There can be any number of Jobs in the Batch window. In the upper left of the Compressor interfaces is the 'Batch Window', inside the Batch window is a long horizontal window which is called a 'Job' (boxed in red below), to which we will add our source video in the "Video Well", and a 'Target', which consists of a codec, Destination of the saved finished file and the Name of the exported file. For this article, I'll be saving everything to the Desktop. There is also a feature in the History window that will let you find any completed job in the Finder. You can, of course, direct these files to any location of your choosing. Compressor can create a number of files while it's working and in order to be able to find those files, I suggest that you direct all Compressor files to the Desktop. In the Preferences window, set the 'Default Destination' to Desktop. Launch Compressor and from the Compressor menu > Preferences. There is one thing that needs to be done before we start working in Compressor. Lower left is the Settings/Destination window, lower center is the Inspector and lower right is the History window. Top left is the Batch window, top right is the Preview window. You can go ahead and close this Template window.īefore we start working with Compressor lets take a look around the Compressor interface.
For more information on the new Batch Template feature, check out Compressor 3.5. This window contains 7 Batch Templates that allow us to choose the encode process that we want Compressor to perform and then also, the Job Action (Distribution), what we want Compressor to do, once the files have been encoded. When you first launch Compressor, a new Batch Templates window will open up. Bring in the video you want to work with, select a Preset, adjust the Preset, click on the Submit button. While the Compressor may seem a bit daunting at first, it's really fairly simple to use. While it's true that FCP has an 'open' timeline and can accept and work with different frame sizes, rates or codecs, often the resulting quality is less than stellar. create MPEG 2 for SD DVDs or H.264 for web distribution? There is also another issue, there are times when we have video that is not in the correct format for us to work with, we may need to change the frame size, rate and/or codec of the video (some new digital still cameras now shoot video but use non-standard frame rates and codecs). But what do we do when it comes time for final delivery, i.e. Faster Macs and falling prices for hard drive storage and ram means that we can comfortably work with these new HD formats in FCP. As the frame size and quality of our video goes up, so does the size of the video files. In FCP we can work with a number of different video formats, including a large number of new HD formats. We use Compressor for two different tasks to encode files to make them smaller and change their codec to a delivery format for distribution, and to transcode source video to different codecs to improve or facilitate workflow. Compressor Presets - Settings and Destinations