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Is Squeeze utterly unusable?
If I could sing and could play an instrument I would write a power ballad about how much I despise Squeeze. From the serial numbers that take a day to enter to the additional “activation” hassle to the grumpy 20 somethings that staff there “support” line, to that I have gotten it to successfully encode something once. I’ve been using encoding software for a while, solid in the basics; but I can not get Squeeze to ever do what I need. Most recently trying to encode a QT reference (XDCAM 100Mb/1080i) sequence with Squeeze to H.264. After about 7 hours it was done. The audio plays fine but the video does nothing. Just hangs on a freeze frame (which is not a freeze).
Instead of packaging this with Media Composer; why doesn’t Avid just send someone over to punch us in the gut?
Scott Davis
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4 Replies
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I personally hate Squeeze, however, if you’re on a Mac, you can now buy Compressor completely separate from Final Cut Pro. It’s only $50, and I prefer it for compression.
Richard Sanchez
Los Angeles, CA“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks
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[Scott Davis] “Most recently trying to encode a QT reference (XDCAM 100Mb/1080i)”
XDCAM @ 100Mb/s ? I thought XDCAM topped out at 50Mb/s.
Regarless of the data rate, I’ve never had luck getting XDCAM out of Composer using QT ref. I’ve always converted to DNxHD and then sent a QT ref to Squeeze. I manage to get some use out of Squeeze – with a few hiccups along the way. I would rather have Episode installed in the suites.
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A punch in the gut would probably feel better than the pains you have experienced. I laughed.
I have used Squeeze for years, on both PC and Mac. Seems to work pretty well. We make WMV files for corporate clients all the time. I agree that activating can be a pain, and depending on settings, it can take a while. But some encoding on Compressor can take a long time as well. Apple has a pretty good job of optimizing its programs for its hardware.
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Anything worth doing at all, is worth doing well.
– Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield -
No, I think Squeeze works on a limited number of formats, and sucks like a black hole on others.
Last year I exchanged tons of email with tech support trying to explain to them that there crap application was not deinterlacing footage on export. They had the project, the Avid systems specs, samples, screen snapshots and EVERY SINGLE SETTING I tried to use to get the media out properly. NO GO.
I switched to use Adobe Media Exporter, since about 90% of my work at that gig was destined for Flash. At my home studio I’m a rabid fan of Telestream Episode.
Dan Warvi
After Effects, Avid, Motion, Broadcast Systems & PC as nec
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