Are you tasked with the content creation of a large-scale video wall? Are you tired of endless render setups? Is your After Effects machine in peril of a short flight through a nearby window?
Why, oh god why isn't there a better way to split video files according to a pre-established grid of output cells.
Now there is! I give you, the pre-split grid render script: https://github.com/florisporro/ffmpeg_presplitter
What is it?
A command-line tool that takes a large resolution video file canvas, and automatically splits it according to a grid of 'cells', where each individual cell is an output file with the correct cropping for that screen. You can enable or disable cells as your display wall shape requires.
Features
Enable or disable output files according to a grid
Grid is automatically established based on input file resolution and requested output file resolution (defaults to 1280x720)
Files are rendered to ProRes 422
Files are rendered to an output folder with the same name as the input file minus extension
Much faster than Adobe Media Encoder
Lightspeed compared to rendering directly from Adobe After Effects
Works on any machine, doesn't need to have any Adobe software installed
Existing files are skipped automatically
Tested only on OS X, might work on Windows
FREE as in sunlight (open source)
Built for a recent project with @Hugo Janzen where we got majorly sick of After Effects render times.
Requirements
ffmpeg and ffprobe must be installed
Node must be installed (available in Homebrew through 'brew install npm && brew install node')
Have fun!