Question about Apple's Compressor?

[absolut_mac]

I bought this program a while ago when it was still in version 3. At that time Handbrake seemed to do a much better job and was a lot faster too..

I haven't used it much since its been upgraded to 4.1.3. It still seems very slow and limited compared to Handbrake. Plus it still doesn't accept VOB or MKV/MTS files. Have any of you guys found a good productive use for this program? I'm about to give up on it and send it off to the trash can, so hopefully someone can come up with some useful suggestions to get the most out of it before I trash it.

Thanks for your help in advance.

 

[linuxcooldude]

Even though I rarely use it now it more than worth it to keep it around. It supports QuickSync Hardware acceleration. You can use presets/custom presets from Compressor within FCP X. Updated to ProRes 4444/MXF files. I might end up using it more in the future.

 

[ColdCase]

I use handbrake for encoding video for appleTV and the iTunes Library as I thinks it does a better job and is faster. But for video for web publishing, Compressor may be better.

Compressor is great for creating highly compressed DVD files for home movie DVD authoring (customized settings).

It does a great job preparing a video for HTTP Live Streaming

It does a decent job posting to Facebook, Vimeo, YouTube

The number of compatible input file formats may be limited for you, so if you are just transcoding, handbrake may be better.

In an 4/8 core machine, Compressor seems to use 4 cores, where handbrake uses all 8. So compressor is slower.

 

[Small White Car]

It really has more uses when you use it as a back-and-forth with Final Cut.

Besides just sending Final Cut project to Compressor you can create and send Compressor settings back to Final Cut's menu. It has it's uses.

I agree it's stupid slow. Not sure I'd recommend it as a stand-alone program.

I will say it produces top-notch results. I'm still unconvinced that they're worth the time, though.

 

[Unami]

it's not that slow, if you set up a render cluster (yes, you can use 8+ cores, you can even use multiple networked computers for a render-job). depends on the output format too (mpeg2 can be a pita in compressor)

handbrake is faster with the few codecs it knows, but try encoding something to mxf, prores, animation codec, photojpg, mpeg2, dolby digital audio, etc... with handbrake...

for the quick 'n dirty job, converting movies for playback on consumer-devices or uploading to streaming sites, handbrake beats compressor hands down, but for more versatile professional uses i still prefer compressor (or something like adobe media encoder or even mpeg-streamclip)

 

[senseless]

Send to compressor from FCPX fails almost all the time for me. I have to save a master file first.

 

[absolut_mac]

It really has more uses when you use it as a back-and-forth with Final Cut.

Besides just sending Final Cut project to Compressor you can create and send Compressor settings back to Final Cut's menu. It has it's uses.

I agree it's stupid slow. Not sure I'd recommend it as a stand-alone program.

I will say it produces top-notch results. I'm still unconvinced that they're worth the time, though.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

I downloaded the trial version of Sorenson Squeeze over the weekend, but found it to be exceptionally slow with fewer options than both Compressor and Handbrake, especially as far as subtitles are concerned. One advantage though is that it seems to offer more flexible cropping options for video sizing.

I'm thinking of getting Adobe Premier 13, but only if it includes Adobe Media Encoder but I haven't had the time to look into yet.