Getting Quicktime Sorenson codec back

[Walter Soyka]

On Mac OS X 10.6, this must be done on the command line. Open Terminal, then copy and paste:

qtdefaults write LegacyCodecsEnabled yes

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

[Christina Rule]

Walter
Thank you so much! I would have never guessed that!

http://www.christinarule.com

[Jeff Greenberg]

Just a footnote – if you don’t own the “pro” version of the Sorenson Codec, you’ll struggle with compression because there’s no VBR choices without purchasing the pro version of the codec.

Best,

Jeff G

Apple Master Trainer
Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC
Avid & Color Videos Vasst.com
Compressor Essentials Lynda.com

[Bob Sabiston]

Does this work in Lion? I just tried it and have not recovered Sorenson, Motion JPEG A, or others that I like.

Do I need to do something else? I tried restarting.

Thanks
Bob

[Walter Soyka]

Sorry, I’m not sure — I haven’t moved to Lion.

Anyone else?

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

[Jeff Greenberg]

I ran the terminal command (as I had before) that walter mentions; Sorenson Pro (any version, as an encoder) doesn’t show up in QuickTime 7 as an exportable setting from QuickTime 7 Player.

Meanwhile, I fired up compressor (4.0.1) and got nothing if I built an export setting for QuickTime.
BUT, if I dragged a movie into compressor’s settings (which builds a preset), it built a preset with Sorenson 3. If I did it from scratch, nothing. So it seems it’s purposely off (as it’s an older legacy codec)

Best,

Jeff G

Apple Master Trainer | Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC | Adobe Cert. Instructor
————
You should follow me (filmgeek) on twitter. I promise to be nice.
New- my book (with Richard Harrington and Robbie Carman)- An Editor’s Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro
Compressor Essentials from Lynda.com
(older but still good) Marquee, Media Composer (3.5) and Basic/Advanced Color DVDs (1.0) from Vasst.com
Contact me through my Website

[Bob Sabiston]

I think they are just doing what they can to kill off Sorenson in favor of h264. But Sorenson doesn’t have h264’s color weirdness where it’s always washed-out. And Sorenson works better with programs that deal with quicktime files on a frame-by-frame basis, I’ve found.

Bob

[Jeff Greenberg]

Both are fixable. h.264 is far more efficient in encoding.

Install x264. I’m assuming you’re coming from FCP?

Second, bump the keyframe rate to around every 15 frames; that will get you a bit more responsiveness.

Best,

Jeff G

Apple Master Trainer | Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC | Adobe Cert. Instructor
————
You should follow me (filmgeek) on twitter. I promise to be nice.
New- my book (with Richard Harrington and Robbie Carman)- An Editor’s Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro
Compressor Essentials from Lynda.com
(older but still good) Marquee, Media Composer (3.5) and Basic/Advanced Color DVDs (1.0) from Vasst.com
Contact me through my Website

[Chris Fost]

Just found this out there on the web after much digging and wanted to share:

“In OS X 10.7 Lion the codecs need to be enabled one by one. For Sorenson3 you type into Terminal: qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs SorensonVideo3 enabled”

It worked for me, I can now export Sorenson 3 from QT Pro 7.6.6 and more importantly (for me), Avid.

Cheers,

Chris

—-

Christopher Fost | Post Production Supervisor | Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada