Squeeze It!

As I’ve written about previously our department is undergoing a massive re-encode, about 1600 files. We were previously using Sorenson Squeeze 4.5.7. It’s main problem revolved around the time it took to transcode a Quicktime movie into a .mp4. To create one mp4 took about three hours. And for each Quicktime file we need to output two mp4’s and one mp3. Now 6+ hours to get through one file is just rediculous.

It became important to take advantage of our multi-core machines, which Squeeze 4.5.7 wasn’t doing. We decided to take the plunge and upgrade to Squeeze 5 because of it’s claims to utilizing multiple cores. Come to find out that it does and it doesn’t. It does utilize multi-core machines, but only in certain instances. For example, if you important files manually it can use all the cores you have. If, however, you use a watch folder to encode files you only get one core of fun. Now that seems pretty short sighted. Watch folders, in a multi editor studio is of the utmost importance. Since everything we do is in a networked envirnoment watch folders make the encoding process much simplier.

For those who may be unaware of what or how a watch folder works, let me explain. A watch folder is a designated folder that is “watched” by the encoding software. Whenever a file of an appropriate type, say a Quicktime .mov, is placed into the folder the encoding software will transcode the file into whatever settings are specified. So from one watch folder you may have five different output formats. In other words, one .mov goes in and out comes a mp3, mp4, wmv, flv, and mpeg-2. This makes repetative tasks easily managable. And it makes repetitative taks that come from multiple editors easily mangable through one piece of software.

The upside to Squeeze 5 is when it does take advantage of your multiple cores it allows you to rock ‘n roll. Instead of doing 5 files in a 24 hour period, my 8 core machine was cranking through 26 files in the same time. Now that’s a serious time saver! My recommendation to Sorenson is to tweak their programming so that multi-core encodes happen whether you import manually or setup watch folders. The software has an extremely intuitive interface with simple, easy-to-use plugins. For the price point and its feature set, not much can touch it. Overall, I give squeeze a 7 out of 10.

So now that I’m utilizing all my cores I’ll keep ya posted on how long it takes to transcode 1600 files! Maybe one day we’ll have a faster solution to these kinds of tasks….but until then….