[Craig Seeman]

[Tom Sefton] “Perhaps the task being offloaded to GPU or hardware acceleration of h264 might help?”

Recent versions of Compressor use Intel QuickSync to speed encoding. Xeon processors don’t have the integrated GPU that supports this. That’s why an iMac can be faster than a MacPro when encoding H.264. The 2013 Mac Pros are particularly slow compared to a 2017 Quad i7 iMac or MacBook Pro.

I’ve heard Xeon processors may (may soon) support accelerated H.264 (and H.265?) encoding which is why I’ll be very curious how a base iMac Pro compares to the latest iMac (non Pro).

[Craig Seeman]

Larry Jordan ran these tests in early 2015. I believe Compressor may have improved since then with the 4.3 update as well.

Note how Compressor compares to Handbrake on the 21″ iMac. But note how HandBrake compares to the MacPro.

Here’s the article.

Larry notes:
If you own a new Mac Pro, HandBrake is the leader by a wide margin, followed by Apple Compressor.
If you own an iMac or MacBook Pro, Apple Compressor is fastest, with HandBrake second.

[Craig Seeman]

[Gabriele Sartori] “we are in front of a marketing crafted BS answer.”

No, my conversation is with coders not marketing people. Depending on the codec and the encoder, more CPU cycles don’t always mean faster. There are times when more CPU cycles are simply wasted cycles. Just as more bits doesn’t necessarily mean discernible quality improvement.

Perhaps it’s the “more is better” is the marketing hype. Sometimes more CPU cycles (or more bits) helps but sometimes they don’t.

[Craig Seeman]

Alas MPEGStreamclip developed stopped years ago. Note the beta (from 2012) never became a release version.
VLC is still very much alive for Playback and HandBrake for encoding otherwise it’s time to move on to other players.

[Craig Seeman]

I can’t speak to Apple in detail but with my background working with the Telestream Episode Encoder developers, they were often asked the same question regarding the cores maxing out.

Their general response was that the goal of compression isn’t to “max out” the cores. It’s to use the resources necessary for quality and speed (depending on your settings). If the encoder is efficiently designed it may not need to max out the cores. Sometimes maxing out cores is a result of less the optimal programing.

Of course HandBrake could even be less efficient but still faster (perhaps as a faster car may actually be less fuel efficient). It’s just that maxing out the cores may not be the best litmus test for faster.

[Craig Seeman]

This is what they list

Gear used in this film:
Table Tripod Marsace — https://amzn.to/2hnWsqp
Tripod Adapter MeFOTO — https://amzn.to/2iWuX7A
Monopod Gitzo — https://amzn.to/2yYsRiM
Video Head Manfrotto — https://amzn.to/2yzWkvb
Gimbal DJI — https://amzn.to/2hslC7b
Gimbal Zhiyun — https://amzn.to/2hqq5rk
Led Panel Yongnuo — https://amzn.to/2zCzczg
Small Battery Anker — https://amzn.to/2zDAt9a
Bigger Battery Anker — https://amzn.to/2id85kP
Lavalier Microphone Rode — https://amzn.to/2yyUcU5
Shotgun Microphone Rode — https://amzn.to/2icAUhc
Recorder Zoom — https://amzn.to/2yAOQYM

[Craig Seeman]

There’s Telestream Vantage.

Basically the number of Desktop Encoders seem to be in decline because Adobe Media Encoder (as part of CC) and Apple Compressor ($50) meet so many basic needs there is much room in the market for desktop products. There’s Sorenson Squeeze but I’m not sure if that will do it either… and Sorenson also is offering Cloud based solutions now.

[Craig Seeman]

Perhaps Telestream Cloud.

[Craig Seeman]

“With 2017 coming to a close, we’re not likely to see a new Mac mini until 2018 at the earliest.”

I’m not sure if that really qualifies as a rumor (yet).
I have no doubt there will be a future it’s just that there’s no specific rumors around dates, features, case design, etc.

[Craig Seeman]

Might you mean the 2014 MacMini. Not even a rumor of an update.