Compressor 4.1 doesn't work

[cdrhoek]

I purchased Compressor 4.1 to try it as an alternative to Handbrake. I was especially interested in the distributed computer capabilities. I have tried every iteration of setting up a cluster with no success. I am using two i7 iMacs connected via my network with cat 6 cable. The software sees the other computer and I can select and try to process a job. Whenever I try to do anything, Compressor gets stuck at waiting and will not run. The only way the software can be used is as a single computer. When run as a single computer it will not take advantage of the 8 cores available. Compressor is also supposed to be able to use your GPU. Is there a way to see if the GPU is being used?

So far, Compressor 4.1 seems to promise much and deliver very little.

 

[Gerlandano]

A better thread title might be "I can't get compressor 4.1 to work" . I've had no problems. I'm running 10.9.1 , I did a clean install when I installed mavericks.

You should try trashing the layout files and all the compressor related preferences.

Aldo to test the system, create a temp new user account and test compressor there.

 

[cdrhoek]

Compressor has been removed and reinstalled multiple times. I tried setting up new user accounts, disabled the firewall, tried different combinations of macs. Nothing works. The software will not run if you try to use more than one computer. Have you actually run the 4.1 version in the distributed computing mode? If so, what are your settings?

 

[Gerlandano]

Yes, I have an iMac 27 2012 as the main computer with two 12 core 2012 Mac pros. All have clean installs of Mavericks. Upgraded compressor 4 to 4.1 via App Store. I have never had final cut 7 and or compressor 3 installed on these systems. Apple has a white paper on 4.1 but, I just went into the prefs and set it up with what seemed evident. I do know that there are problems using it if the machines do not have enough ram. Try just setting up a group on one machine with out any other machines connected at first. If you continue to have problems, maybe we can talk offline about it.

 

[cdrhoek]

I have tried this software on three different Macs. Two i7 iMacs with 16gb memory each and a macbook pro with 8gb. Every mac exhibits the same behavior. If more than one computer is selected, the software goes into an endless wait that can only be fixed by deleting preference files. If only one computer is selected choosing to enable more than one instance of Compressor will cause the same endless wait issue. If "allow other computers to process batches on my computer" is enabled, endless wait. Even when Compressor appears to be working properly and producing an output, the Activity Monitor shows CompressorTranscoder (Not Responding)

Transcoding an avi or mpeg file to the Apple devices preset does work and appears to take about the same amount of time as Handbrake. Everytime I have tried to transcode a file to 720p, a file is outputted, but cannot be played back.

I have been over to the Apple support sections and the problems I am having appear to be common. I think I will go back to using Handbrake for now and wait until Apple figures out what is going on.

Thanks for your offer to help, but I think I will look for a more reliable software solution.