Projector is the Dataclay app that takes finished Templater work, renders it on several processor cores at once, and sends the results where they need to go. After Effects renders one video at a time. Projector exists because a batch of hundreds of videos should not have to wait in that single line, and because somebody still has to upload every one of them afterward.
We make Projector, so this is the maker’s account. It comes from our own help pages and release notes for the product, and we have left out anything those pages do not say. Where two pages disagree, we tell you.
What Projector does, in plain terms
Projector is the latest addition to Dataclay Station, our suite of video customization tools, and it follows Templater and Que. Our documentation names two primary benefits. The first is faster rendering through parallel processing. The second is automated distribution of personalized video. The rest of the product, such as the transcoder, archiving and Mission Control, supports those two.
Parallel processing is easy to explain. After Effects works through its render queue serially, one video and then the next. Projector assigns each processor core in your computer a different video. Our help page gives the arithmetic for a quad-core machine: you can get four videos done in about the time After Effects needs for one. The more cores, the more videos at once. That is our own rule of thumb, not a benchmark, and your real speed depends on the template, the length and the hardware. Our post on speeding up After Effects exports covers the template side of that.
Distribution is the part people forget to budget for. Once a video exists, it has to be converted to the right format, uploaded to a service, given a title and a thumbnail, and recorded somewhere so you know it happened. Projector automates that chain. Our documentation says it can also write information from the streaming service back to your data source, so the sheet or campaign that started the video ends up holding the result.
Two design choices are worth knowing before you decide. Projector is an installed application, and you must install and run it on the same computer where you use Templater and where its output files live. That makes it an installed application, not a hosted service. Our documentation says your video assets are never visible to another party, in transit or at rest, and that statement is about Projector itself, so read each streaming service’s own terms for what happens after upload.
The pieces: payloads, missions and Mission Control
Projector has its own small vocabulary. A mission is one job within a payload, and a mission can include any or all of five tasks: export data-merged Autografs to digital files, transcode the output, deploy it to a storage and streaming platform, log metadata from those platforms back to your data source, and clean up the scratch files created along the way. A payload is a collection of one or more missions. Many settings are configured at the payload level, which matters because it means every mission in a payload shares them.
The payload rule has a practical consequence. Say some of your videos need a different codec, a different poster or a different privacy level than the rest. Our documentation gives you two options. You can split them into two payloads, each with its own settings, and choose which rows go into which from your data source. Or, when only one or two videos differ, you can change those few directly on the streaming service afterward. The documentation says the second option may make more sense when only one or two videos differ. In our read, the first fits a real split of audiences, such as a personalized email campaign and a public version of the same composition.
Mission Control is the screen where you watch it work. It shows a graphical status for each mission. The help pages say it earns its keep when a payload has many missions, when the videos are long, when you use several capabilities at once, or when someone else needs to see progress, in which case you take a screenshot of it. Its bottom edge has a slider for the number of workers. A worker is one core assigned to Projector. By default Projector uses half of your cores, so a quad-core machine starts with two workers. If you see slow rendering or heavy RAM use, the documentation says to drag the slider left and save.
The release notes add some detail about maturity. Version 1.0.7 put Projector job logs inside the Que dashboard, so you can review what a job did without hunting through logs on the machine that ran it. It also let Projector point at a custom Que API address, made transcode progress more precise in Mission Control and isolated each worker’s After Effects output folder to prevent collisions between concurrent workers. Version 1.0.6 added support for After Effects 2026 and moved the Frame.io integration to that service’s V4 API. We mention this because a tool with a published release history is easier to trust than one with no record.
From data to a posted video, step by step
Here is the path a batch takes, using a scenario we made up from the documented settings. A regional training company wants a personalized completion video for each of 300 learners. A designer builds the base composition in After Effects, rigs it with Templater and keeps the learner list in a Google Sheet. That sheet needs two columns Projector always requires, render-status and stream-status. In Projector the designer sets Google Sheets as the data source, pastes the sheet address and names the worksheet. Only one data source works per payload.
The supported data sources today are Que and Google Sheets. If the data lives in Que, the designer chooses either all ready jobs or the ready jobs in selected campaigns, and can narrow further by job ID or creation date. The help page notes that two other filters, render status and stream status, are not currently used. Our help pages say more data sources are planned and do not say which.
Next comes export. Projector can do two kinds of parallel work. It can render replicated After Effects project files into finished videos, which is what the designer needs, since Templater creates each replicate as its own project file. Or it can take an already-rendered video, such as a MOV or AVI, and render it into new formats. A checkbox called Enable AEP rendering picks between the two. She selects an After Effects version and location, an output module and a render settings template. Dataclay ships sets of both, with names beginning dclay, and the help page lists them. The draft templates are fast and low in quality, while the best-quality templates suit production.
Then transcoding. Projector’s built-in transcoder converts the output into the codec you pick. The documentation says H.264, the codec behind the MP4 format, is the most common and is tuned for streaming, and that for 30 frames per second web video a bitrate between 3,500 and 6,000 Kbps is a typical range. It recommends the yuv420p pixel format for standard screens, AAC audio when you deploy to a streaming service, since most require it, and a bitrate of 128 for that audio. You can set an output width or height, and the other dimension follows to keep the aspect ratio. Larger dimensions make larger files, which raises upload and bandwidth costs.
Last is deployment. The designer enters a number of seconds in the Check every field and clicks Enable. Projector then polls the data source on that interval, picks up new ready jobs and carries them through the steps she configured. Our documentation calls this feature Projection, and it keeps running until you turn it off. Google authorization lapses after seven days, and per the release notes the app now prompts you to authorize again.
Where the videos go: streaming and archiving
When a mission finishes deploying, Projector writes metadata back to the data source from the streaming service, the storage service or both. The help page does not list which fields come back in the text we could read, so check a test row before you build a downstream process that depends on a specific column. The release notes tell us one thing about the Que case: Projector now writes its data as sub-properties of one required JSON key called stream.
Projector can upload to three streaming services: Vimeo, JW Player and Frame.io. You can authorize several and pick one for each payload, but a single payload cannot send to more than one service. One of our help pages lists only Vimeo and JW Player in its glossary, while the other pages list all three, so we treat three as the current answer.
The help pages offer a rule of thumb for choosing. Vimeo is described as user-friendly and consumer-focused, and a good match for people new to customized video, producing under 1,000 videos at a time or only now and then. It needs a paid account, because Vimeo limits API access and transfers on free accounts. JW Player is described as built for enterprise video producers such as broadcasters and publishers, with strong personalization and white-label options. It has no free accounts and needs an API key. Frame.io is aimed at large-scale producers who need team approval, is owned by Adobe and, according to our documentation, comes free to Adobe subscription holders. Per our release notes, the integration was one-way at launch. Projector uploads to it, and writing approval status back to your data source was on the roadmap, and we found no later note that changes that.
Privacy is the setting to get right. Under Streaming Globals you pick a default: public to anyone, visible only to the owner, or visible only to members of the platform. Our documentation recommends the owner-only default, because it lets you check everything and stage videos before a campaign, and you change the setting on the service when you are ready. It says public is not recommended in most cases, and personalized video is the clearest example. You can also set a poster time, a playlist or grouping name, and unique titles and descriptions built from your data with tokens.
Posters need a warning. A poster time longer than the video itself, say 3.5 seconds on a three-second clip, sends the streaming service back to the first frame. Our help page says to create the poster image inside Projector instead, so you control the frame, and to treat the time value as a backup. Projector can also make short GIF clips for social media, email or text campaigns. Streaming services do not use GIFs.
Finally, archiving. Projector can copy each rendered video, with its poster and GIF if you made them, to a storage location you provide. Today that is an object-storage bucket in a cloud account you own and manage, and the help pages say custom storage integrations can be discussed with Dataclay. One trap is documented clearly. Suppose you ask the transcoder to archive posters or GIFs, but archiving is not turned on in the Storage section. Projector then skips archiving altogether and those settings do nothing.
Who should look elsewhere
Projector is narrow on purpose, and the support matrix says so. Customized video means After Effects with Templater. Data sources are Que and Google Sheets. Streaming is the three services above, and archiving is the one bucket type. If your pipeline runs on a different data source or a service not on the list, Projector does not reach it today. Our documentation says more data sources and services are planned, and custom storage integrations can be discussed with us. It also does not design or fill your template. Templater does that, and our complete Templater guide explains how. Projector is built for batches, so a handful of videos you upload by hand may not need it.
There is also a gap in our own documentation. We have help pages for setup, export, transcoding, streaming and archiving, but the pages we could read do not state system requirements or licensing for Projector. Ask us before you plan around either. One troubleshooting tip is documented and worth keeping: if Projection says there are no missions to deploy, check that you did not select Enable AEP rendering and also pick a video file extension for the data source. The two settings cannot be used together.
The bottom line is this. If Templater has already solved how your videos get made and your bottleneck is rendering one at a time and posting by hand, Projector is the tool for that second half. If you are choosing between our two products, read Que versus Projector, then visit the Projector page or browse the Learn hub for the rest of the path.
These are the questions we get most from people weighing Projector against doing the rendering and uploading by hand. The answers come from our help pages.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Projector replace Templater?
No. Templater builds the versions. Projector takes what Templater produces, renders and transcodes it in parallel, and distributes it. Our documentation says Projector is designed to work with After Effects and Templater, and that you must install and run it on the same computer where you use Templater and store its output files. For customized video from start to finish, you use both.
How much faster is Projector than rendering in After Effects alone?
After Effects processes one video at a time, and Projector gives each core a different video. Our help page says a quad-core machine can get four videos done in about the time After Effects needs for one. That is a rule of thumb, not a benchmark. Real results depend on your template, video length and hardware, so time one video and a small batch first.
Which data sources and streaming services does Projector support?
Data comes from Que or Google Sheets, and each payload uses only one. Streaming goes to Vimeo, JW Player or Frame.io, one service per payload. Archiving goes to a storage bucket in a cloud account you provide. Our documentation says more data sources and services are planned, and that custom storage integrations can be discussed with Dataclay.
Do I need a paid Vimeo account to use Projector?
Only if you stream to Vimeo. Our setup page says Projector supports only paid Vimeo accounts, because Vimeo limits API access, storage and transfers on free accounts. JW Player does not offer free accounts either. Frame.io is owned by Adobe, and our documentation says Adobe subscription holders receive a free account. Our help pages suggest Vimeo for smaller or occasional producers and JW Player or Frame.io for large-scale ones.
What privacy setting should I use for personalized videos?
Our documentation recommends the owner-only setting as the default. It lets you play through each video and stage the batch before a campaign, and you switch the privacy on the streaming service when you are ready. Public is not recommended in most cases, since anyone with the link can view it, and the platform-members option is not recommended either.
Can Projector run unattended on a schedule?
Projection can. You enter a number of seconds in the Check every field and click Enable, and Projector polls your data source and processes new ready jobs until you disable it. The documentation says nothing about running without a logged-in computer, so confirm your setup with us. Remember that Google authorization expires after seven days, so sheet users are prompted to sign in again.
Why does Projector say there are no missions to deploy?
The one documented cause is a settings clash. If Enable AEP rendering is selected in the Export section, the data source setup should not also carry a video file asset extension, because the two settings cannot share a project. Clear the extension and run it again, and check that your rows are marked ready.
