Compressor App Reviews

I do non-standard rendering of 2-5 hours of lectures per week so need Compressor to go with FCPX. Earlier versions of Compressor would frequently hang, and the only way I could ever get it to work reliably was to export from FCPX as “Share Master File” and then run Compressor on that, which was a tedious process. I’m happy to say that the latest Compressor integrates perfectly with FCPX, has been rock-solid, and saves me 2-3 hours a week processing.

Compress 1-2 hours weekly with this and if there were ANY other program that could compress large files with the codec I use I would buy those programs in a heartbeat. The interface is clunky, confusing, and busy. Altogether the most buggy compresson software I know of but it could be so wonderful, just wish it had some developers who would dig in and make it usable.

Consumer grade. Will not allow for highly customized settings, try ad obe. Going back to encoder.

I’ve used Compressor for years now, and it’s always been a great tool in the video producer’s workflow. But this newest update broke the application. I have a video job that should be straight forward, but simply adding a video file into the application results in a spinning beach ball. Once it’s added, simply clicking on it in the queue results in another spinning ball, and then the application stops responding. Tech support couldn’t help. I cannot use it for this job. I also cannot utilize multiple instances anymore. Bottom line: do not update to 4.1.2. Keep your 4.1.1 until they fix whatever is wrong. Compressor is a great tool. Unfortunately, at the moment, Compressor is broken.

Do not upgrade to the latest version. It is clashing with Mavericks and brings any mac to a complete stop. I have a 27” i7 3.5 gig 32gb ram 3T fusion drive machine that is crashing after ten minutes of using compressor 4.1.2 If you have the older version wait until this is fixed.

I just purchases this (VER 4.1.2) and as the other reviews state, IT DOES NOT WORK. I also received the message that I was out of memory. I have a newer imac with 32 Gigs of memory! The program quit respoding after about 5 min. This happened EVERY time I tried to export. SO LISTEN to the reviews and DO NOT BUY/USE until Apple fixes the issue.

Like other recent reviewers, I’ve found that the latest version of Compressor running on Mavericks crashes at various times during usage. I was quite frustrated, as I’ve been unable in recent days to get any of my videos (produced with Final Cut Pro) crunched down and ready to upload to YouTube. Last night, a friend suggested using FCP to “share” those videos to my local filesystem using the “Master File” option, with the codec set to Apple ProRes 422 HQ. Further, he suggested using the open source HandBrake application to compress those “shared” (very large) mov files into mp4. I would like to report that solution works wonderfully for my needs. I look forward to using Compressor again, once Apple has fixed the bugs it introduced with the latest update. Until then, it’s FCP -> ProRes 422 HQ -> HandBrake -> mp4 -> YouTube, which is not a bad workflow in its own right.

I would love to rate this program with 5 stars because it has become a staple in my workflow. This latest version has made me look at other options to get my work done. I am now completely unable to make a Blu-Ray as are many others posting on an Apple forum with no good workarounds yet. PLEASE DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS UPDATE 4.2.1 - if you use the Blu-Ray creation feature. Apple - Please fix this bug!!!

While there seem to be some issues with this current version (4.1.2), Compressor in general is an essential app for me as a shooter/editor. I use it for all my transcoding and encoding needs, from quickly generating iPad daillies out of original camera footage by dragging a folder onto a little custom droplet on my desktop, to simultaneously exporting several different file types for various delivery methods. Compressor is a fast, modern-looking, powerful encoding/transcoding application that gives me full control over all the parameters I need to encode and transcode files; with real-time previews of what different settings will look like which is awesome! I just wish it was 64-bit instead of 32-bit, but I guess it has to be 32-bit to be able to encode certain legacy formats like DVCPROHD… but who really needs that anyway? I’d much rather have a 64-bit app. I’d also love to have the ability to load 3D LUTs to quickly apply specific basic grades to footage when transcoding daillies. The next best thing is Sorenson Squeeze, but that’s over $700 more expensive than this!

I use Compressor in a limited way, but have found it flawless in helping me compress and prep videos for upload to YouTube. Better than the direct sharing method from FCPX. I have more than one YouTube account, and FCPX isn’t flexible enough for me to go directly from it to a particular YouTube account. Compressor works like a charm.

Compressor is now officially a consumer product. The interface is simpler…which means you have less power/control over how your video is being encoded. The interface is appropriate for consumer users, not professional producers. I like a nice interface, but not at the expense of usability and versatility. I have far fewer options over things like file extensions, and filters to use. And while they seem to have overhauled the app (for the worse), Compressor is not only STILL rather slow, I think it’s actually SLOWER than it used to be. As of right now I am officially done buying Apple software. The new compressor is a joke, I hate the new Motion, the new Garageband (which I used for simple podcasting) is also a step backward. As a whole Apple’s software gets less capable, more buggy and crash-prone, and overall is just more of a displeasure to use. That’s why I didn’t bother buying Logic Pro X (I use Adobe Audition). I no longer have any faith in Apple’s software

Update: I’ve dual rendered videos for the past couple of weeks. Compressor uses around 600-620% of my 8 virtual cores. FCPX utilizes around 450% plus about 75% of GPU ability. Yet Compressor takes 2-3 times as long to render under the exact same settings (and boy does my Mac get HOT). I don’t know why and I’ve been contacted by Apple about it. So we’ll see if I’m misunderstanding something technical or if there’s an actual issue. Edit 4.1.2 and beyond: I’ve downloaded iStat Pro and watched how Compressor utilizes my CPU (quad-core i7 with HT) and GPU vs how FCP uses it. The short, it appears that Compressor is not taking advantage of all my threads while FCP does. I think that probably accounts for why I can render a 45 min podcast in about the same time, whereas Compressor takes 3+ hours. Going to do some more research to make sure I’m not missing something, but I’m afraid my days of using Compressor are over. Edit 4.1: At last a new interface. Prettiness and likeness to the other FCPX programs aside, I find this interface must easier to use with just a few short minutes of exploring. However….as most other reviewers note, the ability to connect multiple instances through Qmaster is temporarily gone, so beware if you depend on that. (I don’t but would probably be understandably upset if I did.) Edit 4.0.7: Not seeing any improvements from previous version. Still takes forever to render the same kind of file I have always done. Still no direct Vimeo uploading. Edit 4.0.6: Something is up with my workflow. Vimeo upload is still broken. But more importantly, it is taking 6-8 hours to render a video that used to render in 1-2. I havent changed any of my settings. Its the same project each week. In fact, the only thing that has changed is the version # of this product. And given the other comments, Im not very optimistic. All the processing "oomph" has left this product. Very concerning… Theres really not much different here. Qmaster is integrated into the menu, but really I cant find too much else different. 64-bit support of course. I basically bought it so I could export directly to it from FCP X. In FCS, the direct export to Compressor would take FOREVER to do the final encode. The work-around was to command-E out of FCP, then import into Compressor. In this version, the direct export works like it is supposed to. So I suppose that makes it worth it.

Compressor is such a slow program, takes a lifetime to render files.

The biggest problem with the new version is performance. With the previous version, you could specify the number of instances (i.e. how many compressions were occuring at a time), so that you could determine the load balance yourself (ie do you want the stuff done as quickly as possible, or do you want to have some cores left free to do other work with other apps). With the new version, it determines a max number of cores you can use, not letting you use the full power of the machine. In my case, it maxes out at 50% of my cpu usage (only allowing half my cpus to be used, despite the fact that I’ve got max ram in the machine), whereas previously I could hit about 95%. Cutting the performance of a “Pro” app in half is a major fail. And they’ve “i”d it. They’ve dumbed down the interface and removed options to actually save batches and settings. They’re now “auto-saved”, so you’re never really sure what’s been saved & what hasn’t, and can’t save specific batches in a specific location with the files you’re compressing, and can’t just revert to a previous state by closing without saving, etc.

Compressor is trying to please both ends of the user spectrum. It has a simplified interface that makes it easy for plug-and-play YouTube presets, etc., however, Compressor is NOT consumer level software. In my opinion Compressor cannot be beat for speed, accuracy, and reliability. Compressor is still the champ by every metric Ive tested. I’ve put it through the paces versus all the usual suspects, and I use it in cojunction with multiple NLEs, not just FCPX... Compression is both art and science, so you need to be your own judge of the intangibles (i.e. is a given video worth some extra encode time to get flawless results), but I find Compressor to be awesome wether I am banging out small files for online review, batch transcoding, region-formatting, converting framerates, doing high-quality optical flow retiming, or doing a final pass for high-end delivery to a major network. All I know is this; Compressor, an oft-maligned software, makes BETTER looking encodes with SMALLER final file sizes and generally does it FASTER than the other leading alternatives. If it did not, Id use one of the many other compression softwares that I have access to.

I ran a test and encoded the same files with the new version of compressor. I was running 4.0? Anyways, people have been complaining at how slow it is. From my test everything ran a few minutes faster! I am happy so far. Plus the history gives much more detail, and the thing seems much more streamlined to me. I was encoding 720p H264 files from 1080p footage.

I came from Compressor 3 and this is a worthy upgrade. I love the new interface, the simplicity, the ability to create and save custom settings, and the speed of exporting huge projects. Compressor 4 is WAY faster than 3. Great app for filmmakers.

At first glace it looks like Apple depricated alot of the the best features from the original version of Compressor which Apple seems to have elvated to an artform of late. However, with a little digging and a willingness to do some (very little) reading in Compressor Help, you will find the ability to customize bit rate, frame size, frame rate, file type and you can even create your own compression settings from scratch if you know what you’re doing… which I don’t. The interface HAS changed considerably to look more like iMovie Pro er— rather… FCPX, but I find that it’s actually easier to use with no discernable loss of functionality from it’s predicessors. My favorite improvement is the ability to set both transcode settings and destination for multiple assets without having to manuall select one at a time. With the older versions, I always found myself command + selecting individual targets so I could assign one destination to all of them. I’m no compressionist, hardly even an expert, but with a little digging and experimenting, the latest version of Compressor should fit the bill for all but the more advanced users. If you need something more robust, then spend the money on high end video encoding software like Episode. Good luck.

I can’t speak to the changes from prior versions as this is my first time using Compressor … I can say that I think this version is wonderful. It only took a few minutes of investigation to start using it for a client job, and the speed/performance/quality was excellent! My client is happy, so of course I’m happy. For anyone like me who is new to Compressor, or deciding whether or not to get it after reading the reviews, I can say that this (from a newbie’s perspective) is a must-have app. Kudos to the developers! :)

If you are thinking of buying this to make your MKV conversions faster (think Intel Quicksync) then forget it. Compressor doesn’t even open MKV containers. Better stick with Handbrake.