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compressor vs. encoder
I’ve searched around but havent found any posts about this so I figured I’d bring it up here. In people’s experience, what app is better to use to compress your movies? apple compressor or adobe encoder? Is one better than the other? if so, why? Is one faster for some reason? Better quality?
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10 Replies
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Depends, with what you work. If you are a FCP Man, then I’d stick with Compressor – for the integrated workflow.
What NLE System you work with?Sascha
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Right now I’m in the middle of testing this pipeline. Adobe Encoder CS5 works in 64-bit mode and hence can use all memory and cpu cores. Recently I exported project from fcp into xml, then import it in Adobe Premiere and export thru Encoder. I got approximately three times render productivity spike compared to compressor. It’s rough estimate and it’s too early to make suggestions, though. If you don’t have a zillion-core apple then may be this is a good way for you to speed up rendering times, because I’m sick and tired watching my renders taking as much time as five or six hours with moderate load on cpus and negligent consumption of RAM.
Free-lance fcp editor in Moscow
http://www.mokaeff.com -
It all depends on your workflow. In my own experience, I’ve discovered that Adobe Media Encoder’s scaling (CS4) is inferior to that of Compressor with frame controls turned on and scaling set to Best.
I’ve run A/B comparison tests using 720p source footage encoded to 640×360 .flv (On2 VP8) files, and I get superior results if I first use Compressor (with Best quality scaling enabled) to make a 640×360 ProRes intermediate file and then use that as a source file to encode to .flv in AME. Encoding to a 640×360 .flv directly from a 720p source and letting AME do the scaling results in inferior quality output.
The funny thing is, AME has a better h.264 encoder (Main Concept) than Compressor/Quicktime, so I end up using both Compressor and AME when I have to make the highest quality downscaled web videos from HD sources. I use Compressor to do any scaling/cropping/padding, export a ProRes intermediate, then do the final encode in AME. Id’ prefer a single application to do everything, but there’s no budget right now for alternatives.
Does anyone have opinions on the quality of scaling in Episode or Squeeze?
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[Alan Okey] “I’ve discovered that Adobe Media Encoder’s scaling (CS4) is inferior to that of Compressor with frame controls turned on and scaling set to Best.”
I’ve found the exact opposite. At least with 1080 footage.
For 720P neither compressor nor adobe do an adequate job in my opinion.
I always end up running it down through after effects to get it better and the kona card if it’s really aliased.A lot of it depends on the kind of footage you deal with though…
I use compressor and media encoder for different things.
Only media encoder can create the super high bitrate mpeg transport streams some of my local stations require for HD broadcast, compressor just doesn’t allow that. -
I’d agree. I tested episode and compressor 8 ways from Sunday to get the best HD to SD downscaling results for compression. Neither was acceptable. I don’t know what they’re doing to deal with fields but the whole frame controls best thing just ain’t cutting it. There fine with progressive footage. After Effects is the way to go. AE pulls each field out and treats it as an uncompressed frame and scales it. Then reinterlaces the two frames together.
Use AE to scale your footage to SD. Then throw that footage at compressor. AE will scale the footage very swiftly. It’s child’s play for AE. This is the most basic task you could ask of AE. Then use compressor the compress mpeg. This too should go fairly quickly with a cluster set up.
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[Everest Mokaeff] “Adobe Encoder CS5 works in 64-bit mode and hence can use all memory and cpu cores. Recently I exported project from fcp into xml, then import it in Adobe Premiere and export thru Encoder. I got approximately three times render productivity spike compared to compressor.”
Have you created a quick cluster for Compressor in the QMaster system preference panel to take advantage of your multi-core setup?
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
I’ll throw much opinion in here and say Compressor is the worst MPEG 2 encoder in the Universe.
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[eric pautsch] “I’ll throw much opinion in here and say Compressor is the worst MPEG 2 encoder in the Universe.”
Agreed. I use BitVice. If I could justify the expense, I’d buy CinemaCraft MP.
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[eric pautsch] “I’ll throw much opinion in here and say Compressor is the worst MPEG 2 encoder in the Universe.”
Indeed!
[Alan Okey] “I use BitVice.”
I wish Innobits would hurry up and release BitVice 3 HD. I’ve been waiting for it for years.
Now I mainly use Telestream Episode.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Walter Soyka] “I wish Innobits would hurry up and release BitVice 3 HD.”
seconded
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