NOTE: I didn’t see any benefit to testing against older gear. So, I chose to create 78 different tests using three different source file codecs – XDCAM, ProRes 422 HQ, ProRes 4444 – then compress them into five different codecs – ProRes 422, H.264, HEVC 8-bit, HEVC 10-bit and MXF OP1a. There are so many potential variations of codecs, frame sizes and content that it is impossible to test all the permutations. This will prove to be significant limitation in the speed tests. It, too, is running the latest version of macOS. While it has a faster clock speed than the Mac mini, the i5 is not multithreaded. NOTE: Here’s an article that explains the differences between an i3, i5 and i7 CPU. This Mac mini is also running the latest version of macOS. The i7 is multi-threaded, which yields faster results than an i3 or i5 Mac mini at the same clock speed. NOTE: The KnowledgeBase article from Apple, above, lists all licensed implementations of ProRes. While my test results stand for comparison purposes, I will start looking for other compression software to use in the future. This is inappropriate and potentially dangerous. However, it concerns me that ffMPEG is using unlicensed ProRes code. This is why I included ffMPEG in my tests. I have not had any of my compressed files rejected for technical reasons. I have found its image quality and file size to be superior to that created by either Apple Compressor or Adobe Media Encoder. I use ffMPEG to create H.264 files from ProRes masters. Here’s a link to the entire tech note: /en-us/HT200321 Using any unauthorized implementation (such as the FFmpeg and derivative implementations) might lead to decoding errors, performance degradation, incompatibility, and instability. In some instances, unauthorized codec implementations have been used in third-party software and hardware products. …Apple also licenses and certifies ProRes for specific third-party products and workflows. ProRes is a codec technology developed by Apple for high-quality, high-performance editing in Final Cut Pro X. Compressing 10-bit HEVC can be used for HDR media, but it can only be compressed using software which, as you will see, takes a lot longer – if it can be compressed at all.Īpple has published a caution about using ffMPEG with ProRes: However, like H.264 which is also 8-bit, 8-bit HEVC can not be used for HDR media. Compressing 8-bit HEVC is hardware-accelerated on most current Macs. This makes the compression very fast. NOTE: While HEVC has a number of variations, the two most important are 8-bit and 10-bit. The results of these tests can be directly applied to the performance of these very popular video editing software. What makes these results even more significant is that Compressor is the underlying compression technology for Apple Final Cut Pro X, just as Adobe Media Encoder is the underlying compression foundation for Adobe Premiere Pro CC. The GPU is almost never used in most video compression.An upgraded Mac mini is a powerhouse video compression engine.In a head-to-head contest with Compressor, Adobe Media Encoder generally wins for speed and file size.With only limited exceptions Apple Compressor is the slowest compression software and also generates the largest compressed files.The hands-down performance champion is ffWorks/ffMPEG.The results were surprising and worth sharing. Over three days this holiday weekend, I compared compression speed and file size between Apple Compressor, Adobe Media Encoder and ffWorks/ffMPEG running on a high-performance 27″ iMac and the new Mac mini. Using the default YouTube, or social media, setting is a fast and good way to maintain image quality throughout. This means that you need to create a file with “extra bits” so that when it is recompressed the image quality is not overly degraded. NOTE: When sending a file to YouTube, or any social media service, it is important to remember that each of these services recompresses the file. Given those two goals, I wondered what were the differences, if any, in performance and file size between different popular media compression software. So, our goals in compressing any media file are to make it as small as possible, while damaging image and audio quality as little as possible. If network bandwidth was not limited, we wouldn’t need to compress a file because an uncompressed file will always look and sound better than a compressed file. The reason we compress a media file is that we need to make it smaller so that it can be rapidly transferred across a network.
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