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Struggling to activate QMaster for faster Compressor

Hi all,

I've been pulling my hair out for the last 2 days struggling to get QMaster to work within Compressor 4. Here's my current set up:

Macbook Pro 17' i7 2.4Ghz, 16 GB RAM with a 512GB SSD HD - This should be a pretty good set up for laptop processing???

Within Compressor 4 I select 'share this computer'

- Share as QuickCluster with services ON

- Services; Compressor ON

- Number of instances; I've chosen everyone from 1-4. It gives me the option for 8 can my computer handle 8?

- Require these services only to be use in managed cluster ON (i've tried it selected off and still no joy)

- QuickCluster; Named my QuickCluster

- Include unmanaged services from other computers ON

When I hit submit I can't select my named Cluster. Only 'This Computer'

In Share Monitor I can only see one cluster. I've read many posts saying that you should be able to see the multiple cluster setup.

In Activity Monitor Compressor is using 344% and The CPU overall is saying only 44% used by user???

Ive followed so many instructions on the internet but still no visible joy.

HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME

Posted on Feb 24, 2013 10:29 PM

Best reply

Warwick Teale

Level 3

584 points

Posted on Feb 25, 2013 2:56 AM

Hi Reelsick (love your business name!). HELP IS ON ITS WAY (Little River Band 1979) This symptom is easy to rectifiy. NO NEED for any third party apps and nothing to do with compressor.app itself.

Simply you need to REMOVE all the QMASTER state information.

Here's a detailed link at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3197005?answerId=21309544022#21309544022 ... look at the 3rd post down... detailed instrucrtions/procesure.. easy.

Basically is you remove | purge | delete all things in ~/Library/Application Support/Apple Qmaster/ after you have shut down QMASTER , QMASTER will restart ok

BTW.. theres loads of tips on this on these forums however there is NO NEED at all for any 3rd party apps, nor resinstallation of compressor nor messing with compressor.app prefs.. yeah it may have helped some but the issues is qmaster.

Try these procesures at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3197005?answerId=21309544022#21309544022 , it usually works for my colleagues and myself.

Oh btw, you might find COMPRESSOR.app more responsive when adding a batch if the PREVIEW window is closed. Simply it seems to avoid building a oeview and submission is faster for a lot of jobs.. (old R.O.T but worth mentioning).

Compressor.app is great.. just need to coax it a bit.😊

Post your results for others to see.

HTH

Warwick

Hong Kong

View in context

20 replies

Mar 1, 2013 4:31 PM in response to Reelsick Productions

I reinstalled OSX today...

comprosserd is Compressor 3.5...

CompressorTranscoderX is Compressor 4.

I like compressord because you can see the video in segments before they are joined together. Make's it easy to see when a job is done.

(Same with the Share Monitor app. Compressor 3.5 let's you open separate info windows for each job and let them display on the desktop. Compressor 4 doesn't let you do this... the window disappears after you click on it.)

Mar 1, 2013 11:39 PM in response to Reelsick Productions

Hi Reel-Sick, glad to hear you are back up making a living 😎. Just a heads up on this thread as it has excellent information from Dave and Russ et al, as you may have done already, its a great idea to mark those posts as SOLVED or HELPED so that other forums readers can search specifically for a fast fix try from thead contributersas suggestions.

FWIW another tip on Qmaster Cluster Stability - your taste ( litres/Km) . The notion of Quickcluster and "this computer plus" is sound however my colleagues and I have not experienced 100% stability and an even scheduling of batch transcode jobs. (seems OK for SHAKE etc rendering...) but not transcoding (Compressor).

If using more than one host for Qmaster Transcode clusters...

First thing.. before you start, stop Qmaster on EVERY node, and DELETE the ~/Library/Application Support/Apple Qmaster direcyory. .. dont wprry Qmaster will rebuild it.. try these...

USE a DEDICATED NETWORK subnet between the cluster nodes and the controller node if possible (see subtip #5) dont defaul to to all .. especially WI-FI
use a MANAGED CLUSTER via Apple Qadminstrator.app
on all nodes Compressor.app/Apple Qmaster/Share this Computer/Setup Tab/Services: (1/2 waydown) /"Require these services to be used in managed clusters" = TICKED (to restrict nodes to be specifically added to a cluster by service
on all nodes Compressor.app/Apple Qmaster/Share this Computer/Services/Advanced Tab/Network:/ Allow discovery over Bonjour = UNTICKED (dont lookaround the LAN for other nodes)
on all nodes Compressor.app/Apple Qmaster/Share this Computer/Services/Advanced Tab/Network:/ Use Network Interfaces: look around the lan for other nodes) In the Listbox, select ETHERNETx or your specific subnet.
on all nodes Compressor.app/Apple Qmaster/Share this Computer/Services/Advanced Tab/Shared Storage Location: (1/2 way down)/ set a SHARED FILE SYSTEM between all nodes and make a QMASTER SPOOL folder on it.
on all nodes, make sure the file system with the directory in the file system in subtip #6 is MOUNTED (NFS | AFP)
on all nodes, make sure the file system for SOURCE and the TARGET distributions are MOUNTED (NFS | AFP) and accessible (see access lists - share to all) - this will limit the amount of COPYING sources and Target to qmaster spool... unfortunately its not a 100% always for copying
on all nodes Compressor.app/Preferences/Cluster Options/"copy to cluster as needed" or better still "Never copy Files to/from cluster" .. set to taste
on all nodes Compressor.app/Preferences: Allow connections from other computers"/ manually add in IP address (or host names if you have them defined .. not Bonjour.locals.. seems to be unstable for .local .. dunno why)
using Apple Qadminstrator.app on the host that is to be the SERVICE Controller for the cluster, manually Apple Qadminstrator.app/Preferences , manually add the SERVICE nodes of all the other pnodes

Oh and dont forget, before you start, stop Qmaster on EVERY node, and DELETE the ~/Library/Application Support/Apple Qmaster direcyory. .. dont wprry Qmaster will rebuild it 😉

now back to work.

Warwick

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Mar 4, 2013 4:31 PM in response to David M Brewer

David M Brewer wrote:

(Same with the Share Monitor app. Compressor 3.5 let's you open separate info windows for each job and let them display on the desktop. Compressor 4 doesn't let you do this... the window disappears after you click on it.)

David,

I also prefer 3.5 for a variety of reasons.

But FWIW, Share Monitor basically performs for me the way Batch Monitor does.

Russ

Mar 4, 2013 8:41 PM in response to Russ H

Russ H, I may revisit using Compressor 3.5. I don't think it's any faster than Compressor 3.5 (Unless you have done any testing to shows otherwise.) The codecs are 36 bit, Compressor 4 is 36 bit, so it shouldn't be any faster.

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Mar 5, 2013 5:36 AM in response to David M Brewer

David M Brewer wrote:

I don't think it's any faster than Compressor 3.5 (Unless you have done any testing to shows otherwise.)

Just to confirm that C4 is no faster than C3.5.

Russ

Struggling to activate QMaster for faster Compressor