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Installed on macOS Catalina, no codec option in After Effects

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(@warbands)
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Joined: 4 years ago
Posts: 3
Topic starter  

Installed on macOS Catalina, no codec option in After Effects, and get an odd MagicYUV AVI as only option in Media Encoder.

I installed with the following report:

sudo ./Users/nakago/Downloads/MagicYUV_Ultimate-Trial_v2.3.0_macosx/install.command
Detected AVX2 support
************************
Installing Adobe plugins...
*********************
Installing 'Adobe/avx2/2015/ExporterMagicYUV.bundle' to '/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Plug-ins/7.0/MediaCore'
Installing 'Adobe/avx2/2015/ImporterMagicYUV.bundle' to '/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Plug-ins/7.0/MediaCore'
Done.

******************
Installing VLC plugin...
******************
Detected VLC: /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC (x64) ..
WARNING: There is no MagicYUV codec available for this VLC version. Skipping.

***************************
Installing QuickTime component...
******************************
Installing 'QuickTime/avx2/MagicYUV.component' to '/Library/QuickTime' using sudo
Done.

I checked inside After Effects for a new Quicktime codec option by adding a comp to a the render queue, changing the output option, but nothing with the word MagicYUV was listed.

I then tested by sending the comp to Media Encoder, but the only preset there was listed as MagicYUV AVI, which on the Mac is obviously wrong.

Any thoughts on why this is not behaving?


   
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(@warbands)
New Member
Joined: 4 years ago
Posts: 3
Topic starter  

I rebooted just in case ( there shouldn't have been a need to do it ), and sadly this didn't change anything. The codec doesn't show up as an option for Quicktime.

I came across another post saying something to the effect that Quicktime codec support is gone? Are Mac users expected to somehow make use of AVI files, or are Mac users just not really welcome anymore?

Also, was MagicYUV ever usable with Final Cut Pro as an ingestion format? Say a delivery from After Effects.


   
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Balázs
(@ignus)
Estimable Member Admin
Joined: 8 years ago
Posts: 166
 

Hi and welcome,

MagicYUV is implemented as 3 components for macOS:

  • QuickTime component
  • Adobe MediaCore plugin (usable by Media Encoder and Premiere directly, and After Effects through Media Encoder)
  • VLC decoder plugin

The QuickTime component no longer works from Catalina. Apple removed all 32-bit components of the OS with Catalina, which includes all Carbon based stuff, which means QuickTime Classic is also gone for good. So the QuickTime component is no longer usable from Catalina at all.

The Adobe plugin is implemented using the Adobe MediaCore API, which Media Encoder and Premiere uses. After Effects can import directly using MediaCore, however for export you need to use Media Encoder. After Effects uses a separate API for export, and there is no plugin currently implemented using the After Effects API, so you cannot export directly from After Effects, you have to use Media Encoder.

The "MagicYUV AVI" option in Media Encoder/Premiere is the correct one, that is the plugin itself. MagicYUV plugins only write the AVI container format on all platforms, including macOS. So that is the one you have to use.

Regarding VLC, it is only a decoder plugin, but as I see from your install log it fails to install, which is odd. Could you tell me the exact version of VLC you have installed?

Some remarks about macOS. macOS is a pretty closed system, it is getting more and more difficult to write components for it, I wouldn't be surprised if MagicYUV would be prevented from installing at all in a future release of macOS, or be prevented from running. In my opinion/experience macOS users are expected to use whatever Apple provides them (ProRes and things like that).

Regarding Final Cut Pro, I'm not sure if a plugin can be written for it or not, I'm not aware of any publicly available SDK for it which would allow writing plugins for it. Let me know if you do.


   
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(@warbands)
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Joined: 4 years ago
Posts: 3
Topic starter  

@ignus Thanks for the reply. Sadly this won't work well for my desired workflow. The amount of visual compression so many formats have these days, they don't work well for my desired workflow. PNG Sequence output for my After Effects pre-comps works "well enough". To go from After Effects to Final Cut Pro X, I have had to settle on using ProRes 4444HQ. I really wish Adobe and Apple, along with other companies would stop all the in fighting and create a universal format that can support a lossless workflow while maintaing "reasonable" file sizes.


   
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