Standard media job properties in Compressor

Job summary

The top section of the Job inspector displays the source file’s name, location, video and audio encoding information, and duration.

If the source is a standard-dynamic-range video file, an SDR badge appears in the upper-right corner of the summary area; if the source is a high-dynamic-range video file, an HDR badge appears in the upper-right corner. For more information about HDR and SDR files, see Intro to wide color gamut and HDR in Compressor.

When the Stereoscopic pop-up menu in the Job inspector is set to anything other than Off/Monoscopic, a 3D badge appears next to the SDR or HDR badge.

Media Extensions

Displays any media extensions that are being used to decode media in the selected job. See Import third-party formats with media extensions in Compressor.

Timing

Provides the timecode for the Start point, In point, and duration of the output file. See Modify starting timecode in Compressor.

File Properties

The following properties are available in the File Properties area of the Job inspector:

• Language: Use the pop-up menu to set the default language for the selected job.

• Country: After you’ve set a language, use the pop-up menu to set the country for the selected job.

  Note: Language and country presets are used only for certain types of jobs.

Video Properties

When you add a source file, Compressor detects its video properties and displays them in this area. If you think the source video properties are incorrect, you can modify them here. However, in most cases you should not change these values.

The following properties are available in the Video Properties area of the Job inspector:

• Field order: If you think Compressor incorrectly interpreted the order of video fields in the source file, use this pop-up menu to choose a different field order. This property defines how Compressor interprets the field order of the source file; it does not convert the field order to another option upon output. To convert from one field order to another, use the “Field order” pop-up menu in the Video pane for a selected preset in a batch. There are three field order options:

  • Progressive: All lines are sampled at the same instant in time.

  • Top First: The field containing the top line (even lines) is sampled at an earlier instant in time than the field containing the bottom line (odd lines). Top-first field order is commonly used for high-definition video and standard-definition PAL video.

  • Bottom First: The field containing the bottom line (odd lines) is sampled at an earlier instant in time than the field containing the top line (even lines). Bottom-first field order is commonly used for standard-definition NTSC video.

• Color space: Use this pop-up menu to choose a color space to apply to the source clip in the job. This property defines how Compressor interprets the color data in the source clip; it doesn’t convert the clip you output to another color space. To convert from one color space to another upon output, use the “Color space” pop-up menu in the Video pane for each specific preset in the batch.

  Note: If the source file is tagged with a color space (such as Rec. 709), Compressor adds an asterisk (*) to the item in the pop-up menu. If the source file is untagged or tagged with an unrecognized color space, Compressor chooses the most likely color space and adds a dagger (†) to the item in the pop-up menu.

• Camera log: Use this pop-up menu to choose a log profile that corresponds with the source file. Compressor will try to pick the appropriate camera log based on metadata in the source file if possible, but you can manually override Compressor’s selection.

  Note: If the source file is in ProRes RAW format, this menu is set to No Value and disabled.

Projection Properties

You can set or override stereoscopic or projection properties of the source media.

• Stereoscopic: Specifies the format of the stereoscopic media. Choose an option:

  • Off (Monoscopic): The source media is not formatted for stereoscopic viewing.

  • Side by Side: The source media is a single frame-packed stereoscopic file in which left- and right-eye images are displayed side by side.

  • Over/Under: The source media is a single frame-packed stereoscopic file in which the left-eye layer is the top of the image and the right-eye layer is the bottom of the image.

  • Separate Files: The source media is a pair of separate files—one for the left eye, and one for the right eye.

    When Stereoscopic is set to Separate Files, Left and Right options appear (and the source media in the Job list is automatically assigned to the left eye). Click Choose to designate media for each eye.

    Note: Audio is pulled from the source media in the job list (the left-eye file). Audio in the file assigned to the right eye is ignored.

• Hero Eye: Choose whether the left or right eye should be used as the default eye when transcoding to a stereoscopic format.

• Spatial Metadata: Select this checkbox to set or override the spatial metadata included in the source file. When this checkbox is selected, three spatial metadata options appear:

  • Field of View: The horizontal field of view of the lenses used to capture the images.

  • Baseline: The horizontal distance between the two camera lenses used to capture the images (also known as the interaxial distance).

  • Horizontal Disparity: The amount of horizontal shift in left- and right-eye images to set the perceived depth of a 3D scene. When horizontal disparity is negative, content in the footage appears closer; when it’s positive, content seems farther away.

  Note: Adjusting these values changes the viewing experience on Apple Vision Pro in a way that may cause stereo discomfort.

• Projection: Select to indicate whether the source media is encoded for rectangular or 360° projection. When Projection is set to 360°, additional options for 360° metadata appear:

  • Source software: This field identifies the software tool used to add metadata to the source file. If the source file has no metadata and you use Compressor to add it, this field displays “Apple CompressorKit.”

  • Orientation: Displays the orientation in degrees of the source video’s view origin (the initial angle that viewers will see in a VR headset before they turn their heads). Tilt specifies vertical rotation around the X axis, Pan specifies horizontal rotation around the Y axis, and Roll specifies clockwise or counterclockwise rotation around the Z axis. Enter new coordinates to change the initial orientation.

  • Projection mode: Sets the type of spatial mapping used to store the 360° video. There are two options:

    • Equirectangular: The most common form of spatial mapping for 360° video, this mode squeezes and distorts the spherical data like a flat map of the spherical earth.

    • Cubic: A less common form of spatial mapping (used in the Spherical Video V2 metadata standard), this mode represents the spherical data as an unfolded cube with six faces.

  • Pixel bounds: When “Projection mode” is set to Equirectangular, this property becomes available, allowing you to modify the boundaries of the equirectangular frame. Enter values in the Left and Top fields to crop a specific number of pixels from the left edge and top edge of the image. Enter new values in the Width and Height fields to change the dimensions of the equirectangular frame.

  • Layout and Padding: When “Projection mode” is set to Cubic, these fields become available, allowing you to adjust the six faces of the unfolded cube. Most of the time, there’s no need to change these values. The integer value in the Layout field specifies the order of the six unfolded cube faces (the default value of 0 specifies the face order used in the Spherical Video V2 metadata standard: right, left, up, down, front, back). The value in the Padding field specifies the width (in pixels) of borders around the edges of each cube face.

    For information about working with 360° metadata, see View 360° video metadata using Compressor.

Job Annotations

The Job Annotations area of the Job inspector in Compressor contains the Fields pop-up menu, which lets you include annotation metadata in your output file. See Work with metadata annotations in Compressor.

HDR Metadata

If a high-dynamic-range source file has HDR metadata, the values are shown in the HDR Metadata area of the Job inspector. After you apply a transcode preset to the source file, Compressor passes this metadata to the export file. When a user plays the exported video on a TV or display that supports HDR, the device detects the metadata and automatically adjusts its color levels. You can modify those values in the following fields (if these fields are not visible, move the pointer to the right of the HDR Metadata heading in the Job inspector, then click Show):

• Include HDR metadata: To include HDR metadata in your output file, select this checkbox. (If Compressor detects HDR metadata in the source file, it automatically checks this box.)

• Primaries: Use this pop-up menu to select a standard preset color space, or choose Custom to set your own chromaticity coordinate values.

• Red, Green, Blue, White point: Displays chromaticity coordinates (an x value and a y value) for each of the three primary colors and for the white point of the targeted display (an HDR-capable device).

• White Point: Use this pop-up menu to select a standard preset white point, or choose Custom to set your own.

• Luminance: Displays the minimum and maximum luminance of the targeted display in nits (candelas per square meter).

• MaxCLL: Displays the value, in nits, of the brightest pixel in the video file (Maximum Content Light Level).

• MaxFALL: Displays the value, in nits, of the maximum average light level for any single frame in the video file (Maximum Frame Average Light Level).

For more information about working in HDR color space, see Change video color space in Compressor. (HDR transcoding in Compressor requires macOS 10.13 or later.)

Audio Properties

The Audio Properties area in the Job inspector lists each of the audio tracks in the source clip. Each track is displayed with an activation checkbox to include or exclude the audio track from the job.

• Descriptive Audio: Click Choose and select a file that contains descriptive audio tracks. The audio tracks from the file are extracted and listed in the “Audio tracks” field. Audio tracks with descriptive audio are indicated with . Descriptive audio tracks are embedded in QuickTime movies, Apple Devices, and MPEG-4 formats.

  For more information about descriptive audio tracks, see Add descriptive audio tracks in Compressor.

• Audio tracks: Use the pop-up menu for each audio track to define how Compressor interprets the individual audio channels in each track.

  The contents of the pop-up menu are dependent on the number of channels in the track. For example, if there are two channels, the pop-up menu includes two-channel options such as Stereo (L R), 2 Discrete Channels, Binaural, and so on. If there are six channels in the audio track, the pop-up menu includes six-channel options such as 5.1 (L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs), and so on.

Action

The following properties are available in the Action area of the Job inspector in Compressor:

• When done: Use this pop-up menu to assign an automated job action to be performed after transcoding. See Job action properties in Compressor.

• Save captions to disk: A checkbox available for transcode presets that support captions. Select the checkbox to save a separate captions text file to your computer when you transcode a job that has captions. See Export captions in Compressor.