Create a Video MP4 File

These files are found in the ME_video folder. Remember to keep a backup copy of these originals if you need to practice with them again.

In Media Encoder, make sure to add these 10 files the Queue panel with the plus (+) icon, and make sure that their format settings are H.264. Refer to Figure 29-1.

Likewise, if you have any other files from earlier chapters that are not part of this project, select them and use the minus (–) to remove them for now. When Adobe’s alert asks if you are sure you want to remove the selected items and their settings from the Queue, choose Yes. Refer to Figure 29-2.

Your Queue panel should look something like what’s seen in Figure 29-3. None of the files is stitched together; however, your Output File column will probably be different from mine.

Click each output link and find a folder that you would like to output the file to. Rendering a large number files on a drive can cause some computers to labor or crash. A good idea is to work with your files on an external drive. The files I have presented are relatively small, so they should be OK if you want to work off your own computer’s drive; it’s up to you.

In the scene1_man_zoom_out_r2.mov file, click the Format column’s H.264 link to enter the Export Settings dialog box for that file. Refer to Figure 29-4.

There is very little editing that needs to be done to this file. It is already set at preset Match Source - High bit rate. The correct dimensions are 640×480, and from the Source summary you can see it is running at 30 fps. That is because this animation will be part of the introduction for a Photoshop video called Hot Glass Tango. These animations never contained any audio, so you can uncheck Export Audio, but it will make a trivial difference to the final export size. Refer to Figure 29-5.

The one area that you want to adjust is making a minor clip at the beginning of the video to remove an odd camera angle that remains when Animate converted the FLA file to a MOV file. Refer to Figure 29-6.

The first frame looks rather odd. So, you need to move the left clip point inward by at least a fraction so that it does not register on the start time. To figure this out, move the blue playhead slowly toward the right until you see the frame seen in Figure 29-7.

Now drag the left set point to the same location to clip it from that point, and remove any footage beforehand. Refer to Figure 29-8.

Remember to use the preview screen as your guide if you are unsure of the correct point. Your end time the on left has removed about a frame; 00:00:02:09 is now 00:00:02:08 (hours: minutes: seconds: frames). The Source Range changes from Entire Clip to Custom.

If you want, you can drag the playhead to the end, but you do not need to adjust the right set point because the frames for the rest of the animation are good.

When you are done, click OK to exit the Export Settings dialog box and confirm your changes. Refer to Figure 29-9.

Media Encoder saves your changes, and you can go back to this area any time to adjust your set points before your export.

In all cases, the main area you need to adjust is the left set point marker to fix the first camera angle. Usually, it is no more than a frame or less off the left. Use these images as your guides. Refer to Figure 29-10.

Now let’s look at the MVI_7052.avi file. If you play this file in your computer’s media player, you notice that it has audio in it. All the camera video footage files that I used in Part 2 were originally either MOV or AVI. They all contained audio. However, this audio was not relevant to the storyline, so rather than import directly into Photoshop, I first converted them to an MP4 file in Media Encoder and removed the audio before I exported them. This AVI file has audio that you are now going to remove before exporting. Click the H.264 under the name of the file to enter its Export Settings dialog box. Refer to Figure 29-11.

The entire video clip is a little over 16 seconds long. For practice, you may want to clip this down to 5 seconds. I leave that decision to you.

The next setting you need to adjust is on the right of the preview; you need to uncheck Export Audio. This sets the preset to custom, but everything else remains the same. Refer to Figure 29-12.

This file is 640×480; it runs at 30 fps. With the removal of audio, any additional clipping made to the video reduces its file size further. Click OK to confirm changes and return to the Queue panel. Refer to Figure 29-13.

Finally, let’s look at the MVI_1361.MOV file. This time, you are working with a MOV file that was shot using a Canon camera, and not created in Animate. When you click the H.264 icon to enter the Export Settings dialog box, the dimensions of the file are different than the others. You need to make some changes so that this file conforms with the size and frame rate of the others if you want to use them together for your project. I referred to this in Chapter 7. In an ideal set up, make sure that any cameras you shoot video with are running in the same frame rate and ratio dimensions. This introduces fewer issues into your workflow, especially when combining your film. Refer to Figure 29-14.

As you may have discovered, however, you don’t always get ideal footage from clients, so be prepared to find work-arounds.

The entire video clip is about 28 seconds, but if you want to make it about 15 seconds, I leave that up to you.

On the right, uncheck Export Audio. This sets the preset to custom. as seen in Figure 29-15.

Review the Summary settings. Two things stand out. The current dimensions are 1920×1080, and the frames rate is set at 23.976, which is close to 24 fps.

Your goal for this part of the project is to make sure the dimensions are 640×480 and that the video runs at 30 fps.

Click on the Video Tab, so that you can start adjusting the Basic Video Settings. Some of the areas you saw in Chapter 26 are grayed out for now. Refer to Figure 29-16.

First, uncheck width and height on the right so that you can access the numbers as seen in Figure 29-17.

Make sure to keep the width and height linked and enter 480 in the height. This keeps the ratio roughly at 4:3 standard aspect and makes the width 852. The video is not distorted. Refer to Figure 29-18.

More information on aspect ratio and standard size is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_(image) .

If you know that you are going to use this file in Photoshop (see Part 2), I recommend that you do not make any further changes to the width, because you can always use that extra width to move your video around and center it in the final 640×480 video. Likewise, for Photoshop, you could leave the video at its original size and make it a Smart Object that could be scaled to suit your needs.

This footage is going directly on to the web, so you need to make sure that its width is 640 to conform with the other AVI video. You’ll adjust that in moment. For now, let’s deal with the frame rate.

Uncheck the Frame Rate option. Refer to Figure 29-19.

From the Frame Rate drop-down menu, choose 30, as seen in Figure 29-20.

Now let’s deal with the width dimension issue. Go back to Width and height in the Video tab and unlink them. Change the width to 640, which chops off some of the left and right sides of the video preview. Refer to Figure 29-21.

This leaves a black edge at the top and bottom, which you don’t want. Refer to Figure 29-22.

So, in the output Tab on the upper left changes the source scaling from Scale To Fit to Scale To Fill. Refer to Figure 29-23.

This looks much better. Refer to Figure 29-24.

In some video, this may cause a minor distortion, but this is a good work-around for a tight deadline.

Do not use Stretch To Fill because it distorts the picture.

The Export Settings and Summary for output are now correct for this project, as seen in Figure 29-25.

Keep these steps in mind if you ever receive a piece of footage that does not match the footage size dimension or frame rate of your other video file. It is best to scale down a high-definition video file. Avoid and never scale upward, as this reduces quality. Ideally, you want the best possible video display. Also, a minor adjustment of a few frames from 24 to 30 should not impact the quality of your file. Remember to always keep a copy of the original footage in case you need to reset the settings or use it in another program.

At this point, you can click OK to exit and confirm the Export Settings in the dialog box. Refer to Figure 29-26.

You have no more adjustments to make; you are ready to export your files to MP4. If you have not already, make sure that you have set the correct Output File folder for each video.

When you are ready, click the green Start Queue button on the upper right of the Queue panel. Refer to Figure 29-27.

Allow time for the files to render, as seen in Figure 29-28.

A green check appears when you are done, and a progress bar appears as each file is exporting and rendering. At the same time, you see some action in the Encoding panel as the file previews and completes. Refer to Figure 29-29.

You can press the red Stop square if you need to stop the rendering and abort your projects.

Also, if you realize you made a mistake, after rendering, click the file format and choose Reset Status. Refer to Figure 29-30.

Reset the file to ready so that you can render and overwrite the earlier MP4. If you don’t want to overwrite, make sure to give the file a new name in the Output File column, such as mvi_7052_2.mp4.

You have completed the first project, and you are ready to move on to the second project. At this point, you can remove any files from the Queue panel (–).

Create an Audio MP3 File and a WAV File

In the empty source panel, add the AVI file from the ME_sounds_vid folder. You find MVI_7229.avi and (.THM), which does not and cannot export into Media Encoder. That’s OK only work with the AVI. Refer to Figure 29-31.

This is simply a video that is the duration of the sound, so that I could capture the audio. I put my camera microphone near the object creating the sound, and then pointed the camera near some cloth, since I was not intending to capture any actual action.

Alternatively, you may want to capture sound using your smartphone, as I did in Chapter 27, with the 3GA files. However, there may be times when you want to capture action and sound together, and then use the sound from that footage in another area of the video or for J-cuts and L-cuts, as you learned about in Part 2.

Change the format to MP3 from the drop-down menu. Refer to Figure 29-32.

Now right-click the selected file and choose to duplicate, as seen in Figure 29-33.

Change the duplicate to Waveform Audio, as seen in Figure 29-34.

Set a location for the two output files. The files are quite small, so you may not need to render to an external drive; your own computer’s drive should be OK.

Click on the MP3 icon to go into the Export Settings dialog box. Refer to Figure 29-35.

There you find that only Export Audio is available.

The duration of the audio is about 20 seconds.

Going down to the preview area, drag the left and right set point in by about a second (hours: minutes: seconds: frames) on each side. The sound does not start until at least a second in, and then trails off at the end. Unfortunately, you can’t preview sound in Media Encoder, but you can use your computer’s media player to give you an idea of where the sound starts and stops. Refer to Figure 29-36.

When you are done, click OK to exit the Export Settings dialog box and return to the Queue panel. Refer to Figure 29-37.

Then repeat these steps for the WAV file.

In the lower left of the Export Settings dialog box (see Figure 29-37), notice that the WAV file does not show the Estimated File Size. Nevertheless, the file is still small, but at least more than a megabyte larger than the MP3. Refer to Figure 29-38 for settings.

When done, click OK to return to the Queue panel.

When you are ready, click the green arrow to start the queue; each audio file should export to the selected output folder. Refer to Figure 29-39.

Once complete, you can go to that folder and check the audio in your computer’s media player to see if you extracted the correct amount of sound. If you discover that you made a mistake, right-click the selected file and choose Reset Status, and adjust before you export again. Refer to Figure 29-40.

Remember, if you don’t want to overwrite an audio file, give the file a new name in the Output File column before you export.

If you have an MOV file or another video format, you can try extracting the sound from that file. Also, if you have any audio files that you want to convert to either MP3 or WAV, try doing that now.

When you are done, if you have a lot of audio, organize your new files into folders on your drive, like MP3 or WAV.

You can now close Media Encoder without making any further changes and File ➤ Exit the program. You have completed the second project, and you are ready to move to Part 6 to work with Dreamweaver.

Summary

In this chapter, you reviewed how to create video and audio for the Hot Glass Tango website. This chapter concludes your study of Media Encoder CC. Make sure to review any areas of Part 5 that you don’t understand so that you feel comfortable working with your own files in Media Encoder.

In Part 6, you journey to the center of the software maze: Adobe Dreamweaver CC. You’ll discover how it can be used create a mobile website with your images, animations, audio, and video files.