Introduction to DuME
Why using DuME
- Quickly and easily convert any kind of media file.
- Multiple inputs and multiple outputs to different formats at once.
- Easy stream remapping and apply filters, adjust formats, correct colors, mix audio streams, etc. thanks to an intuitive nodal view.
- Automate your production pipeline.
What makes it different
A lot of nice media encoders are available, both private, closed-source or free and open source ones. But DuME is a bit different, and it’s always nice to have options. Here’s what makes it different:
- It’s easy to use yet feature-rich, versatile, professional and powerful.
- It’s very light and fast, like many other free encoders, thanks to FFmpeg.
- It’s not limited to specific formats, and can input and output to all formats handled by FFmpeg and more, including image sequences and OpenEXR.
- It makes it easy to adjust, filter and remap streams thanks to an intuitive nodal view.
- It includes everything professionals need (APIs, CLI, TCP Server, OCIO and color management…)
- It can input streams from Blender, After Effects, Unreal Engine, and soon even more.
Here’s a word by Duduf to understand why he decided to develop his own media encoder:
At first, I just needed to be able to quickly merge image sequences and audio files to video files, and very few encoders are able to do that, not even Adobe Media Encoder. But I liked the ability to drop an After Effects project into Media Encoder too, so I wanted to have my own encoder both more versatile than Adobe Media Encoder and able to render projects and scenes from other DCC apps like Blender, After Effects, Maya…
Then I had to be able to easily remap audio streams, and I started working on a nodal view to make this easier. That was the same time I had to integrate this new DuME into professional animation production pipelines which led me to also implement proper color management and OCIO, along with several APIs and a command line interface, which proved useful for Unreal Engine too.
To help you compare and choose the media encoder that best suits your needs, here’s a summary:
Main features comparison
| Encoder | Open Source | Platforms | Lightweight and fast |
Renderers Encoders |
Live preview |
Filters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DuME | ✅ | ✅ Windows Mac OS Linux |
✅ | After Effects Blender Unreal Engine FFmpeg |
✅ | ✅ comprehensive nodal view |
| FFmpeg | ✅ | ✅ Windows Mac OS Linux |
✅ | FFmpeg | 🟨 Pipe streams to FFplay |
✅ comprehensive filter graph |
| Adobe Media Encoder | ❌ | 🟨 Windows Mac OS |
Fast, but heavy, and long to launch. |
After Effects Premiere Pro |
✅ | 🟨 Limited LUTs, Loudness correction… |
| Handbrake | ✅ | ✅ Windows Mac OS Linux |
✅ | FFmpeg | ✅ | 🟨 Limited Deinterlace, Denoise, Scale… |
| Shutter Encoder | ✅ | ✅ Windows Mac OS Linux |
✅ | FFmpeg | ✅ | 🟨 Limited Crop, Scale, Color correction, Overlay… |
| cutz | ❌ | ✅ Online, SaaS |
❌ Needs uploading and downloading files to their server |
Probably FFmpeg | ❌ | ❌ |
Specific features
- DuME: Clean UI and Nodal view, live preview and streaming, input from Blender, After Effects, Unreal Engine, render queue, command line interface and automation…
- FFmpeg: Very comprehensive and fast, but doesn’t have a Graphical User Interface (command line only).
- Adobe Media Encoder: input from After Effects and Premiere. It is just a converter/renderer and can’t merge or concatenate multiple files and streams.
- Handbrake: Easy-to-use but limited features and formats. It is just a converter and can’t merge or concatenate multiple files and streams.
- Shutter Encoder: Designed by editors, able to trim and edit clips, subtitles editor, shot detection, download from YouTube, render queue…
- cutz: Online service claiming to be eco-friendly and (but) AI-driven. It is just a converter and can’t merge or concatenate multiple files and streams.
Formats
| Encoder | Common formats* | Specific formats** | Image sequences | Merge image sequences with audio |
Live stream | Subtitle streams |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DuME | Output: ✅ Input: ✅ |
Output: ✅ Input: ✅ |
Input: ✅ Output: ✅ |
✅ | 🟨 In development |
❌ Planned |
| FFmpeg | Output: ✅ Input: ✅ |
Output: ✅ Input: ✅ |
Input: ✅ Output: ✅ |
✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Adobe Media Encoder | Output ✅ Input: ✅ |
Output 🟨 Input: 🟨 Missing some formats |
✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Handbrake | Output ✅ Input: ✅ |
Output 🟨 Input: 🟨 Very limited formats |
❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Shutter Encoder | Output ✅ Input: ✅ |
Output: ✅ Input: ✅ |
❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| cutz | Output 🟨 Input: 🟨 |
❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
* What we consider to be common formats (in 2025) are: h.264, h.265, VP8/9 for video, and AAC, MP3, FLAC, AC3, Opus and Vorbis for audio.
** Specific formats may be all other existing formats.
Professional tools, automation, pipeline integration
| Encoder | APIs | TCP Server | Command Line Interface | Color Management |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DuME | ✅ Python ExtendScript |
✅ | ✅ | ✅ OCIO FFmpeg |
| FFmpeg | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | 🟨 No support for OCIO |
| Adobe Media Encoder | 🟨 CEP |
❌ | ❌ | 🟨 No support for OCIO |
| Handbrake | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Shutter Encoder | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | 🟨 No support for OCIO |
| cutz | ❓ | ❓ | ❌ | ❌ |
A word about Shutter Encoder
The excellent Shutter Encoder is a great alternative to DuME, but it fills different needs. It can edit media files together and provides useful tools especially for editors, with a great timeline and lots of parameters.
DuME’s nodal view makes it different and more aimed at automating tasks and adjusting video and audio streams, or remapping and mixing multiple streams. DuME also adds professional tools like APIs, a TCP server, a commad line interface, and the ability to render Blender, After Effects or Unreal Engine streams.
Both support all kinds of formats, including professional formats for editors and production pipelines (ProRes, Avid DnxHD/HR, OpenEXR) as well as common consumer formats (h.264, h.265, VP8/9 and containers like .mov, .mp4, .webm…), but DuME also comes with OCIO for OpenEXR color management and color managed pipeline integration.