[Terry Griffey]

I agree with Daniel and also have had very good results with Episode Pro with the Flash option.
Terry

[Terry Griffey]

Rich – very good input that will be implemented in the testing – Have found some scenarios with the CinemaCraft plugin that cause Compressor to crash, hang UNIX processes and other issues. Am forwarding those UseCases to CinemaCraft for their consideration. Some of the behavior is not isolated to the CCE plugin and may be attributed to Qmaster/Compressor based upon previous experience with the products. That assumption would be best determined by the software developers.

Little data is available at this time and until the bugs are fixed, a proper evaluation is not possible. In a commercial situation; quality vs time vs reliability are all factors.

Thanks!
TG

[Terry Griffey]

Thanks a bunch! That is exactly what I needed. I need to refine my search techniques.

Terry

[Terry Griffey]

Just a note – very good pricing on the dvmatte and Conduit software bundle until 2/20 – nice tutorials on the products and seems to be quite a bit of flexibility and creative uses for the Conduit product.
Thanks!

[Terry Griffey]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. On the road this week, so next weekend, I’ll ingest directly from the camera and see how it goes. I downloaded Conduit and the dvmatte pro3 trials and am working through the manuals and instructional videos. Conduit looks like a very powerful tool with many more uses besides keying. In 2 minutes time, the dvmatte product produced a key much better than the FCP keyer and an hour of tweaking using the previously described EX1 clips. I can see practical uses for both products.
Thanks again!
Terry Griffey

P.S. Jesse – Some kudos go to your sales staff. Great service on last order.

[Terry Griffey]

Have spent a lot of time working on this scenario and it appears to be two different paradigms.

You will receive the “unknown time remaining” if you have selected many filters and changes to the default presets. Tests have shown that you will eventually get a “time remaining” if you wait for a great deal of time if this is your scenario. Can’t do much about this. However…

You will also receive the “unknown time remaining” if your default network interface (when you installed Compressor) is not enabled and connected when you invoke the program. When I installed Compressor in my tests and my wireless interface was enabled as the default, Compressor would only run when the wireless interface is active and connected. I completely uninstalled FCS 2 and ran a script to remove QMaster and then reinstalled with the wireless interface disabled and the internal NIC connected and enabled. Compressor would only then run when the NIC was enabled and active. You can check this by using the Activity Monitor to observe the processes running on the box. You will find that the Compressor PIDS (processor thread IDs) die when they can’t find the network interface (after some retries) and you will also see this in the Batch Monitor log files. I’ve tested this hypothesis 4 times and the behavior is 100% consistent. More support for this hypothesis can be found in the system logs. Entries indicate that an OS level method call is failing because it can’t find the appropriate network interface. Have sent this data to Apple support for their evaluation.

The best way to fix this at this time before Apple addresses the issue (at a code level) is to delete the Compressor and Batch Monitor prefs and restart with the same network interface connected (as the default) when you installed Compressor. Use a terminal interface and go to /var/spool/Qmaster/ and delete all the folders/files waiting in the queue before you reboot.

This is not really a Compressor problem but a QMaster distributed networking problem from what I’ve determined from the log files and the executable exceptions.

Thanks.
TG

[Terry Griffey]

Craig,
I’m having a Homer Simpson kind of morning. Duh! Should have investigated further on my own before posting. Opened up Episode to record my Serial Number before making a call today. Lo, and behold, there is an “Upgrade” button!
With a few clicks, and about 2 minutes of time, I am now creating Flash 8 content! Couldn’t be easier!
Thanks!
Terry

[Terry Griffey]

Lots of folks are experiencing this same problem. In consolidating the information from many boards, there are many “fixes” that unfortunately sometimes work, which is no solution at all. What I see is that there is a connection between network state, active interface and the problem rearing its ugly head. The log files point to this also with ports (sockets) becoming unavailable. The executable that is throwing this exception looks to be an OS-level class that interacts directly with the hardware. This seems logical because the Intel Mac folks seem to be having many more problems than others. As an example, Compressor works in the hotel where I installed the software with the wireless card active. I take the laptop into work, with no network connection and it doesn’t work. I take it back to the hotel at night and it works again after deleting the prefs already described in this thread. Don’t know whether this is IP address specific or not but will keep investigating. If I get it isolated and consistent, I’ll take it to Apple. Thanks!
Terry

[Terry Griffey]

Thanks ya’ll for your input. Spent some time over the weekend going over every link in the help docs and has been very beneficial, learned a bunch and still have a lot to learn. Experimented with many settings/combination of steps and have made some “very difficult” FCP sequence .mov output transformed to .m2v files look very good on an average DVD player with component input into a standard TV (basically the setup of my customers).

The Episode engine has worked flawlessly every time I’ve sent it a job. My experience with Compressor 3.0.1 has not produced the same results.

Everyone’s input has been invaluable in the learning curve. Lots to learn. Am very grateful to all for their input and support for this forum.

Terry

[Terry Griffey]

Thank you all so much for your responses. I’ve taken your suggestions and have had very good results experimenting with many different configurations. The most extreme shot tested is a hand-held telephoto of a very rare species of a rainbow gecko with plenty of light. They move very sporadically and in very quick, sudden movements and stop to sense their environment every second or so. Difficult shot with some quite ugly output without a Steadicam at the chosen focal length. Garbage in, garbage out one might say but wanted to use a worse-case scenario to test the product and am impressed with the output based upon your suggestions.

Here are the settings I found that produced very good output with little blurring, consistent color, excellent conversion and very good detail. (Listed those different from the defaults – tried to be as accurate as possible.) If you have suggestions to make it better, I’m always willing to learn. (Craig – please read through these settings and tell me how to use 2-pass. It wasn’t an option with the settings I’ve used.)

MPEG:
Coding type = Quality based
Encoding quality = 100%

Profile Settings:
Frame encode type = Progressive
Field order = Same as input (HDV is top – are they referring to output or input – wouldn’t matter if progressive?)
Signal progressive sequence in bitstream is checked

Encoder Settings:
1-pass
Use change scene detection = YES

Frame Rate:
Algorithm = Motion compensated

DeInterlace:
Field order: Top
Create New Fields By: Interpolation

Am shooting on the road this week and will give a look with a calibrated monitor soon when I get home.
Thank you all so much for your input.
Terry