NotchLC Plugin for Adobe CC

Introduction

The Adobe CC plugin provides NotchLC import and export capabilities to Adobe After Effects, Premiere and Media Encoder for the `.mov` container format. Encoding and decoding is GPU accelerated where a DirectX11 compatible GPU is present. If no GPU is present, the plugin will fall back to a slower CPU decoding / encoding method.

The NotchLC Plugin for Adobe CC is provided free of charge and does NOT require a Notch Builder or Playback license.

Plugin Features

A comparison of the import / export features are listed below.

Feature	After Effects	Premiere	Media Encoder
Import
Alpha Channel	Yes	Yes	Yes
Audio	–	–	–
High Bit Depth	Yes	Yes	Yes
Speed	OK	OK	Fast
Export
Alpha Channel	Yes	Yes	Yes
Audio	Yes	Yes	Yes
High Bit Depth	Yes	Yes	Yes
Speed	Good	Good	Fast

Requirements

Adobe Version	CC 2018 & 2019
OS	Windows 10
GPU	DirectX 11 Compatible

Download & Installation

You can download the plugin from the Notch website

The applicable Adobe products must be installed before installing the plugin.

Adobe Media Encoder & Premiere usage

After installation of the plugin, NotchLC decoding will be supported automatically and you will be provided NotchLC as an encoding codec option. When encoding you will be presented with the following options.

*NotchLC is a top level codec, it is not under the Quicktime codec option.

*If the codec is displayed as NotchLC (CPU), then the plugin was unable to find a supported DirectX 11 GPU and has fallen back to the slower CPU encoder/decoder.

The two NotchLC specific options are:

• Quality : [Good | Very Good | Excellent | Optimal | Best] See the NotchLC Overview for details on quality settings.
• Include Alpha Channel : If your source has an alpha channel, this will be encoded as part of the video.

Adobe After Effects usage

Import

The plugin will automatically provide NotchLC import support in AE. To get the benefit of NotchLCs higher bit depths, you will need to ensure that your AE project is set to 16bit or 32bit depth mode. (Project Settings->Color->Depth->16bit per channel)

*NotchLC does not carry colour profile information at the stage. In the vast majority of cases (including export from Notch Builder) the colour profile of your NotchLC will be sRGB. If you set a colour Working Space in your AE project settings, AE will incorrectly assume that all NotchLC imports are Rec. 709. You may have to force AE to interpret the imports as sRGB (Right click clip->Interpret Footage->Main->Color Management)

Export

*If you are doing straight transcodes of video content, use Media Encoder, it is hugely faster.

Adobe After Effects has two export pathways, both of which are supported by the plugin, but have different UI interfaces:

• Export through Media Encoder (covered in the previous section)
• Native Export

The Native Exporter’s dialog looks as follows:

Key items:

• Set the Format to NotchLC
• Video -> Depth : Should always be set to Trillions of Colours
• Set Quality by clicking the Format Options button

*NotchLC is a top level codec, it is not under the Quicktime codec option.

Releases

1.0.1 – Initial release
Decode and encode support for After Effects, Premiere & Media Encoder.

1.2.0 – This release has some substantial changes under the hood to bring a better experience using NotchLC in the Adobe CC suite. Specifically:

• Better encoding performance
• Lower memory usage when encoding – allowing higher resolutions with less RAM
• In Premiere allow better scrubbing of audio in NotchLC videos (through interleaved audio encoding)

*- Fixes for 29.97 FPS showing duplicate frames