The Editblog

Apple has just released the first maintenance update to the new Final Cut Studio Three version 2009 (or whatever it’s called). Check your software update if you are between projects. Or you can sign in here and download.

I’m desperate for an update to Compressor that address crashing. I’m having a lot of crashes (both with Compressor batches and Droplets) when I try and load large batches. It seems if I get above 15 – 20 clips I get a crash or a beach ball. On more than one machine. I’ve tried restarts and Compressor Repair. Upon a look at the Force Quit dialog box both Compressor and/or Droplet will not be responding.

I posed this very question to Twitter and got mixed answers. Here was a luck user with 50 and 100 clips. And then 40 – 50. There were also smaller numbers like 35 or a dozen or so. How many clips can you get into a Compressor batch at a time?

By now I’m sure anyone who has ever had any issues with Apple’s Compressor has download Compressor Repair from Digital Rebellion. Of course you have. They have now posted a follow up blog post about how to reinstall Compressor and Qmaster. It’s a different method than what I outlined back in January where you had to use the program Pacifist to dig into the Final Cut Studio install disks. Jon at Digital Rebellion noted in his post that with Pacifist “it’s possible to seriously screw things up unless you know what you’re doing.” This is a true statement. Back when I was going through Compressor-breaking-hell I tried the method he recommends (I found it deep in an obscure Final Cut Pro forum) but it didn’t work. The Pacifist-method was the only one that worked short of a Mac OS reinstall from scratch. Oh the fun!

I just wanted to point to Jon’s install method as the first try before you attempt the more complex Pacifist method that I outlined. Try the more simple things first. And may you never have to completely reinstall your operating system ever again just to fix Compressor!