When Compressor (part of FCP Studio) works, it works well. And when it doesn’t, it can be a really pain and waste of time trying to get things working again. For me it’s a true love/hate relationship.

Have you ever went to submit your batch compression only to find that you don’t have the option to submit it to anything?

When you try to click on the cluster as shown above, you don’t have the option to select the default “This Computer”, or anything else for that matter. If you just try to submit it anyway, you’ll get an error telling you to re-install Compressor. But don’t (at least not yet).

There is a simple Terminal command you can run that will, at least for the moment, fix the problem. Try the following.

My friend Mike told me this was possible, but I didn’t believe it until I tried it myself.

We all know that FCP Studio 2 has that fancy Multi-Format timeline, allowing you to mix and match various codecs, frame sizes and frame rates. But did you realize that you can drag and drop a video TS folder directly into the timeline and actually play the video?

You can also drag and drop it into the browser window, and although you will get an error saying that the files were not recognized, you’ll end up with a folder with all of the .vob files. From there you can load them into the viewer and edit with them. Even the DVD menu items are available.

I’ve always been a big fan of continuing education in whatever line of work you’re in. I think that especially applies to the media production industry. The pace that technology, formats, workflows, software and hardware are changing seems nearly impossible to keep up with at times. And it’s my feeling that if you’re not continuing to improve yourself and your skills, you’re not even as good as you were. You’re falling behind.

But enough preaching.