Compressor 2 vs Compressor 4: Render Farm

Is there a big difference in performance? Is it worth the $50 upgrade? Is there still QMaster in it?

The reviews on the Apple store for Compressor 4 are really bad... I wonder if these are just newbies using Compressor for the 1st time... now that a Compressor can be bought separately apart from the Final Cut Studio suite.

Re: Compressor 2 vs Compressor 4

Just an update:

I can't get Compressor 2 to setup more than (1) compressor job, but it recognizes all (8) render jobs just fine in my hack. So this was slowing me down.

So I bought Compressor 4 and got it setup for 8 render and 8 compressor jobs. Yay!

Took some reading and experimentation to get a 2nd computer recognized as a node, got a cluster successfully created. I had problems with directory permissions since an earlier Adobe AIR install somehow messed up permissions in /Users/Shared/Application Support and I'm getting all sorts of Compressor mkdir permissions error.

So now I got 2 computers in my cluster, but Compressor jobs I submit only goes to the local computer in the cluster (with 8 threads)... but none farmed out to the remote machine.... I think this may have something to do with network directories? i.e. the 2nd computer needs access to the same directory?

I'm new to all this so anybody with experience in clusters, feel free to chime in... my 2nd computer is recognized in Qadministrator, but jobs sent to the cluster are only going to the local machine and the other remote computer remains idle. any clues why?

Thanks.

Re: Compressor 2 vs Compressor 4

LOL!.... looks like I'm talking to myself. Hopefully, this may help someone.

Found the problem on the remote computer... again, directory permissions related caused by an Adobe AIR installation. Deleted the subdirectory and let Compressor create the root Application Support subdirectory. FIXED!

Also this is important, the other nodes must have access to the same directory you use for the cluster. I tried a Windows network drive and Compressor didn't like it. For now, I just set up File Sharing and designated a subdirectory on the host Desktop as the cluster storage.

and what a beautiful sight!!!!!
Twelve (12) threads of compression going on, on a total of 2 computers (8 + 4 threads).
renderadmin.jpg
renderfarm.png

Awesome, thanks for the guide. I'll likely be setting up something similar to this at work in the next little while.

Are both your machines running 10.6 or 10.7? Have you seen Compressor 4 work if one machine has 10.6 and the other 10.7?

Both my machines are running 10.7

Have you seen or heard if Compressor will work with a machine running 10.6 and another running 10.7?
Thanks for your time.