Home
Subscribe
KSDD.com
Autodesk Cleaner 6.5
Video and audio batch compression suite for Mac OS X
Talk about a product that's made the rounds—Cleaner began life as Media Cleaner Pro at Terran Interactive, a company that was acquired by Media 100, who then sold Cleaner to Discreet, which was rebranded under the Autodesk moniker, and then...well, that's it. We're at the present day, and Autodesk Cleaner 6.5 is the latest version of the well-traveled, Mac-only compression program (Windows users have Cleaner XL, which is, like, 33.5 versions ahead). What it does, what's new, and if it's worth your time are all questions to ponder as we take a closer look.
What it does
Taking the last sentence of the introduction literally, let's delve a bit into what's what in Cleaner from a general standpoint. First, an exciting table! Out of the box, Cleaner supports the following formats:
| Read | Write | |
|---|---|---|
| Video |
|
|
| Audio |
|
|
Basically, whether you're targeting Web users with 28.8 modems, dealing with clips that need native Flash playback, or are prepping video for DVD delivery, you should be covered. Streaming, non-streaming, offline, online, high quality or low, it's a pretty impressive list, but is by no means a static one. Most of those formats are handled by QuickTime, while others (Flash MX and Real 10) hook into QuickTime as components (the former being locked out from other QuickTime-aware programs). It seems that Kinoma, DivX export, and Windows Media export are bundled into Cleaner, so they're not available to other QuickTime-aware resources. But in general, you're certainly not limited to what ships with Cleaner; indeed, if you have specialized codecs they'll likely play very happily with Cleaner. Where am I going with this? My approach to Cleaner as a product has historically (if you can call 1998 historic) been that Cleaner's strength, and hence the reason to buy it or not, lies not in the codecs it does or doesn't include (or provides access to), but in the fact that it's a powerful and extensible framework to enable batch preprocessing and compression of all manner of media files. Therefore, despite how it may be billed, Cleaner is, more than anything else, a "workflow engine" for video and audio compression. Codecs may come and go, but if you can use a single program as a gateway to those codecs, and that program offers excellent processing, automation, and high-quality output, then you'll be in darned good shape as a media producer. Enough context—let's take a not-so-brief tour so you can see what I'm talking about.
Cleaner's interface is simple and powerful, and has remained virtually untouched at least since I've been using it (version 3). While a couple of notable features have entered into play over the years (like the Watch folder), Cleaner does its thing almost exclusively through three windows: the Batch window, the Project window, and the Settings panel (fig. 1).
Figure 1
The Batch window is aptly named, as it's where you create and set up batches for processing. Drag clips into the batch, apply one or more settings, set the priority for processing (if you want), and press the play button. That's about a simple as it gets. Of course, there's more—in conjunction with the two other main windows, you have an enormous amount of control over how and when clips are processed. By selecting and right-clicking on a clip (or multiple clips), you can quickly apply a setting, change the priority (specifying when a clip gets processed in the Batch), or target a custom destination for files (fig. 2).
Figure 2
By clicking on the Batch window headings, you can sort Batches on the fly to change the processing order even after a Batch has started processing. Finally, you can save create and save new Batches to quickly recall often-used sets of clips.
Let's look at a quick example of how easy the Batch window makes it to wrangle your media. Let's say you have a clip (which is good, since you'll be using Cleaner and all), and this clip needs to be turned into a series of progressive download QuickTime movies for slow, medium and fast Internet connections. Here's the process:
- Drag your clip into the Batch window.
- Open the Settings window (which we'll discuss in greater detail in a moment).
- Twirl down the QuickTime settings folder, and then twirl down the NTSC settings subfolder.
- Control-click on the SV3NTSC small download, SV3NTSC medium download, and SV3NTSC large download to select them all.
- Click Apply (Cleaner duplicates the clip two additional times in the Batch window and applies the selected settings).
- Select all the clips in the Batch window, then select Batch: Group QuickTime Alternates.
- Hit the Play button.
That's it. Cleaner will not only process your files, but also create the container QuickTime movie and all the dependent files, plus a helpful Read Me file telling you what to do (fig. 3). So a potentially hairy process like creating QuickTime alternates is distilled down to a pretty painless process. Of course, it's just as easy to select the Big Three (QuickTime, Real, and Windows Media) in the Settings window, and kill three birds with one stone all through dragging a single clip into the Batch window.
Figure 3
Now, if you double-click on a clip in the Batch window, up pops the Project window, which represents the next stop of our tour around Cleaner's interface. Think of the Project window as a preview window all hopped up on goofballs—you can see display and data rate information for your source clips (fig. 4), set and adjust the settings, add modifications to a setting (for those clips in a Batch which need slight tweaks that the others don't), and add EventStream markers.
Figure 4
EventStream is Cleaner's way of adding interactive elements into your final movies. With EventStream, you can (for example) create chapters in your QuickTime movies, embed hotspots into your RealMedia, display text in your Windows Media files, and more (fig. 5). Cleaner helpfully lets you know which types of events are supported in the various media types, so you won't put a QuickTime-only event into, say, a RealMedia Clip.
Figure 5
Tying this all back to the Batch window, once you tweak a clip with the Project window, any changes you have made while messing around in the Project window show up as small markers underneath the clip's name (fig. 6).
Figure 6
Now, at this point, you may be asking what these confounded "Settings" are that I keep talking about. Cue the Settings window (fig. 7).
Figure 7
For my money, the Settings window is where a lot of Cleaner's value resides, and for a couple of different reasons. For one, hundreds of presets are included that cover every type of media that Cleaner has access to, so those who don't have the time, energy, or inclination to make settings from scratch hardly have to lift a finger to prepare clips for just about any target under the sun. You've got presets for making DVD-ready clips, creating clips from still images (or vice-versa), processing audio files to MP3, and even a setting for making iPod-ready videos. The list goes on and on, and everything's ready-made for you. However, if you are inclined to roll your own, you can duplicate an existing preset as a jumping-off point or start from nothing. For example, Cleaner pretty much gives you unfettered access to a large portion of the QuickTime spec, so you can start from scratch and create your own setting that applies the runtime Blur filter to an exported QuickTime clip (fig. 8). Also, settings are stored in Cleaner's application folder as simple XML files, so you can even generate settings files via some other program or even AppleScript if you're really hardcore like that.
Figure 8
The preprocessing options represent the second big-money part of Cleaner's Settings window. This is where Cleaner truly lives up to its name—if you have a nasty piece of footage, chances are that you'll be able to clean it up to some extent with the myriad settings for both audio and video. Have a piece of film that was digitized at 24 fps that you need to convert for DVD? Hit the telecine box, make the framerate 29.97 fps, and Cleaner will automatically apply 3:2 pulldown. Footage too dark? Adjust the gamma or fiddle with the brightness and contrast. Low rumble ruining your audio tracks? Apply the High Pass filter to cancel it out. Got grain? Use the adaptive noise reduction to clean some of it up. Want to apply a watermark to all your clips? Done. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Preprocessing is huge in Cleaner, and represents a lot of what you pay for.
We've discussed the major windows that make up Cleaner's simple interface, but there are three other items of note. The first is the Dynamic Preview window (fig. 9). Once you've applied a setting to a clip in the Batch window, you can invoke the Dynamic Preview, which gives you a nifty slider (or A/B toggle, if you prefer) showing the results of both preprocessing and encoding on the selected clip.
Figure 9
The second item that's worth mentioning is the Output window, and it only comes into play once you start processing a Batch (fig. 10). It shows you all manner of real-time information, from a chart of the data rate to how long each part of the encoding process has taken. Now, it seems to be wildly off in how it times itself, so be warned there, but the Output window is an excellent way to see how your clips are shaping up as they encode.
Figure 10
Finally, let's talk about Cleaner's Watch folders. Introduced in Cleaner 6, Watch folders are insanely easy to implement. Simply pull down the Batch menu, choose Add Watch Folder, pick a folder on your hard drive to be monitored, apply a setting to the folder, and hit the play button (fig. 11). Cleaner then watches the folder (which I imagine it would, what with the feature called Watch folders and all) for new clips and processes whatever it finds. And just so you don't go moving clips around or clips don't get processed twice, Cleaner automatically creates "in use" and "completed" subfolders on your system, into which it moves clips during and after processing (fig. 12).
Figure 11
Figure 12
So that's Cleaner in a nutshell. It's all good so far, but let's see if version 6.5's new features make things better or worse.
What's new
Two words: not much. Heck, there wasn't much added to Cleaner 6, save for the recently-mentioned Watch folders and some purported speed optimizations. In fact, Cleaner 6.5 is largely unchanged since Cleaner 5, which came out more than half a decade ago. As for this version, Cleaner 6.5's list of improvements reads as follows: DivX support, and Flash MX FLV/SWF support. Of course, Autodesk tries to beef up the list by touting Tiger support (I was running Cleaner 5 on Tiger since Tiger came out), Real 10 support (I had Cleaner 5 exporting Real 10 files since the free QuickTime export component was released), iPod export (which is a setting, and an admittedly helpful one, that accesses the H.264 export components in QuickTime 7), and a couple of other rather vague improvements like "updates to the Kinoma producer." It's worth remembering that since much of Cleaner's format support hooks into what's already available on your system, any one of these "new" features were already available to previous versions of Cleaner. Heck, I used Cleaner 5 last fall to export a slew of Flash 8-ready FLV files (Cleaner was happy to process files with the Flash 8 Video components for QuickTime), while the included FLV/SWF options in Cleaner 6.5 only produce Flash Video with the older Spark codec for Flash MX. So I'm not terribly impressed with the so-called new features, and Autodesk should be embarrassed in asking $125 for an upgrade from Cleaner 6. The $175 price for an upgrade from Cleaner 4 or 5 is at least justified by a couple of resident features that Cleaner 4 and 5 just don't have, so despite the extra $50, that at least seems like you're getting some value for your money. However, that's just me. If Cleaner is valuable to you because it's a one-stop-shop, including ready-to-use settings and adding some extra codecs so you don't have to fool with that stuff yourself, you may feel like the upgrade price is more than worth it, even from Cleaner 6.
What's not so good
There's no denying that Cleaner has a rich history, and that it's still incredibly useful for producing just about any type of audio or video for a wide variety of target platforms. But that doesn't mean that it's free of problems. There are some glaring issues and obvious omissions, which is sort of puzzling for a product as time-tested and mature as Cleaner is.
First and foremost: why is there still no direct capture from a DV source in Cleaner? Sure, we're on Macs here, and chances are that most users at least have access to iMovie or something, but to truly be a complete, end-to-end suite, there should be a DV capture feature.
Second, why no Flash 8? The Flash MX FLV/SWF export feature is nice and all (it's the Wildform Flix exporter), but it would have been great if Autodesk licensed the latest version of the Flix exporter so clips could be produced using the new On2 VP6 codec for Flash 8 playback. It's still possible to compress to VP6 using Cleaner, as I mentioned earlier, but you either have to own Flash 8 (an expensive proposition just for the codec) or buy the latest Flix Exporter product yourself, which is $149 all by its lonesome.
And while we're on the subject of codecs, we're still stuck on Windows Media 7 in Cleaner. I know Windows Media and the Mac go together like pickles and ice cream (unless you're pregnant, that is), but the Flip4Mac WMV products have figured out Windows Media 9, so why weren't those tools licensed? Give me Flash 8 and Windows Media 9 and I'd be screaming from the rooftops how great Cleaner still is instead of getting a sinking feeling that Cleaner is falling behind the times.
Speaking of falling behind, it's inexcusable that Cleaner still doesn't properly demux MPEG files. Despite many flavors of MPEG being listed as formats Cleaner will read, it won't process the entire clip—you'll be left with a video clip without any audio if you use MPEG clips as source files. Even worse, Cleaner won't deal with VOB files from DVDs at all. Clients increasingly are sending me source files on DVD, which I have to run through a program like MPEG Streamclip to get into usable shape to bring into Cleaner, which more or less defeats the purpose. This is an area where it wouldn't be too hard to add some vital functionality for today's production processes, and I can't figure out for the life of me why MPEG and VOB support isn't better than it is.
Another problem is that Cleaner 6.5 isn't exactly a speed demon. In fact, at times, it can be mind-numbingly slow. Other times, it's spritely. It all depends on the source file you use, what preprocessing you've specified, and what format you're compressing to. Here are a couple of quick examples (all done under identical conditions on a dual-1.8 gHz PowerMac G5 with 3 GB of RAM, timed with a stopwatch, and compressed to a 320x240, 15 fps, Sorenson Video 3/IMA 4:1 QuickTime file with no preprocessing):
Clip 1 (source file: 10 seconds, QuickTime, 640x480, 30 fps, Sorenson 3/IMA 4:1)
Cleaner 6.5 — 2:13.75
Cleaner 5 — 1:56.54
QuickTime Pro — 0:10.58
Clip 2 (source file: 10 seconds, QuickTime, 640x480, 30 fps, Sorenson 3/IMA 4:1, similar to clip 1)
Cleaner 6.5 — 2:22.39
Cleaner 5 — 2:01.61
QuickTime Pro — 0:08.78
Clip 2 (source file: 49 second DV clip)
Cleaner 6.5 — 1:07.34
Cleaner 5 — 1:27.95
QuickTime Pro — 0:34.86
Hardly scientific, but telling enough. The first two clips were :10 logo opens I've done for various clients, and I found it extremely interesting that Cleaner 5 was faster than Cleaner 6.5. Remember, I used no preprocessing options; only straight compression. The results were more in line with expectations for the DV clip, but in all cases, a straight export out of QuickTime Pro with identical settings smoked Cleaner. Now, that doesn't mean much if you're processing 25 clips and hitting the Play button as you walk out the door for the evening, but be warned that the time you save with Cleaner is on the setup and repetitive tasks, and not necessarily in the processing. A big fat "your mileage may vary" applies here, of course.
The last problem I'll mention falls into the persistent bug category. Put simply, Cleaner won't quit (and not in a good, "got-no-quit-in-it" way). I mean that Cleaner consistently hangs when quitting, to the point where a Force Quit is needed. It exits cleanly if you do the Command+tab, Command+Q trick from the program switcher, but a plain-Jane Command+Q from Cleaner itself results in a freeze. Now, that's all fine and good and everything, but Cleaner 5 does this too. I might expect this from a program that I've had since 2000, but not in one that was released just recently.
Is it worth your time?
Now comes the part where I issue a recommendation. It's too bad we don't have an "it depends" rating, because I'd use that. So, in lieu of the spineless approach, let me run down the bottom line here. Cleaner is a very solid product, and there is still very much to like. Cleaner remains quite good at what it does, but new options (Apple Compressor and Sorenson Squeeze) are narrowing the gap (if a gap even still exists), and it seems at times like Autodesk has put the Mac version of Cleaner into some sort of token maintenance mode for old times' sake. But as I said earlier, the standards by which I've historically judged Cleaner are 1) that it's a very flexible framework for churning through large media processing tasks, 2) it plays very nicely with new codecs as time goes on, and 3) it's always produced very high quality results. In that respect, Cleaner 6.5 still delivers the goods. $599 is money well spent if you'll get good use out of Cleaner, as the interface, the preprocessing, the included settings and codecs, and the output quality are still very strong reasons to purchase Cleaner. Another good reason I can think of is the manual—if you order the actual boxed product, the manual is one of the best I've seen, not only walking you through how Cleaner works, but putting it in the context of a compression workflow and explaining many of the concepts of compression and streaming media in the process. In this day and age of PDF-only leaflets passing for manuals, it's refreshing to see well-written, thoughtful, and very helpful documentation. So that's a big plus too. However, the issues I mentioned earlier (some outdated codecs, MPEG issues, performance puzzlement, and the Quit bug) knock it down a peg. So as a standalone product, Cleaner earns a Buy rating.
The upgrade is another matter. Just because I personally wouldn't upgrade my old copy of Cleaner 5 to 6.5 doesn't mean that you shouldn't—as I've said before, Cleaner derives a lot of its value in the gaggle of presets and packaged codecs, so if you're a no-fuss, no-muss kind of person, an upgrade makes perfect sense. However, if you're like me and can do without the Watch folder and already have even newer versions of the codecs that are included in version 6.5 working happily in an earlier version of Cleaner, you're better off sinking your money into something else. The end result here is that I can think of several reasons why you'd want to upgrade, but I can also think of several reasons not to upgrade, so as an upgrade product, Cleaner gets a Neutral rating. In either case, do yourself a favor and take the 30-day trial for a spin before you spend anything, because Cleaner is a massive and complex program that fills many needs, and it's always best to draw your own conclusions.
Got Feedback? to send an email. I'll do my best to answer. Really.