Video Exporting takes too long in Adobe Media Encoder

Question

I'm using After Effects to create videos and export it via Adobe Media Encoder, but even a 2 min video takes a very long time to export.

I do use Motion Bro plugin, to get some effects, but that's just a transition effect to change from one screen to another.

How can I make it quicker?

Answer 1

• Are you exporting to h.264? Try rendering to a master file in a intermediate codec like ProRes, Cineform or DNxHR. Rendering to h.264 involves referencing multiple frames to create the intermediate frames. When those frames have to be rendered first it adds an extra drain on resources, particularly memory.
• Is the computer hitting the limits of available memory? This will exponentially slow things down. Check on the available RAM at render time, and if it's getting full you need to take steps to reduce your memory usage. One way is to pre-render sub-comps, another is to make sure images you use are appropriately sized for the output. Time-based effects like echo are big RAM hogs, you may have to pre-render layers with these applied.
• Learn how to use the command line renderer aerender.exe (just plain aerender if you're still on a mac). This is between 10% and 4000% (no lie) faster in my experience than Media Encoder, particularly if you have enough memory to spin up multiple instances
• since you're using the command line now, why not get MOAR COMPUTAHS on the job? Aerender can be used over the network, so if you have other machines that you can borrow you can create a render farm. You can also use the GUI network renderer if you're not ready to become a fully fledged command line ninja, but I will be silently judging you.
• all of these steps assume that the workstation you have is a constant. The single best thing you can do is to get a better computer. Or several.