Can Compressor use .TS MPEG2 source files?

[ActionableMango]

I've done my own search of course and I found "no it cannot" answers. This makes me wary, but the answers are all from 2011 or older.

I found some newer answers, around 2013, saying that Compressor could MAKE .ts MPEG2 files, but nothing about importing.

Apple's specification page for Compressor is not clear at all. It mentions MPEG2, but many MPEG2 applications will not handle transport streams.

So does anyone know definitively if the current version of Compressor can use an MPEG2 transport stream (.ts) file as source?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

I downloaded this 190 MB .ts sample file (from this thread) and tried to open in Compressor 4 and it did not open and gave me this message:

Error trying to open source media file

That file however opened in MPEG Streamclip (latest beta) and HandBrake quite well.

 

[ActionableMango]

tried to open in Compressor 4 and it did not open

Thanks for checking, I really appreciate it.

I currently use Handbrake but I've been interested in trying out Compressor because I want to see if OpenCL acceleration makes a difference.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Thanks for checking, I really appreciate it.

I currently use Handbrake but I've been interested in trying out Compressor because I want to see if OpenCL acceleration makes a difference.

I guess you have an OpenCL capable GPU? I only tested Compressor on a GTX670 GPU and i7 3770K CPU, and I found Compressor to be quite slow and not using all available cores and now use Media Encoder for encoding needs when HandBrake or MPEG Streamclip are not up for the job.

 

[ActionableMango]

I guess you have an OpenCL capable GPU? I only tested Compressor on a GTX670 GPU and i7 3770K CPU, and I found Compressor to be quite slow and not using all available cores and now use Media Encoder for encoding needs when HandBrake or MPEG Streamclip are not up for the job.

That's great information, thanks. It is especially relevant to me as I am specifically considering the relative merits of Handbrake and Compressor. (Although with Compressor not accepting .ts files, it's pretty much out of the question.)

Yes, I have a GTX680 which is included on Apple's list of OpenCL-supported cards.

Isn't the GTX670 OpenCL capable? I don't think it's on the list, but I imagine it would use the same driver as other supported Nvidia cards in the same family.

 

[priitv8]

Can't you just repackage your MPEG-2 TS file into MOV for Compressor, without re-encoding?

There's also a tool called Sorenson Squeeze that can take advantage of CUDA.

Last time I checked, I was left with the impression that there are not an awful lot of things that could be parallelized in H.264 encoding.
Someone has even written a paper on the matter:
http://gpucomputing.net/sites/default/files/papers/5396/x264-cuda.pdf

 

[ActionableMango]

Can't you just repackage your MPEG-2 TS file into MOV for Compressor, without re-encoding?

I don't know, how do I do that?

 

[dynaflash]

HandBrake is faster than compressor with the same opts and settings.

 

[priitv8]

I don't know, how do I do that?

I checked, seems like it will always want to re-encode your file.
VLC could re-pack a MPEG-2 TS file, but the fundamental problem seems to be, that for the stream to become liked by QuickTime, you will need to demux it's video and audio streams.
Fortunately, MPEG Streamclip can do it for you. You will end up with separate audio and video files, but that shouldn't be a problem for FCP.