Useful Tools for Editors: Render Notification

Have you ever set a looooong render on one of your favorite post-production applications and watched as the render bar ticked away and the app tried to give you a best guess as to how long the render might take? And have you ever watched in frustration as the actual length of time it took to complete the render was way longer than the estimate? Perhaps you walked away and came back when the render was done, never knowing how long it really took to complete … maybe you could have returned a half-hour earlier. Or maybe you set a program for a long batch conversion and checked back multiple times only to find it hadn’t finished. If even one of those scenarios applies to you, then this little Mac OS Applescript called Render Notification might be for you. This free tool comes from editor Josh Petok. I just learned about it today when Josh sent out a tweet saying that it had been updated to version 1.0.2. I haven’t used it yet (though I plan to grab it very soon) but it looks like you launch the app after you begin a render and it will then email or text you when rendering in that application has finished. Currently it works with Avid Media Composer, Final Cut Pro, Color, Compressor and Redcine-X (which was added in v.1.0.1). I don’t use Applescript much myself but I do know that it can be set up to do some cool things. What’s nice about it is that it’s relatively easy to use for those that understand it, at least compared to a programming language. I also know that I don’t understand it so it’s great when editors like Josh share a tool that they’ve built for their own needs. It may not be the perfect app, as this blog post points out, but from the few things I’ve read and the comments I’ve seen it’s getting the job done for many. Best of all, it’s free so if this newest version doesn’t work for you then delete it and move on.