possible to submit jobs to compressor over the network? or a watch folder?

[Mark Raudonis]

Don’t know exactly what you mean by a “network” ’cause it can mean different things to different people. I can tell you that we have many FCP systems connected by a network to X-SAN, and we use compressor all the time. Yes, the job is submitted over the network, but if you really want to do this, it’s a bit more complicated than you think.

Depending on the resolution that you’re using, the basic ethenet network is probably going to choke. Gig E at the minimum and fibre channel would be better.

Finally, if your are on a network, that means access to more than one computer, and so you have the ability to take advantage of “distributed rendering”. That for us is the best feature of compressor. You can harness all of your idle computers and render things out in an incredibly short timespan.

Good luck.

Mark

[Jeremy Webb]

Thanks for the info Mark, but I wasn’t clear enough in my description. I meant if we have someone working at a compositing station using after effects and final cut is not installed on that computer, and he renders out a file that needs to be compressed for the web, can he submit the file to an edit station to be rendered with a compressor droplet? or does he have to go to the edit station and set it up? ideally, compressor would have a folder that it would “watch” and whenever a video file was put into it, compressor would start compressing it to a predefined preset

[Mark Raudonis]

jeremy,

Yes. If I understand your situation correctly, Compressor can do what you’re asking.

Specifically, if you’re creating something in AE, and rendering it, the step of creating an H.264 for the web has nothing to do with FCP. So, you do NOT need FCP, only compressor to accomplish this. For example, we create a self contained Quicktime (either from FCP or AE) then use distributed rendering to create the h.264. By harnessing over 50 computers to do this, our rendering time has gone from hours to around 5 minutes. We do not have an automatic “watch folder”. You’d have to read the manual to see if that’s possible. I don’t know.

Mark

[Michael Gossen]

Guys,

It is possible, you will want to look up “Folder Actions” in Finder. From there, depending on what you want to do, you could use Automator to call QT Pro too encode. Good luck. More people should think about these types of automatic scripted options to help out workflow pains and manage time. If you have multiple computers, and you could install compressor on the others, you might think about Qmaster like Mark is talking about to save time.

Michael Gossen
Pixel Dust Digital

[Michael Gossen]

Guys,

It is possible, you will want to look up “Folder Actions” in Finder. From there, depending on what you want to do, you could use Automator to call QT Pro too encode. Good luck. More people should think about these types of automatic scripted options to help out workflow pains and manage time. If you have multiple computers, and you could install compressor on the others, you might think about Qmaster like Mark is talking about to save time.

Michael Gossen
Helium Digital Media

[Jeremy Webb]

thanks Michael, you suggested installing compressor on the other computers, I thought that any of the final cut studio apps could only be installed on one computer. eg if you wanted to install dvdsp on a different computer than final cut pro (assuming one liscence of final cut studio). is this thinking wrong? can compressor be installed in more than one computer.

[Michael Gossen]

Jeremy,

You are right about Compressor. I was more speaking to the hypothetical, “if you could install” sort of thing. Quicktime Pro is a great alternative, basically Compressor without the interface. Compressor is based on QT after all. Good luck.

Michael Gossen
Helium Digital Media

[Bjørn Holmgren]

About the watch folder, here is one way to do it:
https://www.macworld.com/article/54083/2006/11/compressor_watch_folder_tip.html