terran interactive Media Cleaner Pro 4.0 - Software Review - Evaluation

terran Interactive introduced Media Cleaner Pro (nee Movie Cleaner) some four years ago without much fanfare or a splashy ad campaign. Moreover, it was a tool that, on the surface, did a job that could already be done from within a video editor like Adobe's Premiere. Yet today, Media Cleaner has become a staple of any serious digital media production studio. It got there by doing a specific function, compressing video for digital distribution, very well.

Originally a multimedia production company itself, Terran Interactive first developed Media Cleaner as an internal tool to improve their own workflow, automating repeated operations, and creating tools to increase image quality. Not surprisingly, since they were solving the same daily hassles faced by other content developers, business acquaintances quickly became interested in their tools--so much so that Terran switched their business.

Initially a Macintosh-only product, Media Cleaner Pro 4.0 ($499) is the first version available for Windows, supporting 95/98 and NT. With the exceptions of its use of Windows conventions and a few first-version bugs, Cleaner 4.0 doesn't lose much in the translation from the Mac. There are a few minor interface annoyances, but if you regularly compress video for digital distribution, Media Cleaner offers two distinct advantages that make it well worth the price of admission: better quality and greater efficiency.

so what does cleaner clean?

Media Cleaner is not a video editor; in fact, Terran has planned, but thus far avoided, adding a potentially valuable timeline interface lest it confuse the market. Nor is it a tool for "creating" content. Rather, Media Cleaner advances the unglamorous art of compressing digital media files for low and mid-level data rate distribution, like CD-ROM and the Web.

Media Cleaner's primary benefit is increased image quality. Squeezing full-motion video down to less than one percent of its original data rate is often accomplished by brute force. But Media Cleaner offers a collection of noise reduction and blur filters, as well as other tools, that assist in making the most out of the limited bits available.

For example, since noise is the most difficult aspect of video to compress, noise filters eliminate random pixels typical of signal noise, thus saving more data bits for the actual picture. Blurring filters, similarly, massage hard-to-compress sharp edges, removing the inevitable artifacts of sharp lines. While softening an image may sound counter-intuitive, the overall effect once the image is heavily compressed is usually a great improvement. Premiere also has Gaussian Blur and Median filters in its export module, but Media Cleaner usually does a better and faster job on a greater range of material. This is particularly noticeable when working with more difficult or busy scene content with fine lines or text.

Cropping video allows you to remove unwanted noisy or black edges that would otherwise just eat bits. Terran provides a wonderful click-and-drag selector for cropping, though you can also do it by numbers or pixel ratios. Other built-in image enhancement tools include de-interlace, field dominance adjustment, unsharp mask, static mask, and scaling. You can even add a watermark.

what does cleaner speed?

Media Cleaner's second main benefit to busy content producers is its automation of regularly used techniques. Most importantly, Media Cleaner's main work area is built around batch processing of several clips. You can compress several clips in a batch or the same clip several different ways to test settings. Equally valuable when deadlines are looming, during processing, Media Cleaner shows a preview window with a helpful Before/After slider bar. With the "Before" on the left and "After" on the right, you can see what effect your compression parameters are having on the video. Not only is this a terrific teaching tool, it's a time-saver if you see a problem and need to abort compression.

Without the overhead of an entire video editing application, Media Cleaner can be up to 35-40 percent faster than exporting from an editing interface. That advantage may be negated if you first must export your clips from an editor as uncompressed video or using a capture card's hardware codec, then open them in Media Cleaner. To avoid this, Terran has built a plug-in for Premiere that allows you to export an unrendered project directly to Media Cleaner. Media 100 users can similarly quickly export "By Reference" (a list of file pointer rather than a render), though Avid users will need a soon-to-be-available $199 OMF export module to avoid a QuickTime export.

Terran also automates the nitty-gritty task of fade up/down from black, white, gray, or some other color at the beginning and end of clips. You can even trim clips (create new in and out points). While both functions can certainly be done within an editing application, if you're trying to create a consistent look for a collection of clips for a single Web site, it can be a real time-saver.

Media Cleaner now includes a handful of formally separate utilities, like lossless conversations between QuickTime and AVI files and flattening QuickTime movies for cross-platform playback. Media Cleaner supports RealVideo options, like PerfectPlay and SureStream, and the ASX files of Windows Media, as well as QuickTime's Movie Alternates.

codec central

Terran uses Apple's QuickTime media architecture as the foundation for Media Cleaner. (The long wait for a Windows version was heavily tied to full Windows support in QuickTime.) Therefore, any codec or file format supported by QuickTime is available in Cleaner, including Sorenson's Video Codec, Indeo 3.2, DV, QDesign's audio codec, and several others. Since QuickTime can open AVI files, importing Windows media assets is not a problem.

Media Cleaner can also create ASF files using its native codecs, MPEG-4 and MP3 audio, though you'll need the Windows Media Player to view the results. Similarly, Media Cleaner supports RealNetworks' streaming media codecs and can output RealVideo and RealAudio files, but requires Real's player in order to play your output.

Through a bundle with Heuris, Inc., Media Cleaner can now output MPEG-1 streams. If you upgrade to Heuris' MPEG Power Professional, (http://www.heuris.com), you'll also gain MPEG-2 output capabilities.

In addition to simply supporting industry codecs, Terran has made it a priority to provide educational information on the various codecs. In a separate Web site from their own homepage (http://www.terran.com), Terran's codec-specific site (http://www.codeccentral.com) shows examples of video clips compressed in different codecs and with different settings. The site also provides written information about compression options. Media Cleaner's very thorough and clearly written manual also gives users definitions and explanations of many of the issues faced in creating low data and streaming media content.

the process

Media Cleaner's main application interface is little more than a blank slate--the Process Window--into which you drag (or right mouse--"Add to Batch" or use the File menu) any number of clips (1-2000) to be processed. Each group of clips can be saved as a separate project or "Batch," though unfortunately, you cannot have more than one Batch open at a time. Nor can you open multiple versions of the application.

Clips in the Process Window are shown in either icon or list view, each with clips name, settings if assigned, and processing status. You can alphanumerically sort a batch by any of those or by a manually set priority code. Single-clicking on a column header sorts, while double-clicking reverses the order. Unfortunately, the potentially valuable priority sort had a bug and did not function properly: particularly annoying because once you've dropped files into the Process Window, you can't reorder them via simple drag and drop.

While a batch can have just one clip, there is, awkwardly, no way to highlight and process one clip of a group if your batch has multiple clips. You can manually suspend and resume compression at any time, so perhaps Media Cleaner is doing you a favor by continuing to process until you're ready to take some manual action. However, you can't begin compressing a batch until you've assigned settings for all clips in the batch.

Media Cleaner's interface provides a solution for both digital media experts and compression neophytes. A Settings Wizard leads novice users though a series of checkboxes about target playback (is the media intended for CD-ROM? the Web? streaming media? etc.) and about the source content (How important is audio compared to video? Is smooth motion more important than highest image quality?) Careful explanations accompany each series of questions and options. When you're finished, Media Cleaner does the rest.

An Advanced Settings mode, on the other hand, will satisfy experienced compressionists with thorough controls of data rate, scaling, cropping, frame rate, color adjustment, black levels, white levels, saturation, noise reduction filters, blurs, audio levels, codecs (of course), and more. If you've used the Settings Wizard, you can always enter the Advanced Settings mode to view Wizard settings, amending them as necessary or just to learn. Either mode allows you to name and save settings for future use with other clips. Media Cleaner also provides several templates already programmed for a wide variety of output scenarios.

Once you've applied settings to each of the clips in a batch, you'll simply hit the start button and Media Cleaner takes over. Regrettably, you're only prompted for a destination folder and have no way to name output files. Media Cleaner arbitrarily uses the source filename without adding a suffix for compression settings. That's not so bad if you're compressing different files, but it's more trying if you're trying to evaluate different settings on the same clip. All files in a batch go to the same target folder.

Whenever Media Cleaner starts compressing a file, it opens the Before/After preview window, which depending on codec settings, also offers wonderfully detailed information about video and audio output data rates, including a graph showing rate changes over time. Oddly, a source window also opens and closing it suspends compression. On occasion, closing it actually caused an error, and once, posted the error in the status column though not in the dialog box that opens at the end of processing: "finished at 6:38:24pm--no errors."

output

A little first-version bugginess and interface oddities shouldn't be enough to keep you away from what has become a clear industry standard for video compressionists: and a standard to which Windows-based content creators finally have access. While $500 may seems like a lot to pay for something you get free from an editing system's export module, think again. You can certainly get away with not having Media Cleaner and output digital media files, but Media Cleaner is a tool that will make your work look better and will make you more efficient. If you're serious about your work, it's a tool worth having.

terran interactive Media Cleaner Pro 4.0

synopsis: Terran Interative's Media Cleaner Pro has become a staple of any serious digital media production studio by doing a specific function: compressing video for digital distribution, very well. Initially a Mac only product, Media Cleaner pro 4.0 ($499) is the first version available for Windows, supporting 95/98 and NT. With the exceptions of its use of Windows conventions and a few first-version bugs, little is lost in the translation from the Mac. If you regularly compress video for digital distribution, Media Cleaner offers two distinct advantages that make it well worth the price of admission: better quality and greater efficiency.

price $499

for more information, contact:

Terran Interactive Inc., 15951 Los Gatos Boulevard, Suite 6 Los Gatos, CA 95032; 800/577-3443; Fax 408/356-9373; http://www.terran.com INFOLINK #434

Jeff Sauer (jeff@dtvgroup.com) is the Director of the DTVGroup, a research and test lab that regularly reviews tools and technology. He is an industry consultant, an independent producer, and a Contributing Editor to NewMedia Magazine, Video Systems Magazine, Presentations Magazine, and AV Avenue.

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