Tim Jones13
Level 1 (15 points)

Q: Command Line Syntax for Compressor 4.1

Does anyone have updated command line examples for Compressor 4.1?  It appears that the syntax changed between the older and current versions, but the only examples that I can locate are all still only applicable for earlier versions.

 

As an example, I've determined that the following command returns no error, but no conversion occurs:

 

Compressor -computergroup "This Computer" -jobpath ./9-11-2014_00.m2ts -settingpath \

/Applications/Compressor.app/Contents/Resources/Settings/ProRes/proRes422Name.se tting

 

Using the older syntax like this, reports all sorts of errors:

 

Compressor -clustername "This Computer" -jobpath ./9-11-2014_00.m2ts -settingpath \

/Applications/Compressor.app/Contents/Resources/Settings/ProRes/proRes422Name.se tting \

-destinationpath ~/Desktop/compressor_test.mov

 

I have double checked that sharing is enabled and that "This Computer" is a valid entry.

 

Thanks,

Tim

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9), 16GB / Thunderbolt LTO-5 / BRU PE

Posted on Dec 26, 2014 2:59 PM

by Tim Jones13,Solvedanswer
Tim Jones13 Tim Jones13
Level 1 (15 points)
A:

I spent more time on this last night and it turns out that while FCP X can accept and process M2TS AVCHD files, Compressor cannot.  This was a totally bad assumption on my part that if FCP X can deal with them, then Compressor should be able to.

 

It's an extra step, but ffmpeg was able to convert the files to a format I could deal with directly.

 

Hopefully we'll see better format support in a coming update to Compressor.

Posted on Dec 28, 2014 10:42 AM

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Tim Jones13

Q: Command Line Syntax for Compressor 4.1

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Tim Jones13,

    Tim Jones13 Tim Jones13 Dec 26, 2014 3:18 PM in response to Tim Jones13
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Dec 26, 2014 3:18 PM in response to Tim Jones13

    I've been able to take this a bit further and this command appears to start the process:

     

    Compressor -batchname "A Simple transcode" -jobpath ./9-11-2014_00.m2ts -settingpath \

    /Applications/Compressor.app/Contents/Resources/Settings/ProRes/proRes422Name.se tting \

    -locationpath ~/Desktop/compressor_test.mov

     

    However, this results in a SIGBUS.  The crash reports have been commented and submitted.

  • by BenB,Helpful

    BenB BenB Dec 27, 2014 4:02 AM in response to Tim Jones13
    Level 6 (9,886 points)
    Audio
    Dec 27, 2014 4:02 AM in response to Tim Jones13

    http://help.apple.com/compressor/mac/4.1/#cpsr9be734f8

  • by Tim Jones13,

    Tim Jones13 Tim Jones13 Dec 27, 2014 6:48 AM in response to BenB
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Dec 27, 2014 6:48 AM in response to BenB

    Hi Ben,

     

    Thanks for the pointer, but I already have that info.  What's missing are functional examples as provided in prior versions of the documentation.

     

    As I mentioned in the second post, I believe that one issue was the non-clarity of the argument changes of -locationpath versus the old -destinationpath (which actually better describes the argument's purpose).  However, having sorted that, I'm now getting a SIGBUS when trying to transcode any file.  I know that the operation works as it works in the Compressor 4.1.3 GUI and FCP X can also deal with the file types.

  • by BenB,

    BenB BenB Dec 27, 2014 9:03 AM in response to Tim Jones13
    Level 6 (9,886 points)
    Audio
    Dec 27, 2014 9:03 AM in response to Tim Jones13

    http://help.apple.com/compressor/mac/4.1/#cpsr9be73659

     

    OK, so a SIGBUS error is the app trying to access memory that may not exist.  Can you post a screen shot of the error/log so we can see what app/process is doing this, which obviously interferes with Compressor. 

     

    One thing to try, is uninstall Compressor, reinstall.  Just be sure you have latest OS X and Compressor versions running, if you can.  Use "FCS Remover"  (free from Digital Rebellion dot com).  But this is odd for Compressor.

     

    But the versions of the OS and Compressor you now have, I still think there's some other app interfering or something.  But, more digging, more info is needed.

  • by Tim Jones13,Solvedanswer

    Tim Jones13 Tim Jones13 Dec 28, 2014 10:42 AM in response to BenB
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Dec 28, 2014 10:42 AM in response to BenB

    I spent more time on this last night and it turns out that while FCP X can accept and process M2TS AVCHD files, Compressor cannot.  This was a totally bad assumption on my part that if FCP X can deal with them, then Compressor should be able to.

     

    It's an extra step, but ffmpeg was able to convert the files to a format I could deal with directly.

     

    Hopefully we'll see better format support in a coming update to Compressor.

  • by Tom Wolsky,

    Tom Wolsky Tom Wolsky Dec 28, 2014 10:47 AM in response to Tim Jones13
    Level 10 (118,227 points)
    Apple TV
    Dec 28, 2014 10:47 AM in response to Tim Jones13

    DDon't forget to use feedback to make a feature request.

  • by Tim Jones13,

    Tim Jones13 Tim Jones13 Dec 28, 2014 12:39 PM in response to Tom Wolsky
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Dec 28, 2014 12:39 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

    Hi Tom,

     

    Already done.

     

    BTW - thanks for all your tips through the various sources.

  • by Russ H,

    Russ H Russ H Dec 29, 2014 4:15 AM in response to Tim Jones13
    Level 7 (21,810 points)
    Quicktime
    Dec 29, 2014 4:15 AM in response to Tim Jones13

    To add to the list of inconsistencies, FCP X will open a program stream but Compressor will not.

     

    Russ

  • by dannephoto,

    dannephoto dannephoto Apr 2, 2016 5:41 AM in response to Russ H
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Video
    Apr 2, 2016 5:41 AM in response to Russ H

    My command line looks like this. I put it in an automator service for testing purposes. My goal is to export a sequence of dng files and a wav file to go with this into a quicktime prores file.

    /Applications/Compressor.app/Contents/MacOS/Compressor -computergroup "This Computer" -jobpath "$@" -settingpath /Applications/Compressor.app/Contents/Resources/Settings/ProRes/proResXQName.setting -locationpath "$@".mov

     

    Hi! Been struggling for some time with getting syntax working with command line. So, I finally found out how to change framerate prior to exporting a job by changing the frame-rate="-100" in the proResXQName.setting.  Now the number -100 equals to 29,97 so then it,s a simple math to obtain correlating numbers for let,s say this 23.976/29.97=0.8. Now frame-rate="-80" equals to 23.976.

    However. Next issue. How do one include audio to an image sequence of dng files including a wav file? In the gui there is a possibilty to do this manually by selecting an audio file but I cannot get it to work in my proResXQName.setting path.

     

     

    The only few examples I seen of how to do this is some unsuccessful stories about pointing to audio after the -locationpath audio=[path_to_audio] but this never works. So then I start looking inside the proResXQName.setting template again and there are some yes/no switches even about audio but changing those doesn,t get me anywhere either.

     

    One step was to try and see how compressor registers settings from the gui by checking this path /Library/Application\ Support/Compressor/. Inside there is something called untitled.compressor  which when viewed in a text editor contains a great deal of information. Some of this info should be what could be inside a manually created proResXQName.setting.  Any guidance of what I could try and do to attach audio here would be of great help. Seems there is a lack of documentation of how to do this or I might have missed something when reading through.