Is Compressor 4 worth the upgrade from 3.5.3?

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Is Compressor 4 worth the upgrade from 3.5.3?
by Gareth Randall on Apr 7, 2012 at 9:00:05 am

Is it more stable/faster? I find that 3.5.3 works successfully about 50% of the time when using a 4-machine cluster to speed up transcodes; the other 50% of the time, one or more of the cores will go down and the whole transcode will have to be restarted. Very annoying if it's at 98% completed when that happens.

If version 4 can improve on that success rate, it's probably worth ponying up for four copies.

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Re: Is Compressor 4 worth the upgrade from 3.5.3?
by Jerry Hofmann on Apr 7, 2012 at 5:50:03 pm

Both versions are 32 bit... so I figure it's likely not a lot faster. Plus it's made to work with FCP X, meaning you might not be able to send from 7 to it.. not clear on that though.

Jerry

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Re: Is Compressor 4 worth the upgrade from 3.5.3?
by Jason Brown on Apr 8, 2012 at 1:27:21 am

You definitely can't "send" from FCPX to Compressor 3. You have to have v4 to do that. I'm waiting on Craig to hop in here, because I believe that in compressor 4 there is some new option to encode to a .mp4 container that wasn't available in v3. ?? I could be wrong...but I think there is an added feature that makes v4 create slightly more compatible file types if you need that functionality.

-Jason

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Re: Is Compressor 4 worth the upgrade from 3.5.3?
by Jerry Hofmann on Apr 8, 2012 at 12:08:54 pm

Sorry, I'm unaware of any difference in the mp4 encodes, but could be, just don't know.

I presumed you were using FCP 7.. That's what I'm unclear about. Sending from 7 to Compressor 4 (it might not work, I just don't know)...

I'm not hearing anything about 4 being faster than earlier versions. I don't think it is.

If you're making h.264 streams, Matrox has an accelerator board for this...

Jerry

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Re: Is Compressor 4 worth the upgrade from 3.5.3?
by Jason Brown on Apr 8, 2012 at 1:05:05 pm

It won't send from one to either...7 to 4 or x to 3. Obviously u can create a ref file and compress it...it's just the "send" feature isnt backwards or forwards compatible.

I LOVE the Matrox hardware, I have a couple compress hd and mxo2 with max in our shop. Only limitation is the h264 is in a mov container...if u need a mp4 container, u can't use Matrox.

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Re: Is Compressor 4 worth the upgrade from 3.5.3?
by Paul Roper on Apr 9, 2012 at 4:02:55 pm

I can't remember where I read it (it was a reasonably reliable source) but I as I recall, the only difference between compressor 3 and 4 is the ability to send straight from FCP X. Not really a feature worthy of a "whole number" upgrade! The processing is still the same antiquated 32-bit stuff we've come to expect from Apple, and you still have to do that silly Qmaster workaround if you want this vintage software to actually realise your computer has multiple processors and is not, in fact, a Quadra 950.

Personally, I find Adobe Media Encoder way faster and more reliable than Compressor. Or have you considered the more advanced (but more expensive) encoders such as Episode?

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Re: Is Compressor 4 worth the upgrade from 3.5.3?
by Jason Brown on Apr 9, 2012 at 6:46:59 pm

[Paul Roper] "the only difference between compressor 3 and 4 is the ability to send straight from FCP X"

I found in old emails the post that Craig had written -
http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/20/867899

So I believe there is a difference in the container option.

[Paul Roper] "I find Adobe Media Encoder way faster and more reliable than Compressor"

I find compressor clunky and unreliable at times, but my workflow is FCP7 out to Matrox hardware. This is done easiest to send directly from timeline to compressor. I haven't used adobe media encoder in years, but last time I dealt with it, it couldn't customize PAR encoding like episode and sorenson.

[Paul Roper] "Or have you considered the more advanced (but more expensive) encoders such as Episode"

I have episode but I use it only for WMV encoding...I haven't been able to get Episode 5.3.2 to encode using the matrox hardware.

-Jason

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Re: Is Compressor 4 worth the upgrade from 3.5.3?
by Joseph Hung on Apr 9, 2012 at 10:39:56 pm

I personally don't even enjoy the FCP to Compressor workflow, I find it buggy and unreliable. I tend to output a high res master file (whatever codec you are working in at highest settings) as a quicktime self contained with compression markers turned on, then drop that into compressor, adobe media encoder, mpeg streamclip, whatever. Make sure your harddrives never go to sleep for those long transcodes.

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