[Ben Waggoner]

Note that Compression Master was bought by Telestream (who makes Flip4Mac) and renamed Episode.

They’re two different products – Flip4Mac lets you export to .wmv straight from the FCP or Media 100 timeline. Episode is more of a traditional compression tool, supporting much deeper preprocessing, batch encoding, watch folders, etcetera. Both use the same codec underneath, so it’s really about which provides a better workflow for what you’re doing. Personally, I like the preprocessing of Episode better than that of Final Cut itself, so I tend to do my Mac encoding with that.

Also, with Intel Macs, you can also run native WMV encoding tools.

My compression blog: https://on10.net/blogs/benwagg/

My compression class at Stanford: https://digitalmediaacademy.org/courses/video-compression-training.html

[Ben Waggoner]

Think of it is a longer iPod ;).

Really, I much prefer it for video playback, due to the larger 4:3 screen.

My compression blog: https://on10.net/blogs/benwagg/

My compression class at Stanford: https://digitalmediaacademy.org/courses/video-compression-training.html

[Ben Waggoner]

Also, you want to make sure to have WMP11 installed on the machine, which will give you an updated version of the codec.

Can you tell us a little more about what you’re trying to do, and perhaps post a link to your current clip? We can offer more specific examples with that.

My compression blog: https://on10.net/blogs/benwagg/

My compression class at Stanford: https://digitalmediaacademy.org/courses/video-compression-training.html

[Ben Waggoner]

BitRate Viewer will tell what the file is flagged at.

However, that won’t tell you if the file was flagged correctly in the first place. I generally wind up taking it into After Effects and dropping it onto a 60p timeline, and seeing which field order gives me correct motion.

My compression blog: https://on10.net/blogs/benwagg/

My compression class at Stanford: https://digitalmediaacademy.org/courses/video-compression-training.html

[Ben Waggoner]

Definitely go ahead and report the issue to Telestream.

I expect you wouldn’t have the same issues on Windows. Go ahead and try to encode it with your other tools and let us know what happens.

My compression blog: https://on10.net/blogs/benwagg/

My compression class at Stanford: https://digitalmediaacademy.org/courses/video-compression-training.html

[Ben Waggoner]

Do you have the latest version of Flip4Mac installed? The “sprites” problem was definitely an issue, but I thought had been resolved in their latest update.

My compression blog: https://on10.net/blogs/benwagg/

My compression class at Stanford: https://digitalmediaacademy.org/courses/video-compression-training.html

[Ben Waggoner]

Yes. Sonic will be the first to market with CineVision PSE:

https://www.sonic.com/products/Professional/CineVisionpse/quicklook.aspx

We’re also looking to license the core technology to a wide variety of other companies.

My compression blog: https://on10.net/blogs/benwagg/

My compression class at Stanford: https://digitalmediaacademy.org/courses/video-compression-training.html

[Ben Waggoner]

Just in case that there is any confusion:

Windows Media Video 9==VC-1

Windows Media Video 9 is VC-1 Simple or Main Profile
Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile is VC-1 Advanced Profile

You can think of “WMV9” as our brand for our implementation of the VC-1 codec. WMV9 is trademarked by us, while VC-1 is not.

My compression blog: https://on10.net/blogs/benwagg/

My compression class at Stanford: https://digitalmediaacademy.org/courses/video-compression-training.html

[Ben Waggoner]

Yep, I’m still with ProCoder as my go-to tool. That said, I haven’t tested the MPEG-2 output of Episode or BitVice that recently.

My compression blog: https://on10.net/blogs/benwagg/

My compression class at Stanford: https://digitalmediaacademy.org/courses/video-compression-training.html

[Ben Waggoner]

My favorite fire-and-forget encoding is Grass Valley ProCoder, which will run in parallels (although it’ll run faster booted into bootcamp).

The latest version of Compressor fixes some long-time bugs around quality in 2-pass mode with fades. But when you really want to push bitrate down without getting blocky, ProCoder’s my go-to tool.

If you really want to get hands on, CinemaCraft lets you do a lot of segment-based reencoding, but you need to be willing to put the time into it to get good results.

My compression blog: https://on10.net/blogs/benwagg/

My compression class at Stanford: https://digitalmediaacademy.org/courses/video-compression-training.html