Using Compressor to export with custom settings

We learned in the last movie how to export a QuickTime movie using one of the built-in Final Cut presets. Again, there are just over a dozen options available, a dramatic decrease from the usual number of available codecs in most other video editing applications. However, the solution Final Cut offers is to include Compressor as an available add-on program for about $50. Let's take a look at how to work with Compressor. So again I have got my project I'd like to export here, and I am going to come up to the Share menu. And there are a number of ways that I can access Compressor settings.

One is by way of a method we already know, so we'll explore that now. I am going to select Master File and go to Settings and under Open With, I am going to choose open with Compressor. Now I can change some other settings but probably the most important one for now is under Video codec. I don't want to compress something twice. So let's go ahead and send this out uncompressed so that when it gets to Compressor it hasn't already gone through any compression. Okay, so I'll just go ahead and select Next and Save.

Final Cut is exporting the file and then in just a moment Compressor is going to open. Okay, so here we are. Again, this is a totally separate program, but it integrates really well with Final Cut. As you can see, in the upper left corner is my program here, and it doesn't have any compression settings applied to it yet. But if you take a look down here in the lower left there are an awful lot I can choose from. So, as you can see, each one of these folders contains various codecs and so I can go through, and I can search for what I want. Or if I know what I want, I can come up here to the search field and just type it in.

So let's say that we were told that we must deliver our program at a very specific compression. For example, the delivery specs for lynda.com say that I have to deliver my media in the animation video codec with linear PCM audio, which is a really high-quality compression for both video and audio. So again I could drill down and look for it, but I'm going to go ahead and just type it in, "animation" and here it is. Okay so I just drag this up, and drop it right on top of my movie. Now I can leave it with Compressor's default settings, or I can come down to this window here and configure it further.

In the first tab here I get a summary of all of my settings. Then as I go across, there are various things that I can adjust about this file. I can change any of my video or audio settings here, then I can also perform Frame Rate control. I can perform Video and Audio Corrections and Adjustment, which is pretty cool. So here's some Color Correction stuff, and if you come down here, we can put in some Text, Timecode, Watermark, all sorts of neat things. And then we can introduce some Cropping and Padding and then add some specific actions if we want to as well.

So a lot of things that we can change about this file. I won't change a lot, but let's say that we want to do just a couple of things. I want to come in here and just come into video settings and change this from Millions of Colors+ to Millions of Colors. That will help keep the file size down a bit but still maintain superior quality. Then maybe I want to come into my Video and Audio Adjustments and add a Timecode burn in. Let's just go in and choose Timecode Generator. And if we want to make it a little bit bigger, we can go into Select Font and bring up the size just a little bit. Okay and then maybe we want to just change the color, like so.

Okay, so it looks pretty good. If this is a setting I want to save to be able to use later, I can just choose Save As, and we'll go ahead and save this, so I am just going to type in "Animation" and then my initials and Save. Okay, so we have officially applied one compression setting to our movie. Now another cool thing about Compressor is that you can create an entire compression setting from scratch. So if you don't want to modify an existing one like we just did, you can just come down here--I am going to clear out animation--and then you can come to this Plus sign here and then just choose a base compression that you want to start from.

So in our case let's go ahead and choose QuickTime Movie, and then you can come in and change all of the settings exactly how you want. So notice that it's called Untitled QuickTime Movie here and here it is over here in the list. So I could make all my changes, name it how I want, and then it could be my special codec that I can use again and again. I am not going to go through all of this right now, but I did just want to make you aware of this complete custom option in case you were given a set of deliverables that you needed to meet. I am going to go ahead and just select this and delete this for now. Finally, I want to show you how to perform a batch export.

Right now I just have my custom QuickTime Animation codec applied to this file, but let's say that I also wanted to add a basic MPEG-2 setting to this, this one right here. We will go ahead and just drag that on. And let's say I also just want one for video podcasting, that's perfect. So we have three applied to this one file. Now I could come in and customize these further--again in this window here--but for right now I am just going to leave it alone.

Now before I submit, I am going to do one more thing. Compressor likes to save the compressed file to the same location as the source file. But if I want to change that, you can just come into this list here, I can just drag a different destination right on top of those. So if I want them to go to the desktop, I can just go right here, and we are just changing that to a desktop destination, like so. So this is ready to go. If I come down here and hit Submit, and then I'm going to Submit this and all three of these jobs get sent to compress, and I can let that go while I go do something else.

And when I come back to it, I'll have three compressed files for three separate purposes. We can take a look down here and see details on how exactly each one is going. While these compress I want to show you one more thing in Final Cut. Let's go ahead and head back into Final Cut, and I want to show you one more way to access Compressor Settings without actually opening Compressor. Now I do that by coming to my Share menu and choosing Add Destination. When I do this, I am going to choose add Compressor Settings. And as you see when I do this it doesn't actually open Compressor, but it gives me a list of all of the available Compressor Settings.

So, we have lots of options here. So if QuickTime Animation codec is something I'll use a lot, then I can go ahead and just search for this, so and I'll say OK, and now it's been added to my Share menu as one of the export settings. Now notice I don't have all of my Video and Audio dropdowns anymore, but it does allow me to just totally change the Compressor setting out completely if I want to. So if I want to go to something else, now that's what it is.

So it's kind of blanket adjustment. But the cool part is is that I can access it every single time right within Final Cut. So let's go back to Animation--and you can see that it even saved my custom ones, so maybe I want to choose that--and go ahead and close this. Now, I'll go Share and then my Animation AK, you can see that, everything pretty much looks the same. But when I go to the Settings tab, there is really nothing to change. It knows that it's sending it to compressor with a special set of settings.

I am going to say Next, and let's go ahead and just name this something else, "v2" and Save and away it goes. Let me go ahead and minimize Final Cut. Yeah, we have all of our movies. They are already exported, ready to go, from our batch export from Compressor. So, as you can see, if you need to access additional codecs not included in Final Cut, you have some real power in using Final Cut's sister program, Compressor. [00:7:54.00]