Multiple Machine Render question

Question

Alright, so I just realized that After Effects (I'm running CS3) can utilize multiple machine renderings. At first, I thought this would be great since my typical renders are anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours. But, after much playing around, I realized that it only works for sequences.. which isn't much help because I export the majority of my work as DV Streams or MOV files! Is there any way I can get it to do formats other than image sequences or am I SOL?
I also considered buying a few moderate-end machines and putting together a small render farm in case I couldn't, but I wouldn't know where the best place is to start with something like that (I'd imagine determine what software works, but I can't find much info on that, really).

Answer 1

for PC's only =====
i wrote my own dos scripts to setup network rendering (remotely start after effects engines, copy projects to a watchfolder, and setup RenderControlFiles, copy and install fonts, etc ... took me a while to write and set up and is really the property of the company I work for), but the basics are below and from my in-house help file. Works better for us than collecting footage, basically, just substitute local drive volume names with UNC names, save the project, submit to the watchfolder, in its own directory, and add an RCF text file (try collecting footage, an RCF file will be generated so you can see whats in it). The thing that took me longest to debug was to install required fonts remotely ... any way read the basics
THE FOUR BASIC REQUIREMENTS
The basic requirements for any software that can network render, are that
(1)
all participating computers are able to access the original source footage,
(2)
any required fonts are loaded and active on the participating renderers,
(3)
any plugins and codecs used are also installed and available, and
(4)
all rendered frames, ie, output are send to a common storage area; single frames sequences are the best output format, a single streamed format, like an AVI, MPEG, or Quicktime Movie cannot be created by more than one computer at one time. However if your render queue has multiple single file streams queued, multiple render slaves can render the multiple queued streams, with one slave rendering one of the streams at a time two or more render slaves cannot render the same stream at the same time.
SETTING UP YOUR PROJECT TO NETWORK RENDER
Source Footage Paths
The first problem in the below example is that all the source footage is referenced using local paths. The default network rendering method Adobe use is really best suited to archiving, wherein the footage is collected from the source computer and copied to a common server in a hierarchial tree structure. In this example the source footage is comparatively short, but still over 900mb long, so there is a time issue involved, a network traffic issue, a storage issue at the server end, a server management issue, and if the network render fails, or needs to be redone, this step will need to be repeated or the process hacked by an appropriately skilled person.
To network render, all source imagery should use a file path that can be seen by other computers on a network. The best method is to use UNC (universal naming convention) paths, ie \\computername\sharedvolume\foldername\foldername\imagename.
In the above example a badly pathed file N:\TV1 Promos\sas\sas1.aif could be made legal by re-pathing to \\regan\zone2\TV1 Promos\sas\sas1.aif assuming that zone2 is an explicitly shared volume.
TIP: you can create as many share points as you want. You could, for example create an additional share point N:regan\one2\TV1 Promos\sas and call it SAS so it appears as the share \\regan\SAS. Just right-hand click on the folder you want to share, select SHARING from the menu, create the new share and give it a meaningful name; on XP systems, you also need to specify read/write access permissions.
You can create a shortcut to this or any other share, leave it on your desktop, and that will save you time navigating to that point or typing out \ \ r e g a n \ s a s
Alternatively, you can highlight a network path in explorer, copy that text, and keep pasting it when subsequently specifying paths.
There are not limitations on how many share points you can create.
An further alternative method would be to use the administrative share path, \\regan\N$\TV1 Promos\sas\sas1.aif. Here the drive letter N: is replaced by \\regan\N$. This method is particularly useful where the volumes are not explicitly shared.
One other method is to map shared volumes or folders to a drive letter, but for this to work, the drive mapping must be consistant across all participating renderers, so you would have to run around these computers mapping network shares to drives on a per job basis as required, so it is not at really very practical.
After Effects 6.5 introduced a smarter way if the project is opened on another computer on the network, it will attempt to replace the locally specified footage paths, with network paths. Mostly it works okay, sometimes it doesnt. Footage that is sourced from mapped network drives, for example where W: drive refers to \\Gfxserver2\graphics2, will have problems.
The best way is to use the UNC paths from the begining of the projects construction, then there is never an issue, and the project will always be portable, but if you forget or cant be bothered, or think that using network rather than local paths is slowing you down, ...
1) save your project,
2) open your project on another machine
3) reload one of the missing footage files ... the rest should fill themselves in, if they dont they are probably on another drive
4) check the output is network pathed
5) save the project, and submit that version to the render farm
Ultimately, for this project to network render successfully, the source footage needs to be completely specified in a manner where it is accessable by any machine on the network, so use must be made of
\\computername\VolumeLetterDollarSign\foldername\foldername\imagename, or
\\computername\sharedvolume\foldername\foldername\imagename, or
\\computername\sharedfolder\imagename methods.
Output Footage Paths and Render Settings
Once the source files have been amended to include a full network pathname, the parameters for the render can be set.
STEP ONE
In the Render Queue window, firstly choose a single frame Output Module, such as TARGA or JPEG; a single file streamed format, like an AVI, MPEG, or Quicktime Movie CAN NOT be created by more than one computer at one time. However if your render queue has multiple single file streams queued, multiple render slaves can render the multiple queued streams, with one slave rendering one of the streams at a time two or more render slaves cannot render the same stream at the same time.
STEP TWO
In the Render Settings, make sure you turn off storage overflow and turn on skip existing frames so that once any frames that have been network rendered, those frames will not be rendered again by another machine.
STEP THREE
The destination for the outputted animation should include the full network pathname, so that all the outputted files end a up in the same place.
Warning: If local paths are inadvertently used here the rendered files could be scattered over any local hard drive of the machines that will be rendering the animation, and each rendering machine would not be able to determine which frames had been rendered by other machines, so each machine could end up rendering the entire sequence itself, it the drive letter exists on that rendering machine.
Again it doesnt really matter which of the network naming methods is employed; either
\\computername\VolumeLetterDollarSign\foldername\foldername\imagename, or
\\computername\sharedvolume\foldername\foldername\imagename, or
\\computername\sharedfolder\imagename will work.
STEP FOUR
The project with its network pathed source and output files specified, and render queue setup would then be saved.