Hi there, AppleScript and Automator newby here so bear with me.
We have to transcode anywhere between 30-50 .mov Qts on a nightly basis until the end of our project in July and it’s becoming burdensome. So far Qt7 Pro has been the only program that can hit the exact delivery requirements from out clients (using available resources~aka free). My current tests at automating have been using ffmpeg commands in a foreach loop but these simply haven’t been able to get the specs required for one reason or another. As we are on heading towards the end of the project Production is unwilling to cough up the cash for a license for something like Telestream Episode which we know will nail the job. We have tried numerous rvio and ffmpeg commands and Adobe Media Encoder that render better compression but can’t achieve the final piece in the puzzle of applying Fast Start to the Qt.
Now the background has been explained, my real question is how can I use Apple Script to call Qt7 pro to batch convert .mov files and place them in a new folder? I’ve been looking at Automator 2.2.4 but it seems like that only calls QTX which is not helpful. I’m hoping there is a way a can punch in the specs and run a loop, or even set up a watch folder? I’m open to ideas and grateful for any help.
Best regards. CS.
Qt delivery spec
1280x720
23.976fps
Automatic key frames
h264 restricted to 2400kbps
Single pass encode
aac audio @ 48000khz, stereo L+R, 128kbps
Fast Start enable (this is the killer feature that has stalled our other attempts along with aac audio buffer issues)
Model: Mac pro
AppleScript: 2.4.3
Browser: Chrome
Operating System: Mac OS X (10.7)
I don’t have the Pro version of QT on my machine but the code below works in QT Player.
Hopefully it should give you a start.
# Select the folder containing the files to process
set thisFolder to (choose folder with prompt "Pick the folder containing the files to process:") as string
tell application "Finder"
set theFilesToProcess to every file of folder thisFolder as alias list
end tell
delay 0.25
# Select the folder to save the processed files
set processedFolder to (choose folder with prompt "Pick the processed files folder:") as string
# Process the files
tell application "QuickTime Player 7"
repeat with thisFile in theFilesToProcess
set thisDoc to open thisFile
set thisName to name of thisDoc
export document thisName to file (processedFolder & thisName) as QuickTime movie
close document thisName saving no
end repeat
end tell
Can all the settings you require be put into a preset?
If so, I think you’ll need to change this line:
export document thisName to file (processedFolder & thisName) as QuickTime movie
to:
export document thisName to file (processedFolder & thisName) using settings preset "the-name-of-your-preset"
You’ll also probably want to tweak the filename/extension, to meet your requirements, depending on the format selected.
I’m stuck when it comes to exporting the Quicktime settings into a .qtes file. Looks like Apple have put the kibosh on saving out settings for our version Qt7 Pro 7.6.6. Not sure where to go from here.
Not knowing too much about QT7 I was thinking the preset was something you set up in the app, not something that involved exporting a prefs file.
Having had another look at the QT dictionary I can see that the previous settings can be used. With that in mind you could try doing a test export, with the settings you require, to set up the prefs. Then try using the script changing the export line as below:
export document thisName to file (processedFolder & thisName) as QuickTime movie using most recent settings