perform an analysis on a job, that task appears in this pane for that specific job. This panel is useful for keeping track of tasks and performing additional actions on them.
Filters: The Filters pane shows all available jobs in the queue, allowing you to filter by properties like name or date added.
Status: The Status pane at the bottom of the page displays details about each job currently being encoded or uploaded.
You can view details such as encoding progress and status, start time, duration, and average bit rate. You can also pause or stop encoding jobs from this pane.
When you need to encode a few videos in a row, make sure that the encoder doesn’t go over all of your processing power and slow down the encoding process.
Trying to encode a long video and set the audio parameters while still being able to work on other tasks can be very uncomfortable, especially when working with lower-end computing systems.
Adobe Media Encoder Preset Browser
Within the Adobe Media Encoder Preset Browser, you’ll find hundreds of professionally designed presets for common video output scenarios. These presets are completely customizable and can be applied to any Media Encoder workflow.
Tuning the quality, compression and bit rate settings of your output file is simple and intuitive. Each preset provides a variety of controls that can be adjusted as needed.
The Preset Browser also provides a preview window where you can see a real-time image of your video file. This enables you to monitor the quality before encoding.
The Preset Browser displays presets based on the selected delivery medium and format in the Export Settings dialog box.
For example, if the selected medium is YouTube, presets are split into categories based on what aspect ratio they support: 16:9, 4:3, etc.
If the selected format is Web optimized or VOD, you’ll see presets categorized by output bit rate.
Adobe Media Encoder Presets are templates that make it easier to encode your videos to specific formats, resolutions, frame rates, and bit rates.
Media Encoder presets can be used as-is or you can customize them to suit your needs.
Adobe Media Encoder Watch Folder
Enable Adobe Media Encoder Watch Folder in order to build a queue of files that can be processed by Adobe Media Encoder.
When new files appear in the folder, they will be automatically added to the queue.
Adobe Media Encoder Watch Folder helps you automate the encoding process by automatically adding new content to your encoding queue with customizable file naming templates.
Create multiple Adobe Media Encoder Watch Folders and use more than one simultaneously.
Important: Adobe Media Encoder Watch Folders are not supported on Mac OS X 10.9 or newer.
Add an Adobe Media Encoder Watch Folder
You can add an existing folder or create a new one using any of the following methods:
Drag and drop folders from a file system browser onto the workflow pane in Adobe Media Encoder.
Double-click an existing folder from a file system browser to open it for editing, then choose Add Folder to work area from the context menu.
Right-click any folder from a file system browser and choose Add Folder to Work Area from the context menu.
Copy and paste folders from a file system browser into the Add Folder field on the workflow pane in Adobe Media Encoder.
Adding Files To Adobe Media Encoder
Add files from the desktop using Adobe’s Creative Cloud desktop app. Once you have added the files, you can then select the output settings, change the output format (output settings), and then set advanced options if necessary.
The image below shows the file dialogue box that is used to select which source files you want to add to Adobe Media Encoder.
You will use this dialogue box to select all of the files that you want added to Adobe Media Encoder.
The easiest way to do this is simply to click “Add” on the bottom left hand of the dialogue box, followed by selecting your desired output folder from the drop-down menu on the next screen.
Once you have selected all of your desired source files, click “Open”. This will bring up a new dialogue box titled “File Settings”, which is used for changing any desired output settings for your media files.
Browsing For Adobe Media Encoder Files
Identifying your critical files and backing them up is important, but what happens if you accidentally delete or corrupt a file?
You can use your Adobe Media Encoder (AME) files as an extra layer of protection. Once you’ve completed encoding a video, AME creates a backup file of the project settings, which can be used as a reference if you ever need to start fresh.
How to find your AME backups
Launch AME and click on the button labeled “Preferences”. Click on “Media Storage”, then click on the “Show” button next to “Media Storage Location”.
The location of your AME backups will be displayed in the dialog box. The backup folder will be named with a date and time stamp.
How to restore an AME backup file
Launch AME and open the project that needs to be restored. From the main menu bar, select “File > Open All Files”.
Select the backup file from your computer that was created when you encoded the project. This will overwrite any existing project settings that are currently stored in memory.
IFEdit can help with other common editing tasks like cutting out commercials, adjusting audio levels and more. Check out our complete guide to IFEdit.
Importing From After Effects To Adobe Media Encoder
You can import clips from Adobe
To import a clip from
Navigate to and select your file, and then click Open.
Double-click an image sequence (the pictures) to display it in the viewer panel, and use the viewer controls to play back the animation.
Note that you can see only one frame of each image sequence at a time in this view, so you might want to expand the panel width. ChooseView > Panels > Expand Panels) to see more frames at once.
You can use any of the standard transforms (Rotate, Scale, and so on) on image sequences using the same controls used for other sources, such as video files or audio files.
You can also apply effects like Auto Color Correction and Auto Contrast by choosing them from the Effect menu.
Importing From Premiere Pro To Adobe Media Encoder
One of the features that often proves frustrating to Premiere Pro users is the ability to directly import a project into Adobe Media Encoder. If you have an appropriate preset, the process is fairly simple.
This process will work for any file type as long as your source media is in the correct location.
Go to Window > Output Module and make sure Adobe Media Encoder is selected as your output module (For PC users, this should have defaulted to Adobe Media Encoder).
Click on Settings and choose the destination where your files will be exported to. If you have multiple exports, click on Add new destination and choose the new location for your exported files.
Click on Browse in the Preset section and choose which preset you would like to use with this render job. Once you have chosen your preset, click OK.
You can then drag and drop your media from Premier Pro into Adobe Media Encoder or select it directly from Media Browser>Premiere Pro Library>Masters.
