One of my current primary job functions is to oversee the department in charge of preparing video content for digital video delivery systems – such as streaming and VOD. The world of modern digital video is pretty interesting – compared to some of my other responsibilities and interests, such as software development, it is significantly less documented. That is not to say there is not a ton of resources on the web – of course there are. But in general it is much harder to mine out the right answer to a problem, or sometimes to find the right tools for the job.
As a starting point of expanding on that in my own little way, I wanted to share with everyone some tools we have found very, very helpful for our tasks. To expand on that a bit, our focus is high-volume, so rather than spend 3 days getting a single video just right (which is a great way to maximize quality and something you can easily do since there are so many options when digitizing and compressing video), we encode and transcode hundreds of videos a week, and correspondingly needed tools that have batch options, that are stable (mostly), etc.
Here are the top tools we have found:
Canopus Procoder – Procoder is our workhorse of video encoding. It’s got the best options, the cleanest interface, etc. It is a general batch encoder, letting you go from a host of video formats to a host of others. It has great filters and plenty of advanced user options. For example, it is one of only a few programs capable of creating the 4:2:2, I-Frame only MPEG 2 format we use for some steps. Interestingly, I had a chance to meet the engineer that originally developed Procoder, and now has started his own company, Rhozet – he is a really great guy, and was always helpful to us. I have not used Rhozet’s product yet but based on all I know, could not give a stronger recommendation for the company.
Discreet Cleaner – The old favorite, but as you will read elsewhere on the web, it has its shortcomings. It has not stayed as up-to-date as others, it does not have all the advanced features that Procoder does, and its interface is the definition of obscure. That said, you will find as you work with digital video that you always need a mix of tools to get the total job done – there is no one-stop shop. And so you will eventually find yourself needing something Cleaner does that the others do not.
Sorenson Squeeze – The last of the three general transcoders we use, Squeeze is your batch transcoder of choice for QuickTime formats including MPEG 4 and Sorenson Pro 3. Of the three, we have found Squeeze the slowest and least stable, but it is the only way today to access all the features of the Sorenson Pro 3 video codec (such as 2-pass VBR encoding). I understand the new version is much, much faster but we have not had a chance to test it yet.
Elecard MPEG 2 Player – As I mentioned above, we use 4:2:2 MPEG 2 at several different stages of our processes. This is a hard format to playback on a general Windows workstation – most come with off-the-shelf 4:2:0 MPEG 2 codecs suitable for DVD playback but not 4:2:2 playback. This player plays our I-frame only format just fine and is easy to install and use. Just the answer for us!
Microsoft GraphEdit – This isn’t even really an application! It is a sample application from Microsoft provided as part of the DirectShow API. But, it allows you to create custom DirectShow graphs you cannot create in other applications – including ones that transcode between different DirectShow codecs. You can also use it to strip off audio tracks from WMVs or AVIs, inspect how DirectShow will try to play a file (if for instance you cannot play back some files in Windows Media Player), etc. All in all, indespensible.
3ivx – We don’t actually use these DirectShow filters much, but they are one of my favorite obscure finds and I had to mention them here. They allow you to playback MPEG 4 video in Windows Media player, or AAC audio (that is DRM-free, of course – so no iTunes purchases). They also allow you to encode MPEG 4 video at about the highest quality I have seen for a low-cost MPEG 4 fitler (say, as compared to Apples own MPEG 4 SP codec, or Sorenson’s). I am not sure what is happening with the company, since the focus today is on AVC video and they are still doing SP and ASP video, but for some applications this is going to be just what you were looking for. Also, I have not extensively tested Microsoft’s Zune yet, to understand the new MPEG 4 playback options – they might replace a need to buy 3rd party codecs to play back MPEG 4 in Windows Media player.
These are just a few of the tools we use, and I will try to share more of what we have learned about the gotchas, bugs, and recommended settings for each as well as other digital video tools.