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Activity Forums Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy Goddam Compressor!

  • Goddam Compressor!

    Posted by Eli Mavros on February 14, 2006 at 9:07 pm

    I swear, I have read every thread I can find on this subject, but have never been able to get Compressor to work properly. Every time that I try to either use compressor on its own or export through FCP, one of two things happen: It either quits unexpectedly right away or gets about 70% through the encoding process and then quits. In both cases my entire computer freezes and I have to do a manual restart. This is driving me nuts!!! Back in the day I used to get that cannot connect to background message, now I don’t have that problem anymore…instead it freezes my whole computer. I uninstalled all of the compressor stuff that it says to on the apple site, then I reinstalled it and ran the most recent updates of FCP, Compressor, and the ProAppsUpdate2005-02…restarted and WHAM…same problem.

    Specs:
    Dual 2 GHz G5
    2.5 GB DDR SDRAM
    OS X v. 10.3.9
    QT v. 7.0.4

    Any suggestions?

    Thanks,
    Eli

    Eli Mavros

    Arnie Schlissel replied 20 years, 6 months ago 3 Members · 10 Replies
  • 10 Replies
  • David Bogie

    February 14, 2006 at 10:05 pm

    Compressor is plagued. We don’t know why. Like Media Manager, Compressor seems to work well for most of us and is a disaster for the rest of us.
    You might want to invest several more hours into reading the apple.com Compressor forum.

    Easier to buy a tool we know works like Squeeze or Cleaner.

    bogiesan

    This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

  • Arnie Schlissel

    February 14, 2006 at 10:21 pm

    The only problems I’ve had with Compressor 2 is with 2 pass mpeg2. For me, everything else it works quite well. Is it possible that the drive you’re trying to encode to is full? Or that the file you’re feeding it is corrupt?

    Arnie
    https://www.arniepix.com

  • Eli Mavros

    February 14, 2006 at 10:28 pm

    I have Cleaner 6, but for some reason I could never get DVDSP to accept MPEG2s encoded with it…but I use it for all of my other compression needs. But the other reason I would like to use Compressor is so that I do not have to actually render out a full rez movie first before I put it through an encoder, I yearn for the ability to just export an MPEG2 straight from FCP’s “Export Using Qucktime Conversion” that I lost somewhere between fcp 4.5 and 5. Would it be too much for Apple to just give us this one function back…so simple. 🙁 Are lot’s of people who are having these problems have similar systems? I forgot to mention last time that I have a Kona LH…could that be interfering?

    Best,
    Eli

    Eli Mavros

  • Eli Mavros

    February 14, 2006 at 10:33 pm

    This unfortunatley happens on every file I try to feed it, whether it is a sequence from within FCP or a QT that I add to the batch list outside of FCP. These are only 30 second spots and I have half a terabyte left of space, so I don’t think it is an issue 🙂 If I cannot use 2pass VBR then the program is pretty useless to me…otherwise I guess I will just encode it by dragging the full rez movie into DVDSP…but would sure be nice if I only had to export/encode once.

    Best,
    Eli

    Eli Mavros

  • Arnie Schlissel

    February 14, 2006 at 10:41 pm

    You don’t need to use 2 pass unless you’re making a DVD with more than about 90 minutes worth of material. So unless you’re making a disk with 181 of those 30 sec. spots, you might be better off using CBR in Compressor. My own recent experience is that CBR works well & looks good if you can keep the bit rate above 6 Mbps.

    Arnie
    https://www.arniepix.com

  • Eli Mavros

    February 14, 2006 at 10:51 pm

    I always thought 2Pass VBR was the highest quality…I could be wrong. Is there a preset for what you do, or did you just modify one of the existing presets? Also, why in Compressor 2 (and not version 1) are there both presets that say “DVD: Best Quality 90 Min” and “MPEG-2 90min High Quality Encode”? This seems kind of confusing to me…what is the difference between using these presets? Aren’t they just two different ways of naming the same thing? Also, why for the latter is there a 60min option but not for the former?
    Best,
    Eli

    Eli Mavros

  • Eli Mavros

    February 14, 2006 at 10:57 pm

    I don’t see an option in the mpeg2 quality settings to encode at CBR…How do I change it?

    -Eli

    Eli Mavros

  • Arnie Schlissel

    February 14, 2006 at 11:19 pm

    In the batch window, select your file, then apply the mpeg2 preset from the pulldown menu that most closely describes what you want. Now select that preset in the batch window. It will open in the inspector window (you may have to open the inspector window from the Window menu). Click the quality tab, chooseb“1 Pass”, plug a number of 7Mbps or less into the average bit rate window, then set the motion estimation to “Best”. Good luck & happy hunting!

    Arnie
    https://www.arniepix.com

  • Eli Mavros

    February 14, 2006 at 11:45 pm

    Yeah, I saw that option, but does 1pass=CBR? I did not think that this was the same thing.

    -Eli

    Eli Mavros

  • Arnie Schlissel

    February 15, 2006 at 12:03 am

    The 1st choice, “One pass”, is CBR, as opposed to the “One pass VBR” options.

    Arnie
    https://www.arniepix.com

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