Need QuickTime Player Batch Encoding Solution at DVinfo.net

Noah Kadner · February 4th, 2009, 11:25 AM

I'm looking for a batch encoding solution for QT player. Something that would allow me to drag an entire folder of source clips into a queue and then send those into QT Player for encoding all at once.

I have a ton of conversions I need to do with QT Player- this particular format kills Compressor(Phantom HD 2K .CINE files). What I've been doing is opening each clip in QT Player, then Exporting with most recent settings and then going onto the next one. The nice thing is this allows me to run many multiple encodes simultaneously. The bad thing is that it requires me to open, export and shut windows dozens of times.

I've tried Automator workflows and QuickBatch- unfortunately neither will submit more than a single clip at a time which means encodes take many times longer than they would manually. Any suggestions?

thanks,
Noah

Robert Lane · February 4th, 2009, 11:28 AM

MPEG Streamclip doesn't batch? Never tried.

Episode Pro definitely does and it's many times faster than Compressor.

Noah Kadner · February 4th, 2009, 01:11 PM

Streamclip is solid but it only allows 4 simultaneous encodes- I need up to 30 at times. :) Any other suggestions?

-Noah

Robert Lane · February 5th, 2009, 10:04 AM

The only 2 encoders I'd trust for such a large job would either be Compressor or Episode Pro especially to get the best quality. Although EP is much faster than Compressor by a factor of at least 5 Compressor is much faster than it used to be on a Quad MacPro especially using external RAIDs to move your encodes off to.

Mike Wilkinson · February 5th, 2009, 10:19 AM

QT Amateur has a Batch Export option. Would that work for you?

QTAmateur 1.0.1 software download - Mac OS X - VersionTracker

Noah Kadner · February 5th, 2009, 12:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Wilkinson

QT Amateur has a Batch Export option. Would that work for you?

QTAmateur 1.0.1 software download - Mac OS X - VersionTracker

Yeah I actually spoke with the author of QT Amateur- he can only do one export at a time. For the moment I'm going with MPEG Streamclip, it's slower than manually running everything through QT Player but the workflow is much much easier.

Noah

Mike Barber · February 5th, 2009, 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Lane

EP is much faster than Compressor by a factor of at least 5

I have only recently tried using EP, but I have yet to notice a speed advantage. Perhaps I need to give it more of a try. I'm generally happy with Compressors performance when jobs are segmented among the eight cores of my machine and do wish EP leveraged this ability (or does it and I just don't realize it?).

Robert Lane · February 5th, 2009, 09:21 PM

I no longer have the test results I did last summer but of the 4 test encodes we did between Compressor, Episode Pro E.P. took only 5 minutes to encode an MPEG-2 clip whereas Compressor took nearly 20 minutes using the same quality/bitrate settings. The only caveat we found is that MPEG-2 files from EP don't always play nice with DVDSP4 and can have stuttered playback issues. That may have been rectified in the QT updates since our last test.

I stopped using Compressor for anything out of FCP *unless* it has to be authored in DVDSP4. One of these days I'll try another EP-into-DVDSP and see if the same problem still exists. And best of all EP does huge batches and it *will* talk to FCP reference files too, not just self-contained files.

Mike Barber · February 5th, 2009, 10:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Lane

Episode Pro E.P. took only 5 minutes to encode an MPEG-2 clip whereas Compressor took nearly 20 minutes using the same quality/bitrate settings.

Ah, I haven't tried MPEG-2 encodings through Episode Pro, only DVCPROHD to AVI (with Photo-JPEG and Xvid as codecs... the Photo-JPEG AVI encodes always resulted in a failure, but may very well be due to user error).

I'll give Episode a whirl when it comes time to output my current project on DVD.

Steve Oakley · February 8th, 2009, 08:51 PM

you could do this in AE ! just add as many output modules as you need.

James Brill · February 9th, 2009, 12:38 AM

I used After Effects because I got the TIFF sequences from a PC and figured After Effects was the best for that. Assuming your using Glue tools or something like it then Episode will give you great results as well. I'm not too big of a fan of it's batch capabilities in that you can't apply one setting to the whole tree but it sure is fast, even if compressor is set up with a cluster.

February 4th, 2009, 11:25 AM	#1
Noah Kadner Better than Halle Berry Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 435	Need QuickTime Player Batch Encoding Solution I'm looking for a batch encoding solution for QT player. Something that would allow me to drag an entire folder of source clips into a queue and then send those into QT Player for encoding all at once. I have a ton of conversions I need to do with QT Player- this particular format kills Compressor(Phantom HD 2K .CINE files). What I've been doing is opening each clip in QT Player, then Exporting with most recent settings and then going onto the next one. The nice thing is this allows me to run many multiple encodes simultaneously. The bad thing is that it requires me to open, export and shut windows dozens of times. I've tried Automator workflows and QuickBatch- unfortunately neither will submit more than a single clip at a time which means encodes take many times longer than they would manually. Any suggestions? thanks, Noah

February 5th, 2009, 10:19 AM	#5
Mike Wilkinson New Boot Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Ann Arbor, MI USA Posts: 19	QT Amateur has a Batch Export option. Would that work for you? QTAmateur 1.0.1 software download - Mac OS X - VersionTracker __________________ Mike Wilkinson - Apple Certified Pro Motion/FCP, HVX/DVX Operator www.wccnet.edu/flashvideos \| www.wilkinsonvisual.com

February 4th, 2009, 11:28 AM	#2
Robert Lane Go Go Godzilla Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Scottsdale, AZ USA Posts: 2,825 Images: 15	MPEG Streamclip doesn't batch? Never tried. Episode Pro definitely does and it's many times faster than Compressor.

February 4th, 2009, 01:11 PM	#3
Noah Kadner Better than Halle Berry Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 435	Streamclip is solid but it only allows 4 simultaneous encodes- I need up to 30 at times. :) Any other suggestions? -Noah

February 5th, 2009, 10:04 AM	#4
Robert Lane Go Go Godzilla Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Scottsdale, AZ USA Posts: 2,825 Images: 15	The only 2 encoders I'd trust for such a large job would either be Compressor or Episode Pro especially to get the best quality. Although EP is much faster than Compressor by a factor of at least 5 Compressor is much faster than it used to be on a Quad MacPro especially using external RAIDs to move your encodes off to.

February 5th, 2009, 09:21 PM	#8
Robert Lane Go Go Godzilla Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Scottsdale, AZ USA Posts: 2,825 Images: 15	I no longer have the test results I did last summer but of the 4 test encodes we did between Compressor, Episode Pro E.P. took only 5 minutes to encode an MPEG-2 clip whereas Compressor took nearly 20 minutes using the same quality/bitrate settings. The only caveat we found is that MPEG-2 files from EP don't always play nice with DVDSP4 and can have stuttered playback issues. That may have been rectified in the QT updates since our last test. I stopped using Compressor for anything out of FCP unless it has to be authored in DVDSP4. One of these days I'll try another EP-into-DVDSP and see if the same problem still exists. And best of all EP does huge batches and it will talk to FCP reference files too, not just self-contained files.

February 8th, 2009, 08:51 PM	#10
Steve Oakley Trustee Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: United States Posts: 1,158	you could do this in AE ! just add as many output modules as you need.

February 9th, 2009, 12:38 AM	#11
James Brill Major Player Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Goleta, CA Posts: 299	I used After Effects because I got the TIFF sequences from a PC and figured After Effects was the best for that. Assuming your using Glue tools or something like it then Episode will give you great results as well. I'm not too big of a fan of it's batch capabilities in that you can't apply one setting to the whole tree but it sure is fast, even if compressor is set up with a cluster.