Add back rendering support for H264 codec directly out of AE
Around 2012 you removed the option for rendering a .mp4 file directly out of AE. Please add it back. The work around is to either render in a different codec and compress that in media encoder, or to launch the render directly from media encoder from AE (which is extremely slow and cumbersome, especially when you have large/complex project files). Not sure why removing functionality seemed like a good idea at the time...?

57 comments
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Michael commented
Adobe with every version tries hard to users leave adobe suite. This is most stupid thing i've ever seen. Oh, no! the most stupid thing in AE for example was not support professional graphics cards and not follow standards in graphic industry. Sick leftist minds!
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Prowl commented
What people don't seem to get that is if you export to the ME Render Queue you can carry on working...
There are some features in the AE queue that are missing from the ME - Queue I think.
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Elnatan Rodrigues commented
Por favor, habilitem o codec H.264 no After Effects, o Dynamic Link vive dando problemas, e eu acabo tendo que renderizar duas vezes meu vídeo (uma em .mov no After e outra em .MP4 no Premiere). Esse Dynamic Link presta para nada, ao transferir o vídeo para o Media Encoder, o Dynamic Link fica carregando e não funciona a renderização! Esse bug está atrasando minha vida, seria mil vezes melhor ter o codec H.A64 no After para renderizar direot em .mp4
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David Sapadin commented
No H.264 in AE Render Engine anymore? Whaddya nuts????
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Janne Wolterbeek commented
Media Encoder workflow from AE works fine for me now, just need getting used to a bit.
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Lachlan Phillips commented
Adobe should buy out After Codecs and integrate it. This is like showing up to a 5 star restaurant and finding out that it's BYO cutlery...
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Antoine (Autokroma.com) commented
You can use https://aescripts.com/aftercodecs/ you will have a better quality or lower filesize than Adobe's H264 and directly into AE native render queue
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Alexey Ivanov commented
for parallel rendering of several projects from the command line or terminal. Especially for this, I wrote a script. and now it is useless.
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MrBeep commented
@Victoria Nece
What is the reason the H264 files are not rendered directly out of AE and people has to use ME? -
Monte Simard commented
This is an especially important issue for freelancers who may not have or may not be able to install AME on the computers provided to them. H.264 is still an ideal WIP codec, and it can be painful to budgets and to sanity to force users to wait on AME when it still feels like the Dynamic Link from AE to AME is at beta quality at best.
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Corey Dimond commented
Why hasn't After Effects made some kind of statement regarding this? Offered an alternative workflow? Anything?
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Anonymous commented
@David Simonton - Exporting h.264 from the media encoder results in colors that do not match what is shown in the composition. They look much more saturated. It's a color space issue and currently there is no way to manage colors in Media Encoder. I never experienced this problem with the old render que option. It's a problem when you've got clients demanding very specific color values. The work around is to de-saturate colors in the comp then guess what the results will be after rendering. No one should have to do this though, it's ridiculous.
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Media Encoder supports H264 in an mp4 container. Will your clients accept that as an alternative?
And you have two ways to store and eyedropper color swatches in AE: use the Adobe Color Themes panel (Window > Extensions > Adobe Color Themes) to create palettes, and you'll see them in the Libraries panel as well.
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robot commented
Why should I have to open a second application just to export a file, when it used to work perfectly from AE render queue. It's ridiculous... There used to be tons of formats to choose from in the render queue. Now it's a graveyard.
It's like writing a document in Word, and to print it, you have to open an additional printing application
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Antoine (Autokroma.com) commented
Also, if you need a quick preview render aescripts.com/aftercodecs/ will be even faster than the previous built-in H264 codec (use Speed=8 and Quality = 80 !)
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Annie commented
It'd be GREAT to be able to get our videos in these formats. Thanks.
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Michael Stephenson commented
I 2nd this ... I require the ability to export H264 straight from After Effects. I used to have it and it was a far superior workflow than adding an extra step to AME. Some people use AE in industries other than film and TV and the removal of H264 export form AE is a major pain **********.
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Franklin Nin commented
A better idea would be simply to add the export dialogue of AME to AE, as PPro has, so all (AE, Ame and PPro) are in harmony with the same export dialogue.
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Giridhar commented
same here, it was a quick alternative to get a small file rendered for preview purposes.
What is the need to remove it!! -
Anonymous commented
If I have a project that has Variable Frame Rate H.264 footage and interpret the footage to Smooth Video and then collect and transfer this project, I find that the Variable Frame Rate option has been reset back to Preserve Audio Sync!