MAA Encoder Help Guide – Tools, Tips & Troubleshooting
The MAA Encoder suite includes multiple tools that work well together for managing large media libraries. This page gives you a quick, practical overview of how to use each app and where to look when something goes wrong.
Quick Navigation
MAA Video Encoder – Basics
How to Batch Encode Videos
- 📁 Select a Source Folder / File: Choose a folder containing your video files on the Video tab for Batch Encoding, or choose individual video files to add to the queue.
- 📂 Destination Folder: Leave blank to use the same directory, or pick a separate output folder.
- 🎛️ Preset Profile: Choose one of the built-in CPU/GPU profiles, or keep it on Custom and tweak: encoder, speed, resolution, framerate, and CRF.
- 🖥️ Hardware Target: Select CPU, NVIDIA GPU, AMD GPU, AMD iGPU, or Intel iGPU depending on your system.
- 🚀 Start Queue: Add files/folders to the queue, then click Start Queue. Files are processed and stored in a “converted” folder or with suffixes, depending on your settings.
Additional Options
- 🎧 Audio Tab: Adjust bitrate, codec, sample rate, channels, volume, or remove audio entirely.
- 💬 Subtitles Tab: Remove, embed, or burn subtitles. If a matching
.srtexists in the source folder, it can be burned in automatically. - ↗️ Upscaling Tab: Use FFmpeg or AI-style upscaling profiles to sharpen or resize older content (where supported).
- ✂️ Clip / Trim Tab: Enable trimming, choose a preview video, and set start/end times to keep only a selected range.
- ➕ Append Options: Add suffixes to filenames or folder names (for example
_converted) to clearly mark outputs. - ⚙️ Skip Rules: Automatically skip files or folders based on keywords, codec, bitrate, or resolution so already-optimized files don’t get re-encoded.
- 🧹 Cleanup: Remove suffixes from file/folder names and (optionally) delete original files/folders after successful conversion.
- ⏱️ Delay Tab: Add a delay between each file to reduce heat and load on lower-powered systems.
📊 Progress Tracking
Two real-time progress bars give insight into encoding activity:
-
⏳ Current File Progress: Real-time % of the current video being encoded.
75%
-
📦 Total Queue Progress: Shows how many videos have completed out of the total batch.
10 / 25
🧠 Queue Controls
- ▶️ Start Queue: Begin processing all items currently in the queue.
- ⏸️ Pause / Resume Current: Temporarily pause the current file and resume it.
- 🧼 Soft Stop: Finish the current file, then stop the queue cleanly.
- 🛑 Force Stop: Immediately cancels processing. This may leave partial output files.
- 🔁 Retry Failed: Re-queue failed items from a previous run.
🧰 Interface Tabs
- 📄 Status Log: Simplified, human-readable updates on what the encoder is doing.
- 🛠️ Debug Log: Full FFmpeg command output and technical messages.
- 📊 Progress Tab: Visual overview of batch progress and storage savings.
- 🕓 History Tab: Records of completed conversions, sizes, and savings for later review.
💡 Tips
- ⏱️ Add a delay between encodes if your PC runs hot or you’re multitasking.
- 💻 Use hardware encoders (
h264_nvenc,hevc_nvenc, and similar for AMD/Intel) for much faster performance when quality trade-offs are acceptable. - 🧾 Burn subtitles only when needed. Burned subtitles are permanent and cannot be removed later.
- 🛑 IMPORTANT: Avoid using Delete Original Folder or Delete Input File in the Cleanup tab if your destination folder is the same as your source and you have disabled suffix options. Safety checks exist, but misconfiguration can still cause data loss.
Common Problems & Fixes
- 🛠️ FFmpeg not found? Make sure FFmpeg remains in the bundled folder structure or reinstall the app to restore it.
- 💾 Output not saving? Check write permissions and confirm the destination path is valid and not write-protected.
- ⚠️ Files are skipped unexpectedly? Review your Skip Rules and folder/file keyword filters.
MAA Video Downloader – Basics
How to Download Videos
- 🔗 Video URL: Paste the video URL into the Video URL box.
- 🍪 Cookies file (optional): If the site requires login or age verification, point the app to a cookies file exported from your browser.
- 📂 Destination folder: Choose where downloads will be saved.
- 🧱 Container: Choose whether to keep the original container (“No recode”), or force MP4/MKV where available.
- 📺 Max resolution: Limit downloads to a specific maximum quality (e.g., 1080p) or use “Best available.”
- ➕ Add to Queue: Add the current URL to the download queue so you can line up multiple videos.
- ▶️ Start Queue: Begin downloading items in order.
Queue & Controls
- 📋 Download Queue: Shows URL, source info (size/format/res), target container/resolution, and destination path.
- 🗑️ Remove Selected: Remove highlighted items before they are downloaded.
- ⏸️ Pause Current / Resume Current: Temporarily pause or resume the active download (where supported).
- 🛑 Stop Queue: Stop further downloads after the current job.
Status & Debug Logs
- 📊 Current download progress: Per-file progress bar.
- 📦 Queue progress: Shows how many items are completed out of the total queue.
- 📄 Status Log: High-level messages – start/finish, errors, and target info.
- 🛠️ Debug Log: Full yt-dlp/FFmpeg output for troubleshooting.
Common Problems & Fixes
- 🔒 Download fails or returns empty file? Try supplying a valid cookies file for that site.
- 🎬 Video plays without audio (or vice versa)? Re-download using a container profile that merges audio/video (e.g., MP4).
- 🌐 Site changed formats? Update to the latest version of the downloader bundle when you see repeated format errors.
MAA Subtitle Creator – Basics
MAA Subtitle Creator is meant to make basic subtitle creation easier without needing more than a few clicks.
Typical Workflow
- 📁 Open a video file you want to subtitle. file.
- ⌨️ Create subtitle lines: Auto create the text / timestamps, and preview timing against the media.
- 💾 Save to SRT: Export a standard
.srtfile ready for use in players, Plex/Jellyfin, or burning in via the encoder.
Tips
- 🎯 If you notice it does not appear to be as accurate as it should, try a larger model.
- 🌐 If you plan to burn the subtitles into video later, check spelling and punctuation carefully – you can change them unless you burn them into a video.
Common Problems & Fixes
- ⏰ Larger Model = More Reliabilty Available options are: Tiny, Base, Small, Medium and Large. Smaller = Faster but less reliable.
- 📁 Player doesn’t see the subtitles? Make sure the
.srtfilename matches the video filename (e.g.,Movie.mkvandMovie.srt).
MAA Video Embed Extractor – Basics
How to Extract Embedded Streams
- 📁 Folder with videos: Select the folder that contains the video files you want to process.
- ✅ Choose what to extract: Use the checkboxes to pick which items should be pulled out:
- Extract audio tracks into separate
_audio.mkafiles - Extract subtitle tracks into
_subs.mksfiles - Extract cover art / attached pictures into
_cover.jpg - Extract attachments (fonts, XML, etc.) into a subfolder
- Extract audio tracks into separate
- 🧼 Optional clean copy: Enable “Also create clean video copy without extracted items” to create a new file that has the embeds removed (while typically stream-copying the main video).
- ▶️ Run Extraction on Folder: Starts processing every supported file in the selected folder.
Status & Debug Logs
- 📄 Status Log: Human-readable messages about what was extracted, what wasn’t found, and where files were saved.
- 🛠️ Debug Log (raw FFmpeg output): Full FFmpeg messages – useful if extraction fails or a particular stream can’t be mapped.
Common Problems & Fixes
- ❓ No subtitle/audio exported? Check the Status Log – the file may not contain the stream type you expected (for example, forced subs only or no separate subtitles at all).
- 📂 Files appear but won’t play? Make sure your media player supports the format (.mkv/.mka etc), or remux them into another container using the encoder or another tool.
- 🧹 Clean copy not created? Verify the “clean copy” checkbox is enabled and that there’s enough free space in your output folder.