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Every year I review streaming encoding programs for StreamingMedia.com. This year’s issue is up, here’s the lead.
The ideal streaming encoding tool should provide great quality, blazing performance, a discrete set of critical encoding parameters, and a range of other time-saving automation and input/output options. We all know the names—Adobe Media Encoder, Compressor, Squeeze, Episode (in its many flavors), and Expression Encoder—so how do they stack up against this ideal? Glad you asked, because that’s what we’re going to explore.
Specifically, I’ll analyze desktop programs that cost less than $1,000 or so, leaving higher-end enterprise tools such as Rhozet Carbon Coder and Telestream Episode Engine for another day. I’ll take a codec-by-codec look at each encoding tool (H.264, VP6, and WMV), focusing on quality and performance, and I’ll present the results separately for both Mac and Windows computers.
Since these tools offer a variety of automation and I/O features, I’ll present these as well, but in a single group because three of the programs—Adobe Media Encoder, Sorenson Squeeze, and Telestream Episode Pro—are available on both Mac and Windows platforms with an identical feature set.
If you’re looking to buy a streaming media encoder, or wondering how your current tool stacks up, click here to view the story.
