H.264 encoding with Episode Pro or Compressor ???

I will be doing some HDDVD soon and was wondering if anyone have used Episode Pro for H.264 encoding. I'm using CinemaCraft for SD encoding and find it much better than compressor but at the moment there's no affordable H.264 encoders other than Episode pro...Any suggestions ??? Thanks

Currently, I have Episode Pro 4.2.2, which is the latest version of Episode Pro. The limitations with it are that there are several small things like with H.264, where it will only do 2 pass encoding, instead of multipass, which if you're a stickler for detail like I am, you will see the difference.
Episode doesn't base it's encoding on QT, though it does make use of the codecs contained in QT. As one of the people at telestream said, they use there own proprietary engine and as a result, for the most part, does very fairly nice job.
If you were to really put to the test Episode Pro against compressor's multipass encoder, you find that all things being setup the same, that compressor would yield a technically superior image, (due to multipass encoding.)
If you are in a hurry and the quality of image is not as important as time, Episode Pro is you're choice. Now in defense of Telestream, they are a company that listens to there end users, unlike some I know, (Auto Desks Cleaner 6.5 comes to mind.) I have emailed there technical team and made suggestion on improvements to Episode Pro and believe it or not, they will be implementing my suggestions within the next 6 to 8 months. My moneys always on the company that listens to there customers.
When I have very critical work, dealing with H.264, compressor when setup correctly gives outstanding results, but now that when I have corresponded with Telestream over the last month, I'm betting that the limitations that Episode currently has, will rapidly disappear in a very short time, they just listen the there customers.
I also have 3 copies of Cleaner 6.5 and it also, (when it works) also uses multipass encoding for H.264 and resulting files look fabulous. The only problem is that I can never keep a batch running for more than a day.
Long story short, for day to day output, were perfection is not a concern, Episode Pro is a very good choice, (I own 3 copies.) For mission critical work, where high quality is a must, I unfortunately have to still use Cleaner 6.5, even though it hasn't seen an update in over a year, (not even bug fixes.) The reason for using Cleaner 6.5 is that, I guess I'm just use to the software and know were all the gotchs are, so I just work around them. Compressor again is a very good choice, but the setup is still not on par with the other encoders, this is why I use Cleaner 6.5, (for critical work) and Episode Pro, (for day to day use) there easier to setup.
Sorry for rambling on so much, I have been dealing with finding the best solution for a long time now, and still there isn't just one app that has it all, YET! I even own a copy of Sorenson 4.5, but don't use it at all.

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Hi,
I've been using both for some time now.
The reason for me is that Compressor don't handle specific settings of MPEG4 H264 for hardware like PS3. For some stupid reason, Quicktime let you compress video files into .MP4 that are compatible with PS3 but Compressor don't have those settings. I've been wondering why Apple made such limitations on Compressor while Quicktime don't have them.
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i develope in the last month a full automate packager for flash access 2.0, written in AIR.
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I was impressed how fast i can develope a GUI for our customer with the latest flash builder. The hard work was to communicate with encoders like rhozet carbon coder on windows and episode on OSX.
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Hi guys,
i develope in the last month a full automate packager for flash access 2.0, written in AIR.
I used AIR for the GUI and native process for communication with the jar fp access packager.
I was impressed how fast i can develope a GUI for our customer with the latest flash builder. The hard work was to communicate with encoders like rhozet carbon coder on windows and episode on OSX.
I first thought that i need about 2 days for a stable watch folder function, but if you want toDo a stable watch folder with error and retry managment it can steal you maybe more then 2 weeks of your lifetime for developing.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69tY3059RYQ
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GILbP7oFOM (audio is broken for some reasons)
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Has anyone found a way to use Episode Pro Desktop v5 within FCS? I know that the more expensive Episode Engine is compatible with FCS, but there seems to be no reason why the desktop edition (with the Compressor plugin) shouldn't work.
I've created a number of presets in Compressor that use the Episode plugin, and everything works fine. (I'm encoding to FLV8 and MPEG-2)
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*Error: Missing destination media format*
and
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I read that as "Episode Pro plug-in for Compressor" ... and not "you need to spend £4k on Episode Engine" - so it must be possible with the desktop edition ;o)
FCServer, Episode Pro and Compressor are all running on the same machine.
Is there something obvious I'm missing? Has anyone got this working? Does this problem also suggest that other Compressor plugins wont work with FCS?
Thanks,
Oliver.

Oli,
I understand. Keep your eye open for Snow Leopard with Quicktime X that offers [quote] "native support for all common video formats". My guess that will be MXF, WMV, various MP formats will be added along with others for portable devices. Some people disagree with me though stating that Apple would never support competitive formats. Let's see, fact is that the Pro video & broadcast industry is screaming for native MXF support (Major broadcasters are investing in MXF play-out servers) and many corporate CMS builders need WMF because ignorant executives will never understand that quicktime offers the best possibilities. They are just sitting behind their windows machines staring at their Windows Media player. I hope that Apple will at least offer people, that are smart enough to develop in a Quicktime based environment, the native support they deserve for sticking their heads out.
By the same token, I hope that there will be a Web App soon for review & approve purposes.

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Same source video imported into CC v2014 and v7, and exported using the YouTube 1080p 29.97 fps settings. The artifacts manifests itself as softness/blurriness in parts of the image every few seconds, especially notice the area with a red circle below.
Here are the source file (GoPro HERO3 Black Edition), the v2014 render and the v7 render.
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[Version numbers corrected.]
Message was edited by: Jim Simon

Mark Mapes wrote:
This is a known issue introduced in CC2014.0. Some h.264 encodes have blurriness or noise periodically in some areas of the frame. The problem is most pronounced in regions of the frame with very little detail, like grass or pavement--or the T-shirt in the sample frame. We are working on a fix. Before you ask when the patch will be forthcoming, I'm not authorized to even hint at the timeframe.
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Sorry, but thats not completely true and by far not the correct answer:
The problems with random artifacts occurred with the introduction of a new version of H264 in CS6 but there you still had the option to export with the previous H264 Version via Media Encoder.
Since the previous H264 version is not available in CC, using CC7.2.2 is not a solution either.
BTW
Updating to CC and using the new Mac Pros with Mavericks is currently a total mess - no open cl rendering, random crashes, no usable h264 ... thanks adobe!!
... but we can track masks in premiere now ... wow!

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My question is basically what am I missing? Is there a better workflow than using Compressor 4.1 for high bit rate h. 264 encoding of 4K? If so, what is the best way to use my nMP to get a high bit rate h.264 4K file for sending to YouTube and other online streaming?
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Russ,
Thanks for responding.
I am encoding only a single project from FCP X in Compressor 4.1 and using only a single instance of Compressor. I don't really see that using multiple instances of Compresor with a single job would be helpful, but perhaps I don't understand something.
The project has now been encoding for 2.5 hr and is slightly less than half complete. The CPU usage is still at 16-17%. Overall this seems like a ridiculously slow encode to h.264 from a ProRes 422 file in Compressor 4.1.
Here are some thoughts on alternatives that I may try. (1) Take the Pro Res 422 file into Adobe's Media Encoder CC and encode it to high bit rate 4K h.264. (2) Take the Pro Res 422 file into Handbrake and encode to high bitrate 4K h.264. Handbrake does seem to make far more use of the nMP's CPU's than Compressor 4.1. Don't know about Media Encoder since I have not tried any h.264 encoding in Media Encoder.
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So unfortunately, I don't know the camera settings.
I only bought quicktime because I thought it would help me work with these videos.
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The file extension is .mov. I didn't entirely follow the other stuff. As I said, the two programs are reporting different information about the same file.
Additionally, I can report what MediaInfo says about the same file (which seems a little more comprehensive, including for instance that it was shot on a canon, in AVCHD 1080i60:
General
Complete name                            : X:\XXXXX\XXXXX\Clip #1.mov
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : QuickTime
Codec ID                                 : qt
File size                                : 225 MiB
Duration                                 : 3mn 57s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 7 946 Kbps
Encoded date                             : UTC 2014-08-08 18:02:58
Tagged date                              : UTC 2014-08-08 18:03:48
Writing library                          : Apple QuickTime
com.apple.proapps.reel                   : CANON
com.apple.proapps.isGood                 : 0
com.apple.proapps.dataSize               : Unknown kind of value!
com.apple.proapps.displayFormat          : 1080i60
com.apple.proapps.shootingRate           : Unknown kind of value!
com.apple.proapps.videoBitrate           : 0
com.apple.proapps.originalFormat         : AVCHD 1080i60
com.apple.proapps.pulldown               : 1
com.apple.proapps.mediaRate              : Unknown kind of value!
com.apple.proapps.timecodeFormat         : 1
com.apple.proapps.numberOfAudioChannels : 2
com.apple.proapps.sampleRate             : 48000
com.apple.proapps.bitsPerSample          : 16
com.apple.quicktime.creationdate         : 2014-07-22T19:18:49-0500
com.apple.proapps.manufacturer           : Canon
com.apple.proapps.clipFileName           : Clip #1
com.apple.proapps.clipID                 : 000000000c68e80029fd297d7dbc45455b176f5a5b1441d8d93257481836befb68ebe0dbe13d88e46d63e6746 972dad41111104706aed608eea1886ad32653b1317dc61a12c5dcdebe674a1920bf58c690cf959c09350c6e
com.apple.proapps.RADSDKVersion          : 3.1
com.apple.proapps.cameraID               : 3D2CB7D4-9473-3E4C-9DE9-257FB8F6BB73
com.apple.proapps.cameraName             : CANON
com.apple.proapps.ingestDate.description : 2014-08-08 14:02:58 -0400
com.apple.quicktime.make                 : Apple
com.apple.quicktime.model                : MacBookPro11,3
com.apple.quicktime.software             : Mac OS X 10.9.4 (13E28)
Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP                     : M=3, N=15
Codec ID                                 : avc1
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                                 : 3mn 57s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 6 362 Kbps
Maximum bit rate                         : 12.0 Mbps
Width                                    : 1 440 pixels
Height                                   : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 29.970 fps
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Interlaced
Scan type, store method                  : Interleaved fields
Scan order                               : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.136
Stream size                              : 180 MiB (80%)
Title                                    : Core Media Video
Encoded date                             : UTC 2014-08-08 18:02:58
Tagged date                              : UTC 2014-08-08 18:03:48
Color primaries                          : BT.709
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709
Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : PCM
Format settings, Endianness              : Little
Format settings, Sign                    : Signed
Codec ID                                 : sowt
Duration                                 : 3mn 57s
Source duration                          : 3mn 57s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 1 536 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L R
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Stream size                              : 43.5 MiB (19%)
Source stream size                       : 43.5 MiB (19%)
Title                                    : Core Media Audio
Encoded date                             : UTC 2014-08-08 18:02:58
Tagged date                              : UTC 2014-08-08 18:03:48
Other
ID                                       : 3
Type                                     : Time code
Format                                   : QuickTime TC
Duration                                 : 3mn 57s
Time code of first frame                 : 00:00:00;00
Time code, striped                       : Yes
Title                                    : Core Media Time Code
Encoded date                             : UTC 2014-08-08 18:02:58
Tagged date                              : UTC 2014-08-08 18:03:48

Issue with Adobe Encore CS5.1 and Matrox MAX H.264 encoding on Windows

Here's some information on an issue that we've identified with Matrox products and Encore CS5.1:
"Issue with Adobe Encore CS5.1 and Matrox MAX H.264 encoding on Windows"

Still flickering on Encore even when rendered in MPEG-2 DVD in Pemiere Pro CS5.5. Looks perfect in Premiere Pro.
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Compressor is not working. When I export to compressor from FCP to encode DVD, FCP freezes and Compressor appears to be working but the progress bar never fills no files are created. I'm using a MacBook Pro 10.6.7 version 2.66 GHz core 2 Duo 4GB 1067 MH

Compressor is not working. When I export to compressor from FCP to encode DVD, FCP freezes and Compressor appears to be working but the progress bar never fills no files are created. I'm using a MacBook Pro 10.6.7 version 2.66 GHz core 2 Duo 4GB 1067 MH. I'm not new at this. I re-installed FCP successfully. I trashed the preferences. Please help.

Do you have any filters applied to your clips?
This happened to me before, I accidently had applied a broadcast safe filter to a color matte that was black....
I figured it out by duplicating my sequence and deleting items from my timeline 1 by 1 until I was able to export a reference movie.
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H.264 encoding with Episode Pro or Compressor ???

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