Flash视频压缩选项

几周前, 在阿姆斯特丹的IBC展会上, Adobe发布Flash媒体编码服务器(FMES). The product holds potential as an enterprise-level tool, and Adobe notes that encoding is central to content workflows for delivery to the web, 桌面或移动设备.

在发布前的电话会议中, a group of us heard the presentation on Flash Media Encoding Server, which has an interface much different from Adobe's desktop programs and bore enough of a resemblance to Rhozet's Carbon Coder line that it prompted a question, 答案是肯定的, Adobe是否与Rhozet合作.

The product was—and is—interesting, and is designed to handle large workflows. Past experience with similar products that moved from the desktop to the server, such as Terran's Media Cleaner Pro (which ultimately found its way into a server version and the basis for the Anystream server-based products) brought back the memory of a conversation around $6,000 versus $600 tools that thwarted Terran's attempts to move into server-side encoding tools in a big way.

The question of price versus functionality was especially timely, given the fact that we had also been playing with the Creative Suite 4 package for several weeks, which was rolled out today in a series of webcasts delivered by iStreamPlanet. CS4套件现在有一个独立的编码器, Adobe媒体编码器 (AME) that has several functions that move it closer to a true point product, even though it can only be purchased as one of the suite bundles.

Adobe confirmed during the call that the pricing for FMES would run around $6,000 and spent some time in a follow up email differentiating between what it sees as the primary difference between a budding desktop application and its encoding server.

"Flash Media Encoding Server is an enterprise solution whereas Adobe媒体编码器 is a desktop tool,Adobe的一位代表指出. "Flash Media Encoding Server is designed to be integrated into broader workflows, 它包括用于集成的api, 连接到web服务, 电子邮件通知, 等."

网格编码
One example of a standout feature that FMES has that AME does not is support for grid transcoding, which Adobe noted "brings in additional agents to enable additional scalability as your encoding needs grow." It's true that AME doesn't have grid encoding; but given the number of Production Premium CS4 Suites that a mid-size production house would need to buy anyway, the number of machines that can be leveraged to support AME encodes would be simply a matter of setting up particular types of encodes on specific machines on which AME is loaded, and then using the watch folder feature that's part of AME CS4 to create a pseudo-distributed encoding model. 最重要的是, After Effects也有网格计算的形式, which could be leveraged for particular automated transcoding scenarios. 批处理编码
AME已获得批处理编码, which one blog today called "a set and forget (likely overnight) background task to batch render jobs."

Previous desktop tools—including $600-range products like Sorenson Squeeze and the older Media Cleaner Pro product—complemented batch encoding and watch folders by allowing FTP uploads on completion, but Adobe has chosen to forego this option in the AME desktop application.

"Another feature of Flash Media Encoding Server is the ability to remotely retrieve and deliver files to remote file shares or FTP sites,Adobe的一位代表在邮件交流中指出, 说明FTP上传不是AME的一部分.

预处理
FMES包括许多预处理滤波器. Adobe媒体编码器, 相比之下, doesn’t include these directly within the encoding tool, as these types of functions are intended to be completed as part of the editing workflow within Premiere Pro or After Effects.

This is a potential showstopper to keep AME from being used as a wholesale replacement for FMES, but for those who move from an editing or compositing product to direct batch encoding, 这可能不是一个关键问题, and the availability of these pre-processing filters in FMES provides a compelling reason to upgrade for those who do a sizable number of transcodes that don't need editing or compositing manipulation.

VP6编码.
The VP6 implementations, which were mentioned in the recent article about VP8's announcement, are also another set of differentiators—but not by much.

"Flash Media Encoding Server only enables VP6-E (the original VP6 codec) out of the box,Adobe的代表指出. “该产品支持On2所说的‘流媒体’。, and On2 does not yet support VP6-S in their Flix Exporter, so the use of the Flix Exporter will not enable the VP6-S option.

在AME方面, VP6-S (or any of the VP6-E enhancements announced in May will probably not be available in the Q4 release of AME.

H.264编码
AME和FMES现在支持H.264 encoding, and FMES includes Windows Media and a few other tools.

Stefan Richter of FlashComGuru sums up the benefits of AME quite nicely.

“AME当然是一个进步，使它非常接近, 如果不能达到同等水平, 具有专用的专业编码工具,里希特在他的博客中写道. "but it this way, Adobe媒体编码器 will suffice most standard encoding tasks for web based video. 好一个."