Current recommended versions.
ProTools version 2021.3 and later
Mac OS - Big Sur 11
This article is specific to Life.Church Worship workflow and is not necessarily the highest quality encode. Our workflow is such that the video file is shared across multiple states. We keep the file size manageable, quality excellent, and reliability top notch. It is critical to us that the video playback in ProTools be 100% reliable.
This article will walk you through adding a preset into Adobe Premiere and how to export in Premiere or Media Encoder. This preset should optimize your ProTools video to be the best that it can be without compromising the computer's processing power. We would like for you to use this preset with every video you create for use in ProTools. It is very important when encoding/rendering videos for ProTools that you pay close attention to a few settings. Doing so will prevent future crashes or glitches in ProTools.
Follow these simple steps to render the video for this coming weekend.
This section will assume that you have edited your weekend video and are ready to render it for ProTools.
Export the sequence
With your sequence or timeline selected, choose File > Export > Media
Import the preset
First, select the Format dropdown and select DNxHR/DNxHD MXF OP1a.
On the right side of the Export Settings dialogue box, you'll see an icon with a folder and arrow pointing to the right. This is the Import Preset button. Please select this button and find the preset file in the location you saved it in on your hard drive.
Choose the preset
Name the preset
You'll be requested to name the preset. The screenshot above shows an example of what you could name it.
Use the preset
Once you name the file, select the newly imported preset from the preset dropdown.
Export
If you are ready and can give up your computer for a while, click the Export button. If you need some time and want to export this while at lunch, click the Queue button to send the sequence to Media Encoder. Keep reading to learn how to use Media Encoder to render other videos without having Premiere open.
Media Encoder is a powerful rendering application included with Premier. In it, you can encode multiple files to multiple locations while working in the background. The application has a queue feature which allows you to setup your render and then do it later while you are away from your computer.
Export video to Media Encoder
Select File > Export > Media.
Select Send to Media Encoder.
Import preset
Next, similarly to what we did in Premiere, you'll need to import the ProTools preset. Select the Import Presets icon. It will be a folder with an arrow pointing right from the left side.
Verify preset area
The preset now appears under the User Presets and Groups setting of the Preset Browser. Have we said preset enough yet?
Drag and drop the preset to apply
The last thing to do is drag and drop the preset to the queue video on the left side. Once you drop it you'll see the preset column change to reflect the LC ProTools Preset.
Ready to render
Make sure you click on the output file path to tell Encoder where to save the rendered file.
Then click the green play button to start the queue in the top right corner.
If you encounter any issues, we are always here to help. Please don't hesitate to reach out.
For the nerds among us... the photo below is a screenshot of the video compression settings we have found that work really well without having any adverse effects in ProTools.
