FCE 3.0 what should I use to compress?
 

I wan't to take over the compression duties from my editor for four items:
web, SD & HD & DVD, SD and HD.
Any recommendations for compression?
(the web files will be only WMV'S)
thanks.

10.4.10

No mac folks here?

Sorensen Squeeze? Apple's Compressor? VisualHub for the WMV?

What is the editor delivering to you?

Really depends on what you want.

The only item listed there that should actually have compression is the web (and DVD).

For the web, if you want to compress to wmv, and I don't see why, when you're using a mac, I'd suggest using something on Windows, including a lot of freeware options. Encoding on a Mac will not give you the most options.

In terms of bitrate and such... this all depends on what quality you need and what filesize you can live with. Just gotta pick there. After that, it's fairly basic math.

For DVDs, you should just compress with whatever you have available in the DVD application. You could compress mpeg2 yourself, but I'm not sure if you want to get into that. I also am not really sure of the best format for this, either.

For HD and SD tapes/etc, you shouldn't compress at all, if possible.

thanks Mike, I'll check those out. is there a best? My editor is using flip for mac pro through FCP compressor.

Daniel: most editors seem to be on Mac as I am so I'm staying Mac.

I wasn't suggesting using windows for editing*. But compressing to wmv with a mac is nonsense. Use windows, since, y'know, it's "windows media video" and it will have more options with windows-specific (ie exe) shareware/freeware.
I edit on a Mac, by the way.

I'd use quicktime for compression. Much more compatible. How do you even watch wmv happily on your mac? (It's possible, but annoying. WMP is several versions old, and no fun, even worse than on the PC, and VLC is fine, though not as smooth as QT.)


(*Though "most" editors ARE for windows, not Mac. Mac has FCP, iMovie, and Premiere (now with CS3), and a couple older options (like Media 100). Everything else is generally windows based-- Premiere, Vegas, Avid, etc.)


Visualhub seems like a viable option, though I seriously doubt it has the same capabilities for wmv as a windows based solution.

Sorenson Squeeze and Apple's compressor won't do WMV. They are both specifically for Quicktime as far as I know.

i use compressor for all of my compressing needs: dvd (mpeg2 and ac3 audio,) and web (usually h.264 quicktime and/or flv)
compressor is easy, flexible, and included with the final cut suite. if you install flip4mac, you'll have the option to export to wmv either from compressor or quicktime pro. (maybe even directly from final cut-not sure.) there is plenty of flexibility included for exporting wmv's- you can choose frame size, one or two-pass encoding, fixed or variable bitrate, etc, etc. way more options than you'll probably ever need for making something as lame as a wmv.

also, in order to export flv's you need to have flash installed on your machine.

Innobits BitVice is an excellent MPEG-2 encoder for DVD. The only drawback is that current versions won't run on a MacPro, however they are releasing BitVice Pro which should take care of that. It's a little expensive, but it's definitely worth it if the quality of your DVDs is important to you.

the problem Daniel, is that I'm on mac, most editors I meet are on mac. and buying a full windows outfit was not in my gameplan, but who knows.

Would be easier to learn and do this all on my G5.

My editor seemed to get nice results with flip for mac Pro edition.

someone said Adobe after effects does good job too. anyone know?

Thanks Nate: sounds good. flv is out for now as I'm told you need to buy a very expensive server to show videos from.

John: Never heard of BitVice. I'm on older G5-should be ok. How much is it, and is that much better than others you can get and why? thanks.

Here is their website address: http://www.innobits.com/

It costs $350, but to me it was well worth it. I'm not highly technical, so I can't offer much of an explanation as to why, but when I was still running my G5 I had a choice between Compressor and Discreet Cleaner 6 for DVD encoding. Both programs seemed to squash the video to the point where there were clearly detectable artifacts in the video as well the color was also skewed to a slight degree.

BitVice did a fabulous job handling the compression. Everything I encoded looked exactly as it did on the timeline in FCP. It doesn't encode audio (Apple had A Pack that they shipped with early versions of DVD Studio Pro that took care of that), but despite that it worked wonders for video quality.

I'm using Compressor 3 now and I'm not too happy with it as I'm constantly ending up with interlacing issues and other problems. It's not as bad as earlier versions I used, but it still needs some work. Once Innobits release BitVice Pro, I'll snatch it up in a heartbeat.

JOhn, have heard of this,
here is info from flip for mac I got:

"I'll be happy to give you information on Episode. Episode is a batch encoder similar to Cleaner and Sorenson Squeeze. Of course we consider it far superior because of it speed and quallity. I'd be happy to give you a 15 day demo license to test it if that would be helpful. " but it's even a bit more $.

I'm bit concerned about that audio thing as I'm just working now from FCE HD.

I have QT pro, I take it, it does not do .wmv for web or DVDs as well as the softwares we are discussing.