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Windows HAP without QuickTime?


JohnHuntington

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We have a projection designer coming in who wants to use the HAP codec but digging through this forum and searching around both my technician and I keep finding things online that apparently require QuickTime, which we got rid of when Apple stopped supporting it.

 

Does anyone know a HAP codec that doesn't need Quicktime?

 

John

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As far as I know QT is the only wrapper for the HAP family of codecs. 

I'm surprised you're not using QT with WO.  I always thought QT was an important install for WO. 

The WO install software always asks you to download and install the latest version of QT.   I have done this for years without any issue. 

What type of support are you looking for that you don't get?

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Watchout only uses Quicktime when exporting a movie, so it would make little sense to install Quicktime on a display computer. If you want to use the export function in Watchout, Quicktime is required on the production computer. 

That said, if you want to encode to Hap using a Quicktime-enabled application, you might need to install Quicktime and the Hap codec for Quicktime. Another option would be to encode Hap files using ffmpeg, using the following command line: 

 

ffmpeg -i inputfile.mov -vcodec hap -format hap_q -chunks 4 outputfile.mov

 

Change hap_q to hap or hap_alpha if you want standard hap or hap with alpha. The chunks argument enables multithreaded decoding, but higher numbers give slightly more overhead, both in space and decoding time, so this number should be kept as low as possible. For a 1920x1080 video, one chunk is sufficient on most hardware. Higher resolutions and/or slower hardware might require a larger number. It never makes sense to use a larger number than the number of cores in the CPU. 

 

/Erik 

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Even though Apple stopped developing QT, it didn't mean that others stopped developing codecs for QT. I don't see QT disappearing anytime soon. It's so extremely well integrated in all sorts of workflows, apps etc. In my opinion the only really big issue is that some software requires 64bit only drivers. That's a big showstopper since it wasn't properly developed for 64bit, and the few beta versions I've come across have been removed. So all in all I will continue to use QT.

 

/C

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • Dataton Partner

My two cents: 

havent installed QT on both production and display machines ever since it wasn’t mandatory anymore during the WO install and never experienced any issue since during programming or playback with WO (of course, haven’t used the export function and using dedicated machines that aren’t used for editing and such. 

Few weeks ago when I had to work on a v4 WO installation was the first time since, that I was asked to and had to install QT again. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I just discovered that the HAP-codec inside Adobe Encoder has disappeared. Is this because Adobe dropped 32bit support? 

Usually I create content in Premiere or After Effects and then export Quicktime with HAP or HAPalpha codec thru Adobe Media Encoder.  Although Quicktime still exists as a format, the HAP is missing in the list of codecs. Inside QT-Palyer I have HAP available. 

So now the question is how to get HAP-files and especially HAP-alphas out of the Adobe CC-programs in an elegant way. Any ideas?  

Regards,

Michael

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Hi Michael,

I'm not using the latest versions of Adobe since I don't like the rental scheme but on my system HAP is only present in AE or Adobe Encoder if QT is installed and the HAP codecs are installed. They then should appear as QT codecs in AE. QT is the basis and needs to be there before HAP gets installed.

Regards,

Rainer

 

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Hi Rainer,

I have both QT as well as the HAP-codecs V12 installed. This is on a newly setup machine, so it has freshly installed Adobe CC programs on it. In Quicktime Player Pro 7.7.9 the HAP codec is selectable, but in Adobe Encoder it is not. There have been warnings in the log of Encoder for the last 6 months or so, saying that QT 32bit Codecs are going to be phased out in the future, and I guess exactly this happened now. Perhaps also thru the new install (not having leftovers from older installs that where constantly updated but still there). So I am curious how others work now. Or otherwise, if there is a way of getting HAP back into Adobe Encoder. 

 

There is also the issue that now I cannot export ProREs out of CC-programs any more, since ProRes is only nativly supported by Adobe on Macs, not on Windows. And I use Windows only. This isn´t really a problem for me, but HAP is. Although I can go without HAP (and use H264 instead), I cannot miss HAPalpha any more. I use it a lot for masked videos. 

Oh, and I just discoverd that QT Animation is also not there any more! See my screenshot.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rxe1n354zoai69m/scnreenshot.png?dl=0

 

Regards,

Michael

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Hi,

Your Screenshot looks like the Media-export in Premiere Pro. Don't get misleaded by the few presets. Choose "Match source" , modify it - and yes, choose any codec available on your system using the dropdown-menu in the video section and then save them as your own.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/n3j8ct28gbzbss5/premiere-export.JPG?dl=0

Prores can be exported from After Effects using https://aescripts.com/aftercodecs/ or https://aescripts.com/aempeg/

I have been successfully using AfterCodecs ProRes (422HQ and 4444) for some time, knowing that it is NOT the original and therefore not playing for example on blackmagic-output cards. But as a Masterfile it does work well.

cheers

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Anyway, you were almost right.

Everybody should be aware, that Adobe is leaving Quicktime 32bit (on Windows-PC) behind with the latest update of CC2018 (as of march 2018). That AfterCodec-plugin is still working in AE though.

That means that a lot of older Codecs (like Photo-Jpeg) are missing for rendering. Even HAP is gone.

There is already a petition on its way to bring it back.

 

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