Since moving to MC6 we have had a slew of errors occuring when attempting exports directly out of Avid (segmentation faults, etc). That said, we have decided to implement Squeeze as our main encoder of timelines, etc.

The problem I'm having is that Squeeze is taking OVER THREE TIMES AS LONG to do basic H264 and x264 encodes. I had assumed Squeeze would at least be on par with encode times out of Avid. (we're in a Unity enviroment sending Ref QT's to Squeeze)

The basic settings for our Quicktimes (H264 and x264) are:

864x486

2400 kbits/sec

One pass encoding

Keyframes every 24 frames

AAC stereo audio

Any thoughts on to get H264/x264's out of SQUEEZE the fastest?

-Andrew

Squeeze 8.0 and earlier aren't all that fast.  If all you want is a 1-pass H264, then straight out of Avid is faster.  

If you have Squeeze 8.5 it has gained a lot of speed.  However... since squeeze never handles timecode display correct he often just do it from inside MC.  

Squeeze 8.5 on a mac is much faster than the Avid, as you can set preferences to use all the cores. I have not suffered the Bitc problem that others have reported.

Thanks for the info, tfg. Downloading the 8.5 trial now. Will update after testing.

Just to explain the timecode problem better:

TV shows usually start with a slate.  For example, my exports always start at timecode 09:59:50:00, and run a slate for 10 seconds, so that the show starts at 01:00:00:00.  

If I export a quicktime movie from Avid (reference file, or self contained, make no difference) this timecode metadata exists in the file.  Compression programs such as Adobe Media Encoder and Apple Compressor read this TC information.  In compressor you can apply a burn-in timecode effect which will use the metadata.  My timecode display will start at 09:59:50:00.  

In squeeze, however, none of this timecode metadata is utilized.  If I use the timecode burn-in effect, the numbers will always start at 00:00:00:00.  Frustratingly, it doesn't let you manually change the start-time.  This has been widely discussed on the Sorenson forums.  Official staff have responded and seem genuinely interested in fixing the situation, but nothing has been done about it in several years.  

On the same note, if you use Squeeze to encode into DnxHD MXF files (a hugely touted new feature) - all your files will have timecode that starts at 00:00:00:00 -- hardly useful, if not dangerously descructive for the uninformed assistant editor.  

Sorry tfg, I misunderstood the timecode problem.

I use the Avid Generator for a burn-in.