# Job Start Adobe Media Encoder Action

The Job Start Adobe Media Encoder Action allows you to initiate a specific version of Media Encoder by specifying the path to the .exe file (Windows) or .app file (macOS).

The purpose of this action is to launch Media Encoder and wait until the invisible Helmut4 panel is accessible.

By default, the action will fail if the hidden panel cannot be accessed within 55 seconds (as a synchronous stream will time out after 60 seconds).

{% hint style="info" %}
If dealing with a slow client computer, consider using two instances of this action consecutively in an asynchronous stream tree.
{% endhint %}

If the [hidden panel](/helmut4-releases/support/debug-or-log-collection/helmut4-client/panel-debug-ports.md) is unreachable (due to being missing or broken) or if the action times out, an error will be reported to the job dashboard and as a node result. You can access the node result using wildcards like [{stream.last\_result}](/helmut4-releases/helmut4-components/streamdesigner/wildcards/result-or-return-wildcards-2/stream-last_result.md) or [{node.result.?}](/helmut4-releases/helmut4-components/streamdesigner/wildcards/result-or-return-wildcards-2/node-result.md).

<figure><img src="/files/Hd8NkvbxFpK44RgO191N" alt="" width="358"><figcaption><p>Job Start Adobe Media Encoder Action</p></figcaption></figure>


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