FCPX/Compressor 4 Questions

Thanks, this helped me too.

T/S

Hi Cory, Can you please confirm to me whether or not you had problems uploading this final file of yours to IMDb? I have tried uploading my 720p file that is much smaller than yours 6 times and it has always failed.

If you uploaded ok, I would love to see your final settings. Today is a big deadline for me so stressing somewhat. Hope to hear back, Thanks!

Just reviewed this thread to refresh my memory and I guess I have two reactions.

First, I appreciate your frustration in not being able to complete an important project to your satisfaction. It's also confusing, since you seemed to have reached a reasonably successful resolution of your image quality problems. The other stuff you describe (Compressor errors) is new…or at least wasn't mentioned earlier.

Second, I have used Compressor on nearly a daily basis for many years – several versions – several systems – several OS versions – many different cluster configurations – a wide variety of source formats and a wide variety of encoding specs. Compressor has performed perfectly well for the vast majority (maybe 99%) of literally thousands of jobs. Those results, representing so many different user cases, can't simply be the exception that proves the rule.

Not sure what else to tell you. The encoding specs you were originally trying to meet were not unusual should have been easily achieved with good results by Compressor. If you want to try and sort out the new processing problems, post more details – probably best done in a new thread (so other readers won't assume the existing one is solved).

Russ

Cory273 wrote:

Well, I did come to a reasonably successful version, but then the Withoutabox upload was horrible quality so I gave up on it.

All these services recompress and some do a better job than others You noted that they don't support HD. My guess is that down-converting at their end didn't work so well; I'm guessing because I never have used them.

if you google any of these, you will come across numerous threads, devoted to numerous issues, including Q-Master failures, problems

Very seldom do people comment on support forums about software that's performing like clockwork. Although I have no idea what the installed base of Compresspr 4 is, certainly the base of Final Cut Studio was in the millions and earlier versions of Compressor/Q Master are being used by owners of those suites. If you do a search of the FCS forums, I don't think you'll find a tidal wave of Compressor complaints.

Just because my experience has been favorable doesn't mean I question the authenticity of anyone else's problems with Submit etc. Files get corrupted; caches need cleaning; thord party codecs and software create conflicts…and so forth. I sometimes encounter some of the issues that others report and I try to share what's worked for me in resolving them – or what has worked for others as has been reported here and other good forums.

The difficulty is the software resides in a wide variety of systems environments – different hardware and software configurations – with different Apple and thrid party software. So there isn't a one size fits all solution to user problems.

Reset Background Processing is an easy first try at a fix. It's never a bad idea to run Jon Chappel's Compressor Repair. It clears caches, re-sets preferences, repairs the Qmaster-Compressor links…and a whole bunch of other things that I don't understand. Alternatively, (or additionally), followingthese steps of these steps (especially trashing the Qmaster folder) often cures issues.

But if there is a conflict, it may involve a lot of trial and error – to ID and disable the guilty item.

Try the above fixes and see whether Compressor starts behaving itself.

Russ