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Compressor alternative
I’ve been using Final Cut Pro for years and I’m overall pretty happy with Final Cut Studio, but Compressor is a terrible de-interlacing tool, not to mention that it’s all around slow to encode anything (especially MOV to WMV). Can anyone suggest a good compression program to pair up with the Final Cut Studio that isn’t Compressor? Thanks.
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9 Replies
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Telestream Episode and Episode Pro.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
Credits include multiple Emmy, Telly, Aurora and Peabody Awards.
Owner, Biscardi Creative Media featuring HD Post
Biscardi Creative MediaCreative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital. -
FIrst it should be understood, Compressor does NOTHING, except that it allows you to enter settings, it does not encode, this is why you can quick Compressor after you submit a file. You can add Episode to your system, Nattress Filters, Red Giant Frames.
But are you using frames Control set to best in Compress, this turns on the optical flow (the engine used in Shake) to do the deinterlacing? but it is even slower.
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And as for speed – actually compressor can match or beat anything else when you use quickcluster to be able to use all of your processor cores.
For example – encoding a 45 minute DVCPRO HD file into h264 with timecode burn-in takes about 20 minutes on an 8 core machine. Not sure how it would react with windows media, but I can imagine it would help that too…
I have used episode as well and I like its more simple interface – but lately compressor has won me over with using quickclusters and the droplet feature. And it doesn’t cost anything…
Liam Lawyer
-editor- -
[Liam Lawyer] “Not sure how it would react with windows media, but I can imagine it would help that too…”
Based on my experience, multicore processing in Compressor does not work with Windows Media using the Flip for Mac WMV encoder. Only one processor appears to be used in the batch monitor.
Lee Berger
http://www.leebergermedia.com -
I am using quickcluster actually, on a Quad Core (2 x 3GHz Dual Core) MacPro. Really the only issue that I’m having with Compressor is when it comes to de-interlacing footage…besides that it works okay. I use the frame controls, set the de-interlace to “Best”, then it takes it a very long time to chew through, and half the time the end product looks like a bad de-interlace. I also check to make sure that Compressor is interpreting the source files fields correctly before hand. I’ve also had issues interlacing progressive footage with Compressor. It just seems to me that anything having to do with upper/lower/progressive changes, Compressor falls short.
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Episode Pro from Telesteam is the encoding tool for MacOSX at the moment. You can create workflows to it via Compressor if you want also. It supports far more formats in and out including better filter support. It’s not flawless but does a solid jobb.
https://www.telestream.net/episode/overview.htm
There are rumors of a new Compressor / Episode / Engine competitor on the horizon, we shall see what IBC brings.
Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Communication
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Def hear you about the de-interlace issue.. Episode does have some nice tweaky options for that so def check it out. I think you can download a demo to try it first.
Liam Lawyer
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De-interlacing is something I don’t do much but you do have a lot of options in Episode to handle it. I’ve had quite varied results there.
Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Communication
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Given Compressor as far as I know doesn’t support proper flash output, Episode does with one “but”. It requires it’s output video size to be dividable by 8. So say a normal 1024×576 isn’t an issue but if you’re developing a video-file for a site with an odd aspect it will be.
Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Communication
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