Watch folders with subfolders
Watch folders should be able to also watch and encode from subfolders. Having all footage in one folder or having to create multiple watch folders is very inefficient and impractical when dealing with a lot of footage.
I would also like to be able to use Media Encoder to automatically render small HEVC backup files of all new footage to be sent to offsite backup. Setting my whole video project directory as a watch folder with subfolders would allow this; the output folder would be easy to back up.

3 comments
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R Brouns commented
It's not workable for larger companies with render machines.
If we use After Effects -> Consolidate Footage, it creates a subfolder in a watchfolder by itself.
A render machine doesn't detect any compositions in the Watch folder because they're in a subfolder.We need people to manually cut/paste compositions and their dependencies into the root of a watch folder. Really unworkable!
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Matteo Lepore commented
Totally agree. A watch folder with recursive function would be necessary in this software.
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Allan Houston commented
A general overhaul of Watch Folder functionality would be good. It's got great potential but there are some limitations. Individual folders for the source video isn't really necessary - it would be good to have the option to have the files moved to a folder of your choice or just put them in one 'source' folder.
There also seems to be no way to edit the watch folder location or duplicate the watch folder setting and change the location so that you could have folders for individual projects without the need to set up everything again. For instance, I would export in a high-bitrate version that is then converted to a youtube preset and a 480p preview format so that final checks can be made and the preview version is uploaded to frame.io if there are issues or final changes to be commented on, while the youtube format is uploaded for delivery to the client.