[Ben Waggoner]

Half that bitrate for DBS? I wish. Almost all digital cable and digital satellite uses half-D1 (352×480) resolution, at around 1 Mbps VBR. THEY STINK!

You’re right that the 15 Mbps peak is rather insane. When I’m targeting a set top player, I try to keep my peak to 6.5 Mbps or lower for video+audio, so typically 6.3 Mbps CBR video and 192 Kbps AC-3 audio.

Compressor 2 can provide stunning quality with 24p content at 6.3 CBR in Best quality mode – in my tests, it’s almost indistinguishable from the source.

My Book: https://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm
Squeeze and ProCoder tutorials: https://www.classondemand.net/benwaggoner/
Compression Class at Stanford: https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/compression.html

[Ben Waggoner]

It uses Macromedia’s QuickTime Export Component for making .FLV files.

AFAIK, it’s the same one that’s been up for a year or so ago. One of the last things Hage Van Dijk did before he turned out the lights and shut the door.

My Book: https://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm
Squeeze and ProCoder tutorials: https://www.classondemand.net/benwaggoner/
Compression Class at Stanford: https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/compression.html

[Ben Waggoner]

And Compressor 2 offers an upgrade – you get access to the Rear Surround channel.

And you can also do multichannel AAC encoding – the big V for Vendetta trailer uses it (but won’t play smoothly on my 2×2.0 G5!).

My Book: https://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm
Squeeze and ProCoder tutorials: https://www.classondemand.net/benwaggoner/
Compression Class at Stanford: https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/compression.html

[Ben Waggoner]

Charles,

In my recent testing, it seems that BitVice has fallen behind Compressor 2 in terms of compatibility, performance, and quality. Not hugely behind, but significant, with both 4:3 60i and 16:9 24p. I’d be curious to hear the cases where you see BitVice having an advantage.

My Book: https://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm
Squeeze and ProCoder tutorials: https://www.classondemand.net/benwaggoner/
Compression Class at Stanford: https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/compression.html

[Ben Waggoner]

Also, Camtasia and WME are designed for normal computer-like tasks, like IE and Word. If it’s a full-screen video game, both will slow to a crawl. You’re better off with a scan converter in those cases, which could take VGA to SDI, and then capture from that with an SDI capture card.

There are also DVI to HD-SDI converts if you really want to work in HD. 1280×720 60p works great with some games, and looks great as well.

My Book: https://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm
Squeeze and ProCoder tutorials: https://www.classondemand.net/benwaggoner/
Compression Class at Stanford: https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/compression.html

[Ben Waggoner]

ProCoder supports pretty good FLV encoding via the Macromedia Flash Video QuickTime component. Not the “Spark Pro” branding, but it works nicely.

However, given the long connection between Squeeze and Flash, I’d expect Squeeze to be one of the first tools to support the new codecs. If all you care about is FLV encoding today and tomorrow, Squeeze is a fine choice.

My Book: https://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm
Squeeze and ProCoder tutorials: https://www.classondemand.net/benwaggoner/
Compression Class at Stanford: https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/compression.html

[Ben Waggoner]

My favorite .mov encoder these days is Compression Master from Popwire, which gives a QT 6.0 and higher compatible MPEG-4 video stream that looks a lot better than Apple’s.

If you can live with a .mp4 file instead, Squeeze is a great choice, and quite a bit easier to learn than Compression Master (although not as deep).

If you’re new to compression, might I politely flog my book (like below in the .sig).

My Book: https://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm
Squeeze and ProCoder tutorials: https://www.classondemand.net/benwaggoner/
Compression Class at Stanford: https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/compression.html

[Ben Waggoner]

Actually, all is well.

While NTSC DV has a 3:2 pixel ratio (720×480), the image aspect ratio is always either 4:3 or 16:9, which is why you have those settings. Its being encoded internally as 720×480. The 640×480 QuickTime reports is the post-aspect-ratio-correction size – QuickTime Player squishes the video to 640×480 to provide the 4:3 aspect ratio.

So, don’t fret it. It’s all working according to plan.

My Book: https://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm
Squeeze and ProCoder tutorials: https://www.classondemand.net/benwaggoner/
Compression Class at Stanford: https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/compression.html

[Ben Waggoner]

I’m assuming you’re targeting QuickTime here.

H.264 is beautiful for this kind of content, but requires QuickTime 7 which isn’t in final release for Windows yet. If you don’t mind buying another product, I recommend Compression Master from Popwire. It’ll use a good 2-pass VBR MPEG-4 codec in .mp4, which looks a LOT better than Apple’s stock MPEG-4 codec.

For audio in QuickTime, it’s all about AAC-LC. 128 Kbps stereo 44.1 is glorious – same settings as used with the iTunes Music Store.

My Book: https://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm
Squeeze and ProCoder tutorials: https://www.classondemand.net/benwaggoner/
Compression Class at Stanford: https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/compression.html

[Ben Waggoner]

Cleaner on Mac is absolutely known to produce corrupt output, and it’s slow and ugly anyway. No reason to use it.

Compressor 2 has worked quite nicely for me, under 10.4.x, for DVD authoring. Could you give some more details as to what you’re doing? Possibly a field inversion?

My Book: https://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm
Squeeze and ProCoder tutorials: https://www.classondemand.net/benwaggoner/
Compression Class at Stanford: https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/compression.html