Should I get Compressor?

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Level 1

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Should I get Compressor?

For Christmas I got an 11" MacBook Air (1.6Ghz, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD) and because I already had FCPX, I thought I may as well intall it and see if it works (The Mac App Store does say the specs are high enough but I hadn't checked that).

It actually works rather nicely, so I thought I'd keep it there for recreational use. I'm currently editing my holiday video on it and I think I'm gonna do them in 10 minute parts. But when I come to export it, it's going to be a large file size as there aren't any custom settings...which is pretty **** pathetic.

I could just export and compress it using MPEG-streamclip, but I'd rather export it straight from FCPX.

Now, this is just a MacBook Air and I'll only be using FCPX for recreational use, so I'm not sure if £34 is really worth it. I use Production Premium on my iMac so it's not like I could use Compressor for anything serious unless I decide to move back to Final Cut.

What other benefits are there from compressor? And do you think I should buy it?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.7), 2010, 21.5" 3.06GHz 4GB RAM

Posted on Jan 16, 2012 9:22 AM

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Answer 1

Jan 30, 2012 9:55 AM in response to Siderz

I'm curious about this as well. IF I'm sticking with the basic output options in FCP X, is there a benifit to buying Compressor? Will Compressor do a better job and therefore worth the money? I ask because it appears to me that QuickTime does a better job than FCP X at exporting to H.264.

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Answer 2

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Jan 30, 2012 3:30 PM in response to Michele Gardner

Hard to give definitive answer, but I'd say probably not. FCX can do a lot of the basic stuff quite well.

Compressor is very useful for those who want to have more control over visual and audio quality, scaling up or down, reducing file size, converting standards, outputting for DVD and BD authoring applications, and batches: taking the same file and doing multiple encodes for different purposes…or taking many different files and encoding them for whatever.

Russ

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Answer 3

Jan 30, 2012 4:04 PM in response to Russ H

Thanks, Russ. I was thinking the same thing, but if you're curious as to why I was asking about this, check out my thread here....

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3695719

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Answer 4

Siderz Author

Level 1

0 points

Jan 31, 2012 9:56 AM in response to Russ H

I could do with DVD authoring, but like I said, I have Production Premium, so I have Adobe encore, which is made for authoring DVDs.

I also have Adobe Media Encoder for converting batches, but I can't seem to find a way to apply custom settings to a batch. Also I can batch with MPEG streamclip.

I guess I'll put a bit more research into. It seems that there could be a few things useful to me.

Do you think any of Adobe's products are better alternatives to FCPX/Compressor?

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