The unbeatable encoders tool
Written: Oct 02 '03 (Updated Oct 05 '03)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Easy to use, excellant quality and a lot of uses.
Cons: Can't read VOB files.
The Bottom Line: Sorenson Squeeze is the best type of software. Easy to use, and useful to so many people. Plus it's Quicktime encoding is unrivaled.
|
|
|
| carl_lazarevic's Full Review: Sorenson Media Squeeze 3 Pro Compression Suite (20... |
Minimum system requirements
Pentium III-based PC or greater
Microsoft Windows 98 SE, ME, 2000, or XP (with latest patches/updates)
DirectX 8.1 or later
128 MB RAM or greater (256 MB RAM is recommended)
20 MB hard disk space
Macromedia Flash Player 6.0 (Not required for Sorenson Squeeze 3 for MPEG-4)
Microsoft Windows Media Format Runtime
QuickTime 5.0.2 or later (QT 6 needed for MP4) (Optional with Sorenson Squeeze 3 for Macromedia Flash
MX and Sorenson Squeeze 3 for MPEG-4)
What does this software do?
Sorenson Squeeze is a program designed for encoding video files from one codec to another. For example, you may have a file in Quicktime but prefer the easier playback of a Flash file. In this case Sorenson Squeeze would be able to open the Quicktime file and change it to the Flash with minimum loss of quality, depending on settings. Or perhaps you may have a video file in a resolution that is too high for your computers memory, once again you could load this file in Sorenson and compress it to a lower resolution that suits your needs. For me personally, I use it for encoding the trailers you find on DVDs into high resolution Quicktime.
Ease Of Use
Those of you attempting to get into encoding may be intimidated when taking your first steps. With Sorenson Squeeze you have no need to be, because it features one of the most user friendly interfaces I have ever seen. Beginners are given a detailed help file and there are loads of auto settings to be used. Yet the best results come from using custom settings, which are still listed out in such a way as to make it easy for you. With a little outside help you should have no problem producing spectacular results your first time using this program.
Even without help I was able to produce some decent flash videos (not professional decency, but decent for a first time) using Sorenson to finish the process. I took a picture of a guy I know playing a guitar, edited him into a frilly pink dress, and animated his arms, head and mouth. Then I made that into a video with 'It's Raining Men' as the music and used Sorenson to make it a flash file. I sent it to this guy and it gave his friends a good laugh (he opened the file in the middle of a university class if I remember). Any problems I experienced with making this were unrelated to Sorenson, and the actual compressing to flash was a simple case of opening the file, selecting some low settings and squeezing. It was that easy!
Pros
There are a number of positive elements gained from owning Sorenson Squeeze. Those that I've already listed such as the ease of use, and the ability to alter video files. This is very useful for me because I have a relatively low powered system and so some video files are too high res to playback smoothly on my computer. A good example would be 640X480 trailers with anything less than a spectacularly high bitrate. Bitrate is a technical term for the rate of compression used on a trailer. On higher systems you can use a fairly low bitrate on trailers without problem, but a lower system will require higher bitrate for smooth playback. Unfortunately the higher the bitrate the larger the file. As I was saying though, a trailer using the resolution 640X480 (this will mean the trailer is 640 pixels wide, and 480 pixels high) will not playback on my computer, but with Sorenson I can take that video and resize it to 480X360. This will then playback perfectly on an even lower bitrate. The same tactic can be employed if you want to mirror a file for someone but need a smaller file size.
Yet for me personally the main benefit of owning Sorenson is its spectacular quality when encoding. You can make it lower the quality for flash files and whatever, but for Quicktime encoding high quality is always best. Sorenson is a much higher quality encoding tool then Quicktime Pro, and can produce some genuinely crystal clarity results when given a good source.
Cons
The unfortunate thing about this software is that it's not particularly self contained when encoding. All the other things I mentioned are fine, but when you encode from a DVD trailer you need to have a lot of different software. It's not too difficult to produce good quality results from your first time as you can use a free software like Virtual Dub to transfer the VOB to an AVI. Unfortunately Sorenson is incapable of reading the Vob/Mpeg file used on DVDs. It's cropping, deinterlacing and resizing options are also not to good inside Sorenson, so other free (and I stress the word free) software needs to be downloaded for the early stages. Still I have yet to come across any software that can encode Quicktime directly from a VOB source, at least not with decent results. Plus this has the benefit that you never have to worry about your software being used for illegal purposes. The AVI that you would load in Sorenson is about 2 Giga Bites per minute of footage, so without a lot of space on your hard drive you wont be encoding a full movie.
Overall
Sorenson Squeeze is a fantastic software. It can be useful to so many people, for so many different things. It has the highest quality encoding of Quicktime anywhere, but does need to be used in conjunction with other free software.
here is a list of all the input/output types supported by Sorenson Squeeze.
You can input any of the following file types into Sorenson Squeeze.
AIF/AIFF-This is the main audio codec for an Apple system. The Apple equivalent of a WAV file.
ASF-This is an advanced Microsoft format designed for streaming.
AVI-Can come compressed, such as the DivX codec but for best results you'll want to input an uncompressed AVI into Squeeze. The Windows equivalent of a MOV file.
DV-This is the file you will most likely get from a digital video camera
MOV-mov is the most commonly used format for trailers. It's the Quicktime codec, as seen on apple.com's trailer pages.
WAV-This is an audio only codec that will mostly be used by advanced users of Sorenson squeeze.
WMA-Window Media Audio is an audio only codec for Windows media player.
WMV-Windows Media Video is the codec used in Windows Media Player videos.
Then you can output any of the following files.
SWF-is the file you would use for video's to be played with Macromedia flashplayer. They can also be viewed, and most commonly are viewed when embedded into web pages.
FLV-would be used by more advanced users, and is for creating flash documents.
MOV-The best (and easiest to do) format possible, Quicktime.
MP4-MP4 can be played in either the Quicktime 6 player, or a stand-alone MP4 player.
RM-I never use this setting. In my opinion it's the route of all evil in the universe. Real media, to be played by Real Player or Realone Player!
WMA-An audio only codec similar to MP3. Designed for playing in Windows Media Player.
WMV-I like this codec, but it's slightly harder to do than Quicktime, and the results are not quite as good. It's the codec used for Windows Media Player.
If you want to witness the quality of Sorenson encoding, then there's a link to one of my trailers in my public profile.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
carl_lazarevic
|
 - Top 1000 |
|
Member: Carl Lazarevic
Location: UK-(pure blood Brummie)
Reviews written: 228
Trusted by: 211 members
About Me:
Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.