4.5

57Compressor User Guide
• Best (Motion Compensated): Uses optical flow to interpolate using areas of
movement between neighboring frames to produce high-quality output.
• Reverse Telecine: Removes the extra fields added during the telecine process to
convert the film’s 24 fps to NTSC’s 29.97 fps. Choosing this item disables all the
other Quality controls. See Use reverse telecine in Compressor.
• Adaptive details: Select this checkbox to use advanced image analysis to distinguish
between noise and edge areas during output.
• Anti-aliasing level: Sets the softness level in the output image. Double-click the value
and then manually enter a new value or drag the slider to the right to increase softness.
This property improves the quality of conversions when you’re scaling media up. For
example, when transcoding SD video to HD, anti-aliasing smooths jagged edges that
might appear in the image.
• Details level: Sets the amount of detail in the output image. Double-click the value and
then manually enter a new value or drag the slider to set the value. This sharpening
control lets you add detail back to an image being enlarged. Unlike other sharpening
operations, the “Details level” property distinguishes between noise and feature details,
and generally doesn’t increase unwanted grain. Increasing this value may introduce
jagged edges, however, which can be eliminated by increasing the “Anti-aliasing
level” slider.
• Dithering: When selected, adds a certain type of noise to images to prevent large-scale
distracting patterns such as color banding. If your image has excessive noise after
rendering, deselect this checkbox.
Video effects
For a list of available video effects in Compressor, and instructions on how to add a video
effect to a setting, see Add and remove effects in Compressor.
MPEG-4 settings in Compressor
In Compressor, the Prepare for HTTP Live Streaming destination and the AAC setting
(for audio output) use the MPEG-4 transcoding format. The MPEG-4 format is widely
compatible with many different platforms and is often used for distribution on the Internet.
You can also use this format to create files for audio podcasting and digital music playback.
(To learn more about HTTP Live Streaming, see HTTP Live Streaming and other related
documents, available in Apple Developer Documentation.)
Settings based on the MPEG-4 format offer a choice of two encoders: H.264 and HEVC
(High-Efficiency Video Coding, also known as H.265). When you add an MPEG-4-based
setting to a job, Compressor chooses the H.264 format as the default codec. You can
change the codec to HEVC in the Video inspector if your computer is running macOS 10.13
or later. HEVC is a recently established compression standard that supports larger frame
sizes (including 8K) and HDR10 metadata for high-dynamic-range video. HEVC playback
requires a recent-generation Apple device running macOS 10.13 or later, iOS 11 or later,
iPadOS 13 or later, or tvOS 11 or later.
Note: You can also create custom settings that use the MPEG-4 transcoding format.
However, the built-in settings (in the Settings pane) analyze your source media and assign
optimal properties to ensure the best possible transcoding results.
The properties of built-in and custom settings that use this transcoding format are located
in the General, Video, and Audio inspectors (described below).