… for Codecs & Media

Tip #964: Apple Updates Compressor

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Better LUT support is the key feature in this release.

Last week, Apple continued the evolutionary growth of Compressor – to version 4.4.7 – along with updates for Motion and Compressor. While none of these features are revolutionary, all are useful and include:

• Camera Log Conversion. You can now convert from log to SDR or HDR color spaces by apply custom camera LUTs, or using built-in LUTs for Panasonic, Sony, Canon, Blackmagic, Nikon or ARRI log formats.
• Custom LUT effects. These allow applying third-party creative LUTs to clips for adding a custom look during compression. Compressor supports LUTs in .cube, .mga, and med file formats.

Both of these new features are especially helpful for on-set DIT work, converting camera masters into something more visually pleasing for initial review and rough editing.

NOTE: LUTs applied to media being transcoded are permanently attached to the media.

Compressor 4.4.7 also includes:

• Improved speed and reliability using distributed processing over SMB.
• Create ProRes IMF Packages including support for multiple languages.
• Support for playback of PNG movie files.
• Fixes an issue in which droplets would not recognize .m4v files.
• Fixes an issue where a DV codec with a 709 Color Profile fails to transcode.
• Fixes an issue in which image sequences may export with the incorrect color bit depth.
• Fixes an issue where a system could run out of memory when the Active tab is open while processing a batch on a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

These free updates are accessed through the Mac App Store.

EXTRA CREDIT

Here’s a link to learn more.