EboSuite works with most video codecs, but works best with Hap or ProRes encoded videos. With the eConvert plug-in you can easily convert video files to the Hap or ProRes codec within Ableton Live. You can drag the newly created video file directly from eConvert’s interface to an audio track or to an eSampler/eSimpler or Simpler for further use.
Adding the eConvert plug-in to your Live set
To add the eConvert plug-in to your Live set just drag the plug-in from the EboSuite plug-ins folder to a any track. For the eConvert plug-in to work the EboSuite application needs to be active. Add any EboSuite video source plug-in to the Live Set to launch the EboSuite application
Select a video to convert
There are three ways to select a video file that you want to convert to Hap/ProRes:
- You can select a (portion of a) video on an audio track in Arrangement View or Session View and press the ‘Convert selected clip’ button in the eConvert’s interface.
- You can drag a video from an audio track in Arrangement View or Session View into the drop zone in the eConvert’s interface.
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You can drop a video file from the Finder into the dropzone in the eConvert’s interface.
Crop to clip start/end
When ‘Crop to clip start/end’ is enabled, the eConvert plug-in will use the video clip’s start en end point markers to crop the converted video file. Use this feature to save on render time and file size. When preparing video samples for the eSampler this feature is very useful, because you will typically need short samples.
Support alpha channel
Make sure to enable ‘Support alpha channel’ when you are converting video files that contain an alpha channel. The resulting video will be encoded with the Hap/ProRes Alpha codec.
Batch conversion
The eConvert plug-in currently does not support batch conversion. To convert multiple files at once use the AVFÂ Batch Converter application. You can read more about the AVF Batch Converter application here.
Supported codecs
Both the eConvert plug-in and the AVF Batch Convertor make use of apple’s current video framework, AVFoundation. This framework does not support older video codecs. Currently both convertors support a.o.
Apple ProRes 422 and ProRes 4444, H264 and Photo-JPEG. If you want to convert another codec you first need to convert it to one of these codecs, this can be done automatically using Quicktime Player 10. If you open a file in Quicktime Player 10 that is not supported by AVFoundation it will automatically encode it to H264 (if the codec is not too exotic). It will automatically create a copy next to the original file and add ‘(Converted)’ to the file name. You can can then drag this file to eConvert to convert it to HAP.
Quicktime Player 7 Pro is a great alternative for Quicktime Player 10, because it offers more export options and reads more older codecs. Unfortunately, Quicktime Player Pro 7 doesn’t work on the most recent versions of Mac OS.
Note that there is a difference between the term ‘file format’ and ‘codec’. The file format denoted by the extension (such as .mov, mp4, m4v and .mpg) does not tell you how the video is compressed internally (codec). Read more about video codecs in the section about video codecs of this manual.