Compressor 4.1.1 ignoring H.264 settings

Question

Level 1

8 points

Compressor 4.1.1 ignoring H.264 settings

Hi there,

Since updating to Mavericks, it's been a hassle to use Compressor 3.5 using multiple cores through qmaster. I managed to get it up and running using terminal commands, but this workflow isn't ideal. So I decided to use Compressor 4.1.1 instead.

Now, my problem is that Compressor seems to ignore the video quality setting in the H.264 tab. It doesn't matter if I choose Least or Highest quality or something in between. The result is always a file that seems to be encoded using the Highest Quality.

My source file is a QT reference file exported from Avid 7.0. So one QT file that points to the MXF video and to a Wave audio Mixdown.

I'm running 10.9.2 and Compressor 4.1.1. Compressor 3.5 and FCP 7 are also on my system.

Any ideas ?

Thx,

Alain

Posted on Mar 3, 2014 2:28 AM

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Answer 1

Studio X

Level 7

27,229 points

Mar 3, 2014 6:25 AM in response to Alain D

Create a custom preset and set your owm data rate and whether you want CBR or VBR 2 pass - that's what dertermines "quality" (as well as speed of encoding).

best,

x

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Answer 2

Alain D Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 3, 2014 10:40 AM in response to Studio X

Yeah that's what I've been trying, but Compressor ignores the Quality slider when encoding to H.264. I am using the Quicktime export setting, and not the H.264 for Apple devices setting

The results of encoding a 2 minute 1080p clip using the settings on the screenshot gave me a 296Mb file. When I move the slider all the way to the right I get the same result.

I tried encoding to MP4, luckily the datarate slider does make a difference.

So apparently the bug is related to the Quickime Export setting.

...

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Answer 3

Mar 3, 2014 11:20 AM in response to Alain D

Is there a difference between single pass and multi pass? Compressor does use the hardware encoding for single pass now, so maybe that doesnt apply to single pass anymore. I dunno, I usually use multi pass and bitrate to determine quality.

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Answer 4

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Mar 4, 2014 9:44 AM in response to AnonimaKontonWTF

Just to clarify…rather than using the slider, have you entered a specific bit rate in the "Restrict to" field? (I believe that's what X had suggested.)

Russ

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Answer 5

Alain D Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 4, 2014 9:56 AM in response to Russ H

No, I just used the slider.

This bug seems limited when you want to export to Quicktime (*.mov) since I don't have problems encoding to MP4 or H.264 for Apple Devices.

It appears that Compressor only takes the parameters into account that you change in it's own interface. When exporting to Quicktime, you can't change the parameters inside Compressor, you need to click 'change' and then change the values in the Quicktime 7 window. But Compressor seems to ignore those values.

Are you able to recreate this bug ?

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Answer 6

Mar 4, 2014 10:59 AM in response to Alain D

Have you tried the slider with multi pass? The reason I asked is because I didnt see it working with single pass, but the data rates definitely changed with multi pass.

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