It’s here at last. Sorenson Media, the folks who specialize in video compression and Web streaming services, have released Sorenson Video 3 exclusively for QuickTime. Sorenson Video is a QuickTime compatible video codec designed for developers of applications or Web sites that require compressed video segments.
Sorenson Video 3 is available in both Standard and Professional Editions. The Standard Edition is available for QuickTime users on Mac OS X, Mac OS 9 or Windows operating systems. The Standard Edition has the compression controls for data rate, frame rate and key frame intervals. In addition, there are some advanced features applied to compressions with the default settings.
Sorenson Video 3 Standard Edition is included for Mac OS 9 and Windows customers as part of QuickTime 5.0.2. Mac OS X customers can obtain the Sorenson Video 3 update through a component download in Mac OS X’s QuickTime System Preference panel.
“Our tests indicate that Sorenson Video 3 gives users better high-motion video quality than Sorenson Video 2 at less than half of the bit rate,” Jim Sorenson Jr., CEO of Sorenson Media, said in a statement. “Sorenson Video 3 delivers twice the compression speed as Sorenson Video 2 and up to three times the speed when using Variable Bit Rate (VBR) compression.”
Sorenson Video 3 Professional Edition includes support for two-pass VBR compression, support for a binary alpha channel, automatic scene change detection, compression time packetization for error resiliency to packet loss, and chroma-key segmentation compression. Sorenson Video 3 also has enhanced watermarking and the media key feature has been enhanced to use secure encryption.
The Professional Edition is used to compress raw video content to a much lower bit rate and file size while still maintaining high quality, even at very low data rates, Sorenson said. The Professional Edition has the fine control necessary to handle all types of video, from interviews to sports footage, he added.
Sorenson Video 3 Professional Edition costs US$499. Sorenson Video 2 Developer Edition users can upgrade for $349. An introductory upgrade price of $249 is being offered to customers until Aug. 31.There’s no cost to upgrade to Sorenson Video 3 for customers who purchased Sorenson Video 2 after April 2.