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Good news! - Mac Version Cinemacraft Encoder Xtreme (Compressor Plugin)

Hi,

Good news!

I talked to Ray at Omni-Cinema Craft a few weeks ago and he told me they are pretty far along with testing their CCE-MP Compressor Plug-in. He asked me not to say anything until they are ready for a formal announcement. He said the code is the same as their Cinema Craft Xtream, which I think is their high end Hardware encoder. He said on a 8 core Mac Pro each pass is about 9x faster than RT! He said that they are tentatively planning on a price in the $500 to $800 range. I just received the following in an email from Omni (it sounds like Brian is giving a demo, probably at NAB):

Thanks for your interest in CCE-MP.
You can now tell your friends and we invite you to go ahead a post to wherever you like. Thanks for your patience. Product will be shipping in the first part of May 2008, and price will be available shortly. You can now tell your friends and we invite you to go ahead a post wherever you'd like.

This session will herald in a new era of MPEG-2 encoding for optical media inside Final Cut Studio with the debut of Cinema Craft's MP Compressor Plugin. Based on the highly successful QuickTime Components architecture, the Plugin fits right into the standard Compressor workflow alongside the built in presets. Until now, the encoder engine inside CinemaCraft Encoder MP was used only for Cinema Craft Xtream, the "on-line" high end system that set the bench mark with high quality, Hollywood DVD titles. With the debut of Cinema Craft MP, Hollywood quality MPEG-2 encoding is now available for the Mac. Brian will go in depth with the Cinema Craft MP Compressor Plugin by walking through all the major components and settings. He'll also demonstrate real-world workflows for both television and feature film optical delivery that originate with Standard and High Definition content.

They also have this on their Web Site:
[www.omni-cinemacraft.com]
CINEMA CRAFT Encoder MP

CINEMA CRAFT Encoder MP is a plug-in developed for Compressor 3, the audio/video encoding application that is included with Apple's Final Cut Studio 2.

Until now, this encoder engine inside CinemaCraft Encoder MP was used only for the Cinema Craft Xtream, the "on-line" high end system that set the bench mark quality Standard for Hollywood DVD titles. This DVD standard for Hollywood quality MPEG-2 is now available for the Mac. CinemaCraft Encoder MP allows Final Cut Studio 2 users to encode their content to world class high-quality MPEG-2 files for DVD authoring without changing their workflow.

Call OMNI at (949)760-6664 to Find Out More About the New CINEMA CRAFT Encoder MP

Best Wishes,

Mitch

Dual 1.8 G5 - 2.5 gigs of RAM - 2 external SATA Drives, Mac OS X (10.4.2), Final Cut Studio 1 (FCP 5.0.4)

Posted on Apr 14, 2008 11:54 AM

Reply
70 replies

May 30, 2008 10:50 AM in response to David S.

David S. wrote:


Plus, I thought end of May was release date

What I would like is a 20 second limited, but fully functional (no watermark) demo so people can compare before plunking down $800 USD.


Well there is one scapegoat out there who ordered and is now waiting for the encoder to arrive. (Shipping costs were kind of high, even for standard shipping) Suppossed to ship in the next couple of days I hope. Should have it the middle of next week.

May 30, 2008 12:11 PM in response to David S.

David S. wrote:
$40.00????????

That is pretty hefty.

I shipped a G5 computer insured for less via FedEx.

But I'll reserve judgment.

Hey Drew -- what can you compare it to?

Compressor, BitVice, ???



I have digigami, Compressor (few versions), bitVice (I think every version since 1.3), CCE light on the MacBook Pro running Parallels, Procoder Light on the MacBook Pro (PC). The new one should be here sometime next week. They have up to three days to ship on the order, though I think the site says normally two days to ship.

May 30, 2008 1:09 PM in response to David S.

David S. wrote:
*digigami, Compressor, bitVice, CCE light, Procoder Light*


How are we going to compare?

🙂


Good point. I forgot that I also have my trusty pen and paper. What I do is watch the video and write out the 0s and 1s on a piece of paper. More reliable than trying to run Leopard and the Final Cut Studio 2 sometimes 😉 I also do have the Fastcoder.

It is funny but for one project one encoder does to seem to do better while on another project another encoder does better. So I often find myself doing various tests. Go figure. I have found the results from Compresor 3 alot better (actually often very good) especially when compared to the good old days of some of the earlier encoders that came with DVD SP 🙂

Jun 7, 2008 11:45 AM in response to David S.

David

Still kicking the wheels a bit to figure it out. My Octo Core and Final Cut Studio has had given me issues (as I mentioned in another thread I feel like a beta tester at this point for Apple after buying this machine and using Leopard)

So when I thought I got past some gremlins they are back and seem to have affected CC. Was able to get a couple of tests done, but then some encodes ran into the same Compressor issues that have dogged me - jamming, stopping stalling and the rest.

Did some HDV and Panasonic P2 card things. It seems okay, but I have not done full A/Bs like I would want to. Speed is good and the multipass (multiple) is good. If you have some short sections of footage you would like me to run through it for you I will be happy to give it a whirl...

Jun 7, 2008 12:14 PM in response to Drew13

FWIW - So far Compressor 3 is beating Compressor 3 with the CCE MP for me BUT thats when all settings are equalish... 4 Passes for CCE MP and pushing things with a avg. 3.5Mbps max. 7.5Mbps. Not had a chance to check all of my encodes yet and CCE MP does ok on some things but overall I'd say Compressor has the upper-hand so far.

I've been testing 10/8 Bit Uncompressed and DV PAL.

Of course there are plenty of ways to change things still in CCE MP and a lot more passes can be used. But with Pans, Water, Clouds, Concerts with Smoke at low bitrates I'm getting very noticeable macroblocking and stuff. Compressor 3 alone does not have these artifacts. I've been quite impressed with Compressor 3 to be honest!

If you're used to working in a larger Studio then watching every frame of footage several times is pretty standard, and like with SD2000's I've not got the confidence to send the footage out without a full QC yet...

Same footage with a avg. 5.5Mbps has cleared the artifacts up so far but the quant values are up pretty high. I'll be pumping loads of encodes through [MPressionist|http://digigami.com/mpressionist] this week,

-Jake

Jun 7, 2008 1:01 PM in response to Jake Russell

I've been quite impressed with Compressor 3 to be honest!


I have been too (I think David and I kicked that around in another thread or two a bit.) I have not run into some of the issues you have seen, and I still want to go through things more, but I found some things looking a little soft and also the motion seemed a little off.

At lower rates, and overall, I have generally found that at this point Compressor 3 seems to be doing very well compared to the other encoders (Digigami, CC and even bitVice). BitVice I think is #2 on my list. The frame controls on Compressor are very solid.

BTW about to shoot you an email 😉

Good news! - Mac Version Cinemacraft Encoder Xtreme (Compressor Plugin)

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