If you’re accustomed to doing your work from Terminal shells, you can run the Compressor application from the command line using the Compressor command. There are a number of command-line options for submitting jobs.

Below is a synopsis of the Compressor command for submitting a job for transcoding. Angle brackets < > indicate a mandatory argument in a command, and brackets [ ] indicate an optional argument. The Compressor command is located in <PATH>/Compressor.app/Contents/MacOS.

Important: The command below must be executed on one line.

Compressor [-computergroup <name>] [-batchname <name>]    [-priority <value>] -jobpath <file>[?frameRate=<frame rate>    |?audio=<file>|?frameRate=<frame rate>\&audio=<file>]    -settingpath <path> -locationpath <file>    [-info <xml>] [-scc <file>] [-startoffset <hh:mm:ss:ff>]    [-in <hh:mm:ss:ff> [-out <hh:mm:ss:ff> [-annotations <file>]    [-chapters <file>]Compressor -checkstream <file>Compressor -findletterbox <file>Compressor -helpCompressor [-resetBackgroundProcessing [cancelJobs]]    [-sharing <on|off>] [[-requiresPassword <password>]    | [-noPassword]] [-instances <value>]     [-networkInterface <bsd name>] [-portRange <starting port>    <count>]

These three arguments are the minimum required to submit a job:

Compressor ‑jobpath <path> ‑settingpath <path> ‑locationpath <path>

Important: If you’re using an image sequence as a source file, you must use a URL for the path in -jobpath.

Here’s an example of code you would use to submit a Compressor job:

/Applications/Compressor.app/Contents/MacOS/Compressor    -batchname "My First Batch" -jobpath ~/Movies/    MySource.mov -settingpath ~/Library/Application\    Support/Compressor/Settings/Apple\ Devices\ HD\ \    (Custom\).cmprstng -locationpath ~/Movies/MyOutput.m4v

What this command does:

Identifies where Compressor is located
Assigns the batch name “My First Batch” (The quotation marks are used because of the spaces.)
Finds the file “MySource.mov” for the job at ~/Movies
Uses the “Apple Devices HD (Custom)” preset at ~/Library/Application\ Support/Compressor/Presets (The “\” character is used to retain the space in “Application Support.”)
Writes the output file, “MyOutput.m4v,” to the ~/Movies folder

Download this guide: PDF

Helpful?

Compressor User Guide

Submit a job to Compressor in Terminal