When people think about video in HTML5, they usually think H.264. But many browsers also support Theora (.ogv) and WebM, two video formats that have the advantage of being truly open, with no patent licensing fees required for the privilege of using them.
Theora and WebM actually share a common heritage in the VPX codecs created by On2 Technologies. On2 gave their VP3 codec to the Xiph.Org Foundation in 2001, while Google got VP8 when it acquired On2 in 2010. Now both codecs, once proprietary, are open source and freely available, attempting to unseat H.264 as the preferred web video format.
The only problem is that my favorite video editor, Adobe Premiere Pro, has no way of reading or writing these formats…until now. I've taken the open source encoders and built Premiere plug-ins around them (they also work in Adobe Media Encoder). The plug-ins themselves are open source as well, currently in a beta release. Find download links in the ReadMe on their respective GitHub pages:
The Theora repository also has a plug-in for using Ogg/Vorbis, Opus, and FLAC audio files in Premiere. Vorbis is a similarly free alternative to MP3 (Both Theora and WebM use it for audio compression), Opus is a new high-quality codec, and FLAC is the Free Lossless Audio Codec.
WebM is actively being developed by Google. There is talk of supporting alpha channels and lossless compression in the future. If they follow through, WebM could become a reasonable movie format for use in production.
Please download, experiment, and send feedback. And enjoy!
Update: the WebM plug-in is now released!
Update: the WebM plug-in is now released!
53 comments:
Thx mate, i was searching for an easy way to batch-convert these files for more than 2 years now! Awesome!!!
I can't thank you enough for this, you have saved me a ton of work.
Thanks for the post mate
Hi Brendan,
I'm trying to download your Webm plugin for Premiere Pro, but the file seems to be offline. Is it elsewhere available?
I just tried it and it seems file. Use the links on the GitHub page.
Yes, I tried it and it workt fine. Your website www.fnordware.com was also offline, but it's up again.
Thanks for the quick reply!
Note when I downloaded the AdobeWebM and unstuffed it the plugin file it was called WebM Premiere.bundle. I searched in Google and found someone said to rename it WebM Premiere.plugin. This worked. FYI. Thank you for the plugn.
Did using .bundle not work in some version of Premiere? That's the extension still used by the internal plug-ins that are installed with Premiere CC, and the extension used by the most recent version of the Premiere SDK.
Is there any way to create a movie with lossless vp9 compression with this plugin? I have been trying the custom args field but haven't had any success just yet.
I think Google still has some work to do on the lossless feature, but try using "--min-q=0 --max-q=0" in the custom args field.
Note that lossless VP9 still converts the RGB image to a 4:2:0 YUV image, so there will still some artifacts created with that step. But you should be able compress the image losslessly after that.
An article pointed out that Miro Video Converter produces smaller files. Why is that?
http://provideocoalition.com/ryoung/story/webm-in-premiere-and-after-effects
I saw that, but it doesn't really make sense because with WebM you specify any bit rate you want. Anyone can make a smaller file if they lower the quality. Maybe they're just comparing the default settings?
Since I assume we're using the same open source encoders, I would think that you get virtually identical files if you match the settings. The way I mux the movie may be a little different, but that should be negligible compared to the video and audio data.
Thanks. I'll have to compare again, and pay better attention to setting. You have opened up options by argument, but I don't know what to adjust, or how!
This really helped a lot, thank you!
I have downloaded the plugins for premier, placed them in the plugin folder and now I am lost. I cannot find them - should they be in the effects panel?
Are there any instuctions on how to use the plugins to make a ogg and webm video?
As you can tell I am a novice but would like to learn.
These are import/export plug-ins. If you go to File > Export > Media you should see WebM or Theora as output formats.
Thanks for your help. I also read the test file and knew where to put the files.
I have created the ogg and webm files.
Now I need to put a viewer on my site.
Thanks for the article Fnord software blog. Will check out these plug-ins.
Does this plugin work with Premiere CC? I'm trialing it presently, considering switching from CS6.
Nevermind. Reading FTW. Just saw the readme mentions CC. Awesomesauce!
Do you have any tips on how to get a 47.952 frame rate option for WebM/VP9? Thanks either way!
I should just add that as an option in the pulldown, along with 48.0 fps.
Do you have material with this frame rate? Where did it come from?
47.952 fps has been added and a new beta has been posted.
That would be awesome!
Yeah, I shot a bunch of stock video on the RED Epic at 48fps (just to give options to the end user).
When trying to encode to VP9 in Premiere Pro CC 2014 I'm getting insanely long est. render times. Any ideas on what could be causing it and/or how to fix?
Yes, VP9 is slow. There is a way to speed it up some, but it will still be slow. For more information, go here.
Hey Brendan,
I have been trying to encode using AME CC 2014 and each time it stops at about 50% and won't continue rendering. I'm using VP9 at Variable Two Pass with the custom line you suggested. 4K/47.952 timeline out of After Effects. Any ideas?
You are awesome. Thanks, this did the trick for me. You really helped me out on this one.
I installed the plugin as per the instructions but I find WebM only version of Premiere 6 ... if I try to insert the last CC 8.0 I can not find anything in export ... anyone can help me? thank you!
Stefano
For CS6, the plug-in should live in .../Common/Plug-ins/CS6/MediaCore. For CC, put it in .../Common/Plug-ins/7.0/MediaCore. If it works in CS6, it should definitely work in the later ones.
thanks for the reply ... it works, I was wrong.
Any ideas on why rendering hangs at 50% in PP CC?
Going to 48fps with variable 2 pass (using your suggested custom line as well).
This really isn't the best forum for bug reports. Please either file a new issue on GitHub or email me.
(After getting some more details over email…)
What's happening here is you're using VP9, which is very slow. Google is working on speeding it up, but they still have a long way to go. It still isn't multi-threaded, for example.
So when you do 2-pass encoding, the first pass is pretty fast. That's the 50% progress you're seeing. But then at that point it starts the actual VP9 encoding which will take much, much longer. So it's not actually hung, it just looks like it is.
I'd suggest encoding a 1 second clip to get an idea of what you're in store for. Unless you have a good reason, you'll probably want to use VP8 instead.
Because VP9 isn't multithreaded yet, you might want to try using FFmpeg. It won't be any faster, but you can encode several movies at once in different command shells, so hopefully that'll make better use of your CPU. On Windows, you could run multiple copies of Media Encoder. Eventually VP9 encoding will be multithreaded and your CPU will be put to full use, and I really hope Google manages to do a lot more optimizations because it's pretty much unusable in its current state.
I can't figure out what location I put the plug in CC Premier Pro 2014 Windows 8.1. Can anyone help please?
As it says in the ReadMe, CC 2014 on Windows goes in:
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Common\Plug-ins\7.0\MediaCore
Actually on CC 2014 version it's in
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premier Pro CC 2014\Plug-ins\Common
That Premiere plug-ins folder will work for Premiere, but if you want it to work in Media Encoder as well you should put it in the common plug-in path I gave.
I love you!!!
I´m really thank you for this.
It works really good.
Hey Brendan, thanks indeed for this!
Would there be any chance of updating it for one thing:
So that in Adobe Media Encoder CC that the 'Match Source' option becomes accessible. (I find this to be absolutely a huge time saver when attempting to set frame rates of encodes of large numbers of source videos)
Thanks!
Paul
Hey Paul, hopefully you have options for this.
Near the top of the Export Settings dialog there should be the Source Scaling menu, with one option being "Change Output Size To Match Source".
Before I knew about this option, I'd already added a Match Source checkbox under Image Settings, although it doesn't show up in certain versions. Maybe I should get rid of it.
I'm seeing this in the WebM plug-in running under Media Encoder CC 2014 on OS X Mavericks.
I'll just leave it here - complete project with all sources for building this plugin with VS2013:
https://mega.co.nz/#!o98UTLrL!QZEEaSqv68K6bSo1N7dqQ0eyUanjxeRjbO5-zXdSckQ
(you still need yasm.exe (don't use vsyasm.exe) & Windows SDK, though)
Thank you very much! Your work is very much appreciated!
This is great! Thanks so much, it makes life much simpler being able to export directly from PremierePro.
A tip from my trials: The Estimated File Size function does not work quite right. It estimated 3MB and I ended up with a 20MB file. Then it estimated 2126MB-10634MB and I ended up with a 20MB-40MB file. If I don't adjust the settings, the Estimated File Size has a better chance of being "closer" to accurate. But once I change anything under Codec settings, the Estimated size jumps way off and it does not return to the original estimate even if I change the settings back to the original. However... I don't think I can complain about an estimated 10GB file ending up as only 40MB!
Thanks a lot Brendan for those plugins,
though it seems the Theora plugin won't load in Adobe Media Encoder (CS6), on Mac OSX Mavericks.
I can see it in Premiere Pro but not in AME, is this normal ?
PS : it's all ok for the WebM plugin (loads in PP and AME)
Hey Chris, I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, if you've got it in that MediaCore folder it should show up in both. If Premiere is seeing it, then is seems like it must be in the right place and working. I just downloaded it to a machine running OS X 10.9.5 and the latest Media Encoder CS6 (build 6.0.0.382). Everything worked as expected, the "Theora" format option was right where I expected it.
I am using the Webm and theora ogg plug ins in Premiere CS 5.5 64 bit windows version and they work brilliantly out of Premiere but I cant export to Media encoder. It there any way to make this work? I realize its not a supported version but thats what Ive got right now. Thanks for making this great plugin, I would like to kill the people at Adobe honestly.
You do the Lord's Work, sir. This plugin is the best way I've found on the entire internet to create Theora video
Hello,
can you please help ;) is there any updated VP9 plugin for Adobe CS4 & windows Vista
currently it's showing CS6 :(
Very Nice Blog I Have Read Your Blog It Is Really Interesting And Useful.
clipping path service|Photo Retouching services|Vector Tracing
Post a Comment