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Edit Integrate Review — Sorenson Squeeze 4 Compression Suite

Feb 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Jeff Sauer

Improved interface for flexible control of top-notch video compression codecs.

Sorenson's reputation for excellent video compression, including implementations of MPEG-4 and Macromedia Flash, has carried its Squeeze Compression Suite through three revisions despite a rather quirky and feature-thin interface. But now in version 4, Sorenson has given Squeeze an extreme makeover that makes the program's interface far more commensurate with its actual encoding ability. Gone are the cryptic buttons across the top and the overpopulation of icons in the Batch window. They've been replaced by an interface that facilitates a very smart, highly intuitive workflow for both individual and batch compression.

Sound like a competitor to Discreet Cleaner XL, Cleaner 6 for Mac, or Canopus ProCoder? It should. At $449 it's the most affordable of the bunch (by $50 compared to ProCoder and $100 against either Cleaner), and it's the only one that's cross-platform. Squeeze still can't match the feature list of the others, and there are some obvious growing pains in this new version, so the discount is appropriate. But for straightforward, high-quality, multi-format video compression, particularly for MPEG-4 AVC and Flash, Squeeze 4 Compression Suite is definitely worth a look.

A Tighter Look

Squeeze 4's new interface is divided into flexible, resizable panes that neatly organize the compression workflow. By default there are six panes: Input, Filters, Settings, Details, the Preview/Player window, and the Batch Tree window. The first four are stacked down the left side of the interface. You can minimize and expand them, or hide them to create more desktop space. The Preview window and the Batch window are on the right, although the Preview window is now smartly detachable and can become a floating, movable, toggle-able palette that leaves the entire right side of the interface to the all-important Batch window, where most of the work is done.

That detachable Preview window is wonderful, especially with a dual-monitor desktop, but it's not the only clever enhancement. A new compression preview feature lets you, rather than set in/out points for a test encode, move your cursor to a single point in a clip and quickly create a sample encode of 1-5 seconds around that point. No forgetting to reset your in/out points for a full clip encode! The Preview window also features a side-to-side, before-and-after slide, á la Cleaner.

The new Batch Tree window is brilliant in its simplicity. It's a hierarchical tree that starts as a Project to which you add Jobs, then clips within Jobs. Applying filters and compression settings is as easy as dragging and dropping preset icons from the Filter and Compression panes onto individual clips. Even smarter, you can drop those settings onto a Job, thus simultaneously setting the encoding parameters for all of the clips in that Job. Better still, you can make global Job changes to all encoding parameters of clips in the Job, then fine-tune the settings for each clip individually. It's very easy and very smart.

Like ProCoder and Cleaner, Squeeze supports Watch Folders, which can be any generic folder on your hard drive. This allows you to streamline repetitive encoding tasks. Add a Watch Folder to a Job and assign compression formats and bit rates, and Squeeze automatically encodes any media file dragged and dropped into that folder from anywhere on your system or from anyone on a network.

However, making Watch Folders part of a Job rather than having them exist more autonomously (as in ProCoder or Cleaner) isn't ideal. There's a big “Squeeze It” button at the bottom of the Batch window that starts and then can stop (“Stop It”) all Jobs in the Project, including all Watch Folders. Awkwardly, it stops, not pauses. This could potentially disrupt collaborators who might be using those Watch Folders, too. Worse, you can save Projects — for example, as a record of work done — but closing a Project and opening a new one ends processing on any Watch Folders in that Project. The workaround is to open multiple copies of Squeeze and have one for Watch Folders and one for more hands-on encoding.

A just-plain-silly omission to the Batch window is that you can save and open Projects, but you can't open a new Project unless you relaunch the application. Imagine processing a couple dozen Jobs then needing to manually delete each in order to clear the Batch window. The workaround here is to save an empty Project, but that's goofy and needs to be fixed.

Squeeze doesn't offer any view of source clip information (beyond duration in the Preview window) like format, resolution, original codec, frame rate, etc. That can be frustrating, especially if you're encoding files from collaborators or different departments. Squeeze's Detail pane would seem to be a perfect place for a Properties Inspector, but thus far it's really just a superfluous, stationary “balloon help” identifier of what's what in the interface (even though balloon help also exists). Details does offer exact cursor coordinates for cropping.

Filters have never been a strong suit of Squeeze, at least compared to those of Cleaner and ProCoder, and that really doesn't change much here. Currently, there are just four rudimentary presets: Darken, Lighten, Generic Web, and VHS to Web. Clicking on any opens the same Filter Dialog, albeit with different setting checked. You can create new presets, but the options are few. Contrast, brightness, and gamma are straightforward; white and black restore are helpful. Noise reduction options, however, are limited to “light” and “heavy,” and that's a far cry from what you'll find elsewhere. De-interlace, cropping, fade in/out, and a “Normalize Audio” checkbox are the only other options.

A More Comfortable Squeeze

While it's easy to pick at Squeeze's current shortcomings (another is the poor estimated time-to-encode, which was often off by more than 100 percent in my tests), most are relatively minor. What's more important is that the Squeeze Compression Suite now yields much more fluid access to some fine compression technology. Squeeze supports a wide range of industry codecs (see Table), including new HD encoding, and the program offers thorough settings options, including bit rate, frame rate, image size, hinted/non-hinted, keyframe insertion, advance profile options, packet sizes, etc. The interface smartly hides the more esoteric parameters behind an Advanced tab that expands the Compression Settings window to a full view for those who want it.

The real value-add comes from Sorenson's own MPEG-4 codec, including an AVC (H.264) version, and encoding for Flash. Support for both of those are also available separately without the full suite, as Squeeze for MPEG-4 ($199) and Squeeze for Flash MX ($99). Admittedly, Squeeze does not match ProCoder for speed. It was some 15 to 30 percent slower on a variety of test encodes using different codecs. The lack of filtering and noise-reduction options can hurt on some footage and some codecs if you care to get your hands dirty. But Sorenson's MPEG-4 is a high-quality codec and bests ProCoder in my tests, with fewer motion artifacts yet slightly lesser color.

Despite the growing pains, Squeeze 4 Compression Suite shows that Sorenson is finally taking the compression utility as seriously as it's taking compression technology. Indeed, Sorenson admits to working on an enterprise-level version of Squeeze that should expand Squeeze's applicability even further. Most important, Sorenson still delivers the goods when it comes to the actual task of encoding, and it's doing it in a much friendlier manner.

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BOTTOM LINE

Company: Sorenson
Salt Lake City; (801) 287-9400
www.sorenson.com

Product: Squeeze 4 Compression Suite

Assets: New, flexible interface; excellent MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) and Macromedia Flash codecs.

Caveats: “Stop It” command ends all jobs in a Project, including those in Watch Folders.

Demographic: Producers who trans-code regularly or output video to multiple formats, including upconverting to HD or compressing for the Web.
Price: $449

© 2008 Penton Media, Inc.