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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

Apr 14, 2008 12:37 PM in response to Mitch Sink

Will be covered here:
http://www.nabshow.com/2008/conferences/SessionDetail.asp?id=1207783
Final Cut Studio Editing Workshop
April 16 • 10:00 a.m. - 6:15 p.m.
Las Vegas Convention Center N257
10:00AM - 1:00PM
In-Depth: Apple Compressor
Presenter
# Brian Gary, Writer/Producer/Director, Flying Chaucer Films, LLC
More info here:
http://www.nabshow.com/2008/conferences/PaperDescription.asp?id=1207794

Apr 14, 2008 12:46 PM in response to Mitch Sink

OH MY GOODNESS this is more than Good news! That is absolutely freakin' awesome news. I can't wait to get my hands on that puppy. Finally we may have an encoder that does what its told on Mac! I can't wait to have that price confirmed(!) either as that's cheaper than CCE SP (in UK anyway... by A LOT!).

If I can get CCE SP performance (even if it's on MacPro's) then that is a great start but 9x would be splendid haha. Hopefully it's going to allow for lots of passes, bitrate allocation and much more...

I can't wait to hear more,

Cheers,
Jake

Apr 14, 2008 11:21 PM in response to Jake Russell

Jake Russell wrote:

If I can get CCE SP performance (even if it's on MacPro's) then that is a great start but 9x would be splendid haha.

I can't wait to hear more,

Cheers,
Jake


Hi Jake,

Its going to require a Mac with an Intel Chip.

When I talked to Ray about this he said the code in the Compressor Plugin is based on their extreme which he said is better than the Cinema Craft SP.

I asked about the multiple pass encodes (available with SP and the Compressor Version). He said each pass analyzes the bitstream and reallocates the bits where there can be an improvement. So rather than tweak the settings and re-encode individual segments manually you can just set it for a fairly high number (which is not a big deal at 9x RT) and just let it go to work. He said 8x or 9x would normally be sufficient, even for very demanding material.

Best Wishes,

Mitch

Message was edited by: Mitch Sink

Apr 14, 2008 11:30 PM in response to Mikey M.

Mikey M. wrote:
ohhhhhh, that is great news!

I will ask my encoding contacts if this is true (keeps fingers crossed).

Mikey M. 🙂


Hi Mike,

Just check here:
http://www.omni-cinemacraft.com/productscinemacraftencodermp.shtml

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.

Best Wishes,

Mitch

Apr 15, 2008 12:33 AM in response to Mitch Sink

So rather than tweak the settings and re-encode individual segments manually you can just set it for a fairly high number (which is not a big deal at 9x RT)


Really... that's a shame...

So it wont be everything CCE SP has and more it'll be a mix of features. Hopefully we'll get the Picture Settings stuff, Pulldown and so on.

Its going to require a Mac with an Intel Chip.


No probs got the Mac Pro's and MacBook Pro ready. I get faster than realtime per pass with CCE SP on HP xw Workstations and always do quite a few passes so am not worried about the time particularly but will be interested in the feature list when it is released.

Thanks for the updates though Mitch (and I'll be looking for flights to Vegas today!)

Jake

Apr 15, 2008 5:25 AM in response to Jake Russell

Jake Russell wrote:
So rather than tweak the settings and re-encode individual segments manually you can just set it for a fairly high number (which is not a big deal at 9x RT)


Really... that's a shame...



Jake maybe that means it is an option and not the only way? (the "rather"/ "can" implies it is an option) Mitch does that means you have the option to tweak if you like?

Apr 15, 2008 8:32 AM in response to David S.

David S. wrote:
In addition to HD support, is there support for scaling of HD footage to SD sizes?

And pricing -- this baby won't come cheap.

Has anybody actually evaluated footage encoded among the leading Mac encoders and CC?



I have only done the light version on the MacBook Pro, it does a nice job and the speed is VERY fast compared to bitVice, Compressor etc. On some things I actually liked the other encoders for the Mac, but alot depended on the footage and other things. (I did prefer it over the ProCoder light) I have not done as much tweaking on the settings as I would bet Jake and others have done, nor have I tried the high end version, but if the price is $500 to $800 for this it is worth it just for the speed alone if nothing else.

Will be interesting to try this out, could be a great jump for all of us.

Apr 15, 2008 9:30 AM in response to hanumang

The encoder (even the "light" version) opens up many things to tweak and get better quality out of the encode. If offers multi-pass (many passes) for encoding to help with quality. And the speed running on an Intel Mac under Paralells puts the other encoders to shame. The new Compressor is improved, but is slow and buggy often.

If this new product works like the light version (with the extras such as HD to SD scaling with quality, rate conversions and the rest) the time alone saved to help get things out the door makes it worth it even if the quality is slightly less than Compressor or the others, which I would guess will not be the case. If CC is being ported over they are probably going all out to deliver a good product for Mac users, but of course you never know 😉

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

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