Hacking Cleaner EZ 5
Cleaner EZ 5 ('Cleaner' in the rest of this text) is a version of Cleaner 5 built into Premiere 6. You can not drop files on Cleaner itself, instead Premiere has to be used to run Cleaner. The main problem is that there is no advanced settings editor provided.
The default settings for Cleaner result in very disappointing video compression, so disappointing in fact that I would recommend to use the standard Quicktime Pro encoder instead if there were no way to hack Cleaner. The simple settings editor of Cleaner does not give you adequate control either. But there is a way to edit the settings by hand, as the settings are in plain text (XML). Here I describe what I think the various fields in those XML files do.
You can edit the XML files with any plain text editor. I recommend to use BBEdit and not word, to preserve the original icons and file type. Make a backup of the original files before editing them, so that you can revert to other, good working versions.
By default, Cleaner is installed in the same directory where Premiere 6 is installed. The Cleaner Settings folder is in the Cleaner EZ 5 directory. In the Cleaner Settings folder you find various directories, the most important probably being 'My Custom Settings' and 'Quicktime - Progressive'. In 'My Custom Settings', the settings that you create with the simple settings editor of Cleaner are saved. In 'Quicktime- Progressive' you find the settings that are used when you select the preset 'Quicktime Progressive Download / Big Movie (best for ISDN+ viewers)', the preset file 'QT big progressive' is used. Similarly the file 'QT med progressive' is the preset for a 'Medium-size movie' and the 'QT small progressive' is for 'Small movie (best for modem viewers)'.
Globally, the XML files consist of a eight parts:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Here I summarize several XML fields and what I tried as values. I tried several other options but many seemed not to work, this probably depends on the chosen encoder. For instance, the standard Sorenson 2 coder has no frame dropping and watermark support. Instead, with Sorenson 3 frame dropping seems to be always 'on'.
AUDIO OPTIONS
| FIELD | VALUES |
<audio codec>/<quicktime codec="NUM"> |
MPEG3: NUM="1299198753" |
<audio encode> |
<sample_depth bits="16" active="True"/> |
<audio encode>/<sample_rate Hz="VAL" active="True"/> | For quallcom use VAL=11025, or 22050 for high quality. For other audio compressors VAL=44100 or 48000 may be used. |
<audio process>/<low_pass limit="VAL" active="True"/> | If you use Quallcom set VAL=half of the sample_rate value above. |
VIDEO OPTIONS in <video_encode>
FIELD | VALUES |
<avi codec="1684633187"/> | This gives standard quicktime coder. |
<keyframes frequency="VAL" interval="3" natural="50" size="100" type="fixed" active="True"/> | It is important for tight compression to use a high keyframes value. VAL=150 seems right for 5fps video, 500 for 25fps video. Dont go much higher if you still want to allow quick scrolling through the video. |
<data_rate bytes_per_second="VAL" mode="Rate" size="5000"/> | Modem speed: set VAL=5000 or so and use sorenson coder. For sorenson with highspeed connection set VAL=50000. Other coders may need other datarates. |
<frame_rate long_frames="False" value="5" active="False"/> | I did not use this. Instead export video at right framerate and proper filter options from premiere first, and use that filtered file for cleaner. |
<image_size height="H" scale_quality="accurate" width="W" image_ratio="4x3"> | For modem I usually set H=185 and W=232. Normally W should be approximately 1.25*H. Use multiples of 16 for the values where possible. For high bandwidth you can use H=200 and W=320. |
<display_size display_at="100" height="240" width="320"/> | display_at is a percentage of the normal size, so 200 is twice the original size. Set this to 100 always, as quicktime player does much better scaling with appropriate blurring. To set quicktime scaling, open the movie with quicktime after you created the movie with cleaner. It will appear at 100% size. Then select Movie/Double Size and save the movie. |
VIDEO OPTIONS in <video_process>
FIELD | VALUES |
<display_size active="True"/> | Has to be active otherwise the image_size field in <video_encode> will not work. Interestingly, this turns on a PRE-compression option while most other video_processing options apparently are playback options. Maybe I missed something here... |
<noise_reduction amount="25" temporal="False" threshold="50" type="mild" active="XXX"/> | noise reduction with XXX="True". Better turn off (XXX="False") unless you have very disturbing blocking artefacts without it. |
Many problems are more general than cleaner, see my notes on quicktime, sorenson, etc on my 'stupid things for macintosh' page. Here you find only cleaner-related quirks.
SYMPTOMS | POSSIBLE CAUSE | POSSIBLE SOLUTION |
Quallcom audio does not use the specified bitrate. PureVoice half should give 1.1 kbyte/s and PureVoice Full 2.2 kbyte/s. | Quallcom uses the latest setting saved with 'save setting' from its preferences menu. | You can access the Quallcom preferences menu with the Quicktime Pro export option or Premiere export. |
'Deinterlace desktop playback' does not work | This option is used during playback, not during encoding. For deinterlacing you need premiere's deinterlace filter (Project/settings viewer/export settings/special processing/modify). However it seems that these settings are not used when exporting to cleaner... | Export the movie to a new movie file using the required premiere resize- and deinterlace filters. Then open the new movie file and export it to cleaner. Audio should be exported at high quality though. |
Quicktime can not play back sorenson-3 compressed file. | Only Quicktime 5 and higher can play back Sorenson 3. | For compatibility, dont use Sorenson 3. For tight compression, Sorenson 2 will do as good as Sorenson 3 anyway. |
Cleaner crashes when aborted during compression of large sequence of still frames. | Sorenson seems to have problems with lengthy sequence of stills. | Avoid long sequences of stills, see my other tips on the 'stupid things for macintosh' page. |
Here is a sample setting file for modem quality.