TECH TIPS
The Delivery Man
Compressor 3 Can Handle All Media Types
by Doug Luberts
At a time when distribution formats for film and video are increasing in number and complexity on a daily basis, so are the requests to the cutting room to provide dailies and preview materials in a variety of media types ranging from Apple iPod video to DVD and Web distribution formats. Apple’s Compressor 3 encoding utility can be a useful ally in keeping pace with this demand.
When Apple shipped Final Cut Studio 2 this past spring, Compressor received a major overhaul that included a long list of new encoding presets for different media types, as well as enhanced image and audio control handling features: automatic image cropping and output padding, a built-in time code generator, improved watermarking, audio peak-limiting, level compression and a graphic equalizer, to name but a few.
 Figure 1: Using File -> Export -> Using Compressor from Final Cut Pro is one way of getting to Compressor. |
The biggest change to be found in Compressor 3, however, is the completely re-designed user interface, intended to present a more streamlined interface for batch creation, submission and monitoring. This article will focus on bringing users up to speed with the Compressor 3 user interface.
Getting to Compressor from Final Cut
Starting with the assumption that most of the time you’ll probably be
coming out of Final Cut Pro to send a sequence to Compressor, there are a
couple of ways of doing this.
One way is to use File -> Export -> Using Compressor (see Figure 1). This will send your sequence to Compressor 3 for processing without having to render. The downside to this is that Final Cut Pro will be locked up for the duration of your Compressor encode, and you won’t be able to do any other work in FCP until Compressor processing is finished.
Another method is to export a QuickTime file first using File -> Export -> QuickTime Movie (or use Batch Export.) This will quickly generate a QuickTime movie of your sequence, which can then be imported into Compressor 3. I’d recommend this approach as the method of choice, especially if you have a number of different clips or sequences to export. After exporting a QuickTime for each of your deliverables, you can then set up batches for processing in Compressor, let ‘em run and still be able to work in Final Cut while your encodes process.
This, just like almost anything else when it comes to editing environments and workflows, is all a matter of one’s own working style. For the sake of this tutorial, we’ll assume you only have one file to encode and you sent it to Compressor from within Final Cut.
The Compressor 3 Main Window
The Compressor 3 default interface is divided into five Windows. They are:
The Batch Window is where most of the action in a Compressor session happens. This is where you import your source media, apply settings, specify destinations and assign output names for your files.
The Preview Window gives you an interactive look at how your source media is being changed by your output settings. You can view the source image, output image or a vertical or horizontal split showing input and output in one window. You can also specify in and out points, as well as compression markers in this window.
The History Window provides a view of previously submitted jobs and lets you import their settings back in to Compressor 3 if you need to re-submit them. The History Window also allows you to monitor the progress of your encoding jobs as they process.
The Inspector Window is a context-sensitive view of selected media or settings.
The Presets Window has two tabs: Settings and Destinations. One is for choosing encoding settings for your media base and the other for specifying output destinations for encoded media.
Applying Settings
In this example (see Figure 2), I need to send reference footage to
my visual effects house, so we’re going to encode footage from
my latest epic, Buford, WY. Population 2, using the DV NTSC codec.
Since I sent my sequence here from Final Cut Pro 6, it’s already
sitting in the Batch Window, so all I have to do is apply settings
and a destination path, then submit it as a batch.
 Figure 2: After selecting a preset in the Settings Window, individual settings for the preset appear in the Inspector Window. |
Presets, Up Close
The first thing we want to do is visit the Settings tab in the Presets Window.
Clicking on the disclosure triangle reveals that Apple has provided us with
a list of just about every useful encoding setting that we could possibly
need as a starting point for an encoding project.
This includes a tab of settings for Apple TV and iPod/iPhone video that, thanks to a few producers in my life, have proven to be quite handy lately. (“Hey Doug, I’m getting on a plane for Borneo in a half-hour… Could you get the latest cut on my iPod?” To which I get to deftly answer, “Sure man, no problemo.”) There are also formats for a number of cellular phones and other devices to which you can port your media, but do yourself a favor and don’t tell anyone about them. This allows you to make last-minute saves that make your production people very happy––and make you look like a genius!
If we cruise on down to the Motion Graphics settings folder, we get a number of different codecs for SD, HD, NTSC and PAL. I’m doing my offline in DV, so I select the NTSC DV 4:3 preset. Immediately the settings for this preset show up in the Inspector Window.
The defaults all look good, so next we’ll click on the setting and drag it up to the Batch Window (where it conveniently says, “Drag Settings and Destinations Here”). The sequence display in the batch window updates to reflect the new settings.
At the same time, you’ll notice a split-screen in the Preview Window showing your source media in the left pane and the output, with settings applied, in the right-hand pane.
At this point, it’s a good idea to play or scrub through the material as you might notice a shift in color or contrast due to the codec being used. These items, and many more, can be adjusted in the inspector, and the results saved to custom presets. I’ve found on many shows that a baseline for color-correction and contrast needs to be set and applied to all reference QuickTimes being passed around as these are always affected by compression. This can be easily achieved by creating a custom user setting and saving it in Compressor.
The batch window also shows the name of the selected setting, DV NTSC 4:3, the current destination of the output file. Since we haven’t changed it, it is Source, meaning the output will go to the same.
Both the output folder and the output file name can be customized within Compressor 3 by creating “Custom” output settings. But for now, we’ll just accept the defaults and Click Submit. This brings up the Submit dialogue, which asks you to name the job and specify distributed processing settings if you are using Apple’s Qmaster for distributed processing. For now, just accept the defaults and Click Submit. That’s it. Your job is in there (see Figure 3).
 Figure 3: The Compressor 3 Submit dialogue. |
From here, there are two ways to go to monitor the job. In Compressor 2, Batch Monitor was the only way to go. That’s still available as an option from the Compressor menu bar, but you can also use Compressor 3’s History Window to follow the progress of any batch you submit. Once finished, the output file will be in the output directory ready for use (see Figure 4).
 Figure 4: The results of processing a batch displayed in the History Window. |
Final Thoughts
This was just a fly-by of the Compressor 3 user interface that barely scratches
the surface of all of the enhancements and capabilities available in the new
version. There is much more to see, and much more to learn about Apple’s
enhanced encoding tool.
With the various pre-defined and customizable settings available in Compressor 3, it is possible to create just about any kind of video deliverable you could ask for. New networking and distributed processing options available for advanced workflows will allow assistant editors to create and distribute multiple batches using all the available CPUs in the editing suite, allowing faster, automated batch processing of the various output formats that are becoming a part of the daily regime for the cutting room. Compressor 3 is an essential part of meeting increasing productivity demands for shows using Final Cut Studio.
Doug Luberts is an Assistant Editor currently working as a production technology specialist at Industrial Light & Magic in San Francisco. He can be contacted at doug.luberts@sbcglobal.net.
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