Sorenson Squeeze was a software video encoding tool used to compress and convert video and audio files on Mac OS X or Windows operating systems. It was sold as a standalone tool and has also long been bundled with Avid Media Composer.

History

Sorenson Squeeze was first announced on July 17, 2001, as the first variable bit rate (VBR) compression application for Mac OS X, and was released on October 29 of that same year. By March 2002, Sorenson Squeeze became available for Windows OS. Sorenson Squeeze was originally released as a tool for encoding videos for the Web and QuickTime playback but began adding new codecs as more versions were released. The software was discontinued by Sorenson in January 2019, and correspondingly was no longer offered as part of Avid Media Composer.

Features

Squeeze included a number of features to improve video & audio quality. Features included: GPU accelerated H.264 encoding, adaptive bitrate encoding, HD encoding and Dolby certified AC3 Audio. Intelligent encoding presets available in Squeeze included:

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(H.265) MainConcept H.264 and MainConcept H.264

CUDA In computing, CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) is a proprietary parallel computing platform and application programming interface (API) that allows software to use certain types of graphics processing units (GPUs) for accelerated gene ...

. Adaptive bitrate encoding allows for optimal bitrate and error resilience based on network conditions, resulting in a dynamic adjustment of the video bitstream being delivered. It encoded to multiple formats including

QuickTime QuickTime (or QuickTime Player) is an extensible multimedia architecture created by Apple, which supports playing, streaming, encoding, and transcoding a variety of digital media formats. The term ''QuickTime'' also refers to the QuickTime Pla ...

, Windows Media, Flash Video,

Silverlight Microsoft Silverlight is a discontinued application framework designed for writing and running rich internet applications, similar to Adobe's runtime, Adobe Flash. While early versions of Silverlight focused on streaming media, later version ...

WebM WebM is an audiovisual media file format. It is primarily intended to offer a royalty-free alternative to use in the HTML video and the HTML audio elements. It has a sister project, WebP, for images. The development of the format is sponsored by ...

& WMV. It uses multiple

codec A codec is a computer hardware or software component that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder o ...

s, including the Sorenson codecs SV3 Pro and Spark, H.265, H.264, H.263, VP6, VC1, MPEG2, and many others. Squeeze operates on the

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Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

and

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

operating systems. Squeeze offers native plugins to Avid, Apple Final Cut Pro and

Adobe Premiere Adobe Premiere Pro is a video editing software, video editing Application software, application developed by Adobe Inc. and is distributed as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite. It is primarily used for producing high-quality videos across ...

(CS4, CS5) NLEs. Each copy of Squeeze included the Dolby Certified AC3 Consumer encoder. Squeeze also included a simplified review and approval process, which allows the user to automatically send secure, password protected videos for immediate review. Instant feedback is received via Web or mobile.

Versions

* Sorenson Squeeze was released on October 29, 2001. * Sorenson Squeeze for Macromedia Flash MX was released on March 14, 2002. * Sorenson Squeeze 3 for MPEG-4 was released in January 2003. * Sorenson Squeeze 3 Compression Suite was released in January 2003. * Sorenson Squeeze 5 was released on March 31, 2008. * Sorenson Squeeze was updated to version 5.1 on May 11, 2009. * Sorenson Squeeze 6 was released on November 3, 2009. * Sorenson Squeeze 7 was released January 25, 2011.

Awards

* Streaming Media magazine Readers’ Choice Award for Encoding Software for 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. * 2008 Vanguard Award from Digital Content Producer magazine

Squeeze 7 system requirements

Windows *Pentium IV-based computer or greater *Windows XP, Vista or 7 *32- and 64-bit compatible (including AVID 64-bit update); Faster performance on 64-bit systems *512 MB RAM *120 MB available hard drive space *QuickTime 7.2 or later *DirectX 9.0b or later Macintosh *Intel-based processor *Mac OS 10.4 or later *32- and 64-bit compatible; Faster performance on 64-bit systems *512 MB RAM *120 MB available hard drive space *QuickTime 7.2 or later

References

External links

Version 6 press releaseVersion 5.1 press releaseSorenson Squeeze Website
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