CC 2014 H.264 + audio (w/ GPU and Multiprocessing)

Question

15" Late 2013 rMBP, 750m, 2.3 i7, 16GB
I so understand why Adobe took the H.264 codec out of CC 2014 and has directed us to AME. I'm not complaining about that. Todd Kopriva has a good write-up here: http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2014/06/adobe-media-encoder-h-264-mpeg-2-wmv-after-eff ects.html
In his Method #1 he describes using a QT PNG and watch folder in AME to take advantage of the GPU and Multiprocessing capabilities of AE – however this does not allow a video file to be exported with audio.
"The fastest way to create videos in these formats using Adobe Media Encoder with After Effects is to use the After Effects render queue to export a losslessly encoded master file (e.g., using the PNG video codec in a QuickTime .mov container file) to a watch folder that Adobe Media Encoder monitors. You can assign encoding presets to a watch folder in Adobe Media Encoder so that it automatically encodes using whichever settings you have specified. One advantage of using this method is that it uses After Effects performance features for rendering (such as GPU acceleration and multiprocessing where applicable) and Adobe Media Encoder performance features for encoding (such as parallel encoding). The disadvantage of using this method is that it occupies the main After Effects application for the entire rendering operation, during which time you can’t use After Effects for anything else."
Any idea what the best (and most efficient) route is to get my videos exported as H.264's with audio? Just exporting to AME is rather slow since it doesn't do multiprocessing....
Thanks for the input!

Answer 1

Todd's suggested work flow is a very good one. Render to a lossless file (which uses multi-processing, GPU acceleration, etc.) and then use the Adobe Media Encoder to make your final deliverable. That's the workflow I've had since Adobe introduced the Adobe Media Encoder. I have never used AE to create a final deliverable because it sucked at h.264 encoding.
Now, Todd suggests rendering your lossless file to a watch folder so that AME picks up and encodes your deliverable automatically after the intermediate file finishes rendering from AE. I've not used the watch folder method because I have different requirements for different projects, but it works for a lot of people.