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Cleaner XL is the fourth software title we've been lucky
enough to review from Discreet. For those of you unfamiliar with Discreet,
they are the makers of the leading 3D rendering software on the market,
3D Max, as well as some fantastic special effects and video creation software,
such as Cleaner Streaming Studio. Cleaner XL is the next generation successor
to its award winning cleaner 5 streaming (winner of an Editor's Choice
award here at NGE) and encoding software (note:: for Macintosh users,
the latest version is Discreet Cleaner 6 for Macintosh).
This software title was greatly anticipated by the web streamers
for several different reasons : 1) It could compress video like no other,
offering better video quality at much faster streaming speeds ... 2) Offered
new compression formats such as Windows Media 9, QuickTime 6, and MPEG-4
for Web ... and 3) It masters (note: mastering is the process of optimizing
a piece of media for its final delivery format) video a helluva a lot
quicker than anything else could. So would Cleaner XL be the end-all solution
for compressing video that Discreet claimed it would be? Of course!
To state how important streaming media is now on the web,
we're going to quote industry analyst Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research,
who stated that streaming video is one of the top three tech choices for
2003. Gartenberg reported, “Streaming (content) quality has never
been higher, and the cost has never been lower. New technologies from
Microsoft Windows Media, RealNetworks and Apple are near broadcast quality
with relatively low bandwidth penalties. If companies host or televise
live events, they can now make use of the Internet and streaming video
to improve returns on these expenditures at dramatically lower costs.”
(Computerworld, January 27, 2003). So the relevancy for this technology
for companies and home users alike is quite high.
Can you say feature rich? A quick breakdown of the new features
headlined in Cleaner XL:
- Watch Folders for automated encoding. Associate a job
template to a folder and simply drag and drop files to begin encoding.
Export directly from your editor or digital media application into a
Watch Folder.
- Includes over 180 customized and ready-to-use output
profiles designed by encoding professionals.
- Optimizations for multiple processors and Intel Hyper-Threading
Technology enables you to work faster than ever.
- High performance media filters optimized for stunning
quality with complete creative control.
- Intelligent color space conversion preserves source fidelity
and accelerates processing.
- Re-useable job templates and filter presets decrease
repetitive set-up tasks.
The first thing users will notice in Cleaner XL is the updated
user interface which looks great. Very intuitive and easy to use, a streaming
neophyte will have no time having all the fun in the world compressing
video in minutes. This innovative document-based type interface allows
users to prepare one job while processing others - so you can do more
than just one job at a time! This is really convenient if you have 5,
6, or even more jobs to do for the night - you can just have the batch
take care of all of them at once. This software is truly optimized to
take full advantage of multiple processors and Intel’s new Hyper-Threading
technology - good news for people interested in getting the job done quicker
and more efficiently. Cleaner XL also delivers accelerated performance
gains, making media encoding easier and faster.
Perhaps the best feature out of all of the new improvements
to Cleaner XL is that it provides support for 60 of the most important
media codec (compress/decompress) formats including new HD video and multi-channel
audio capabilities of Windows Media 9 Series, QuickTime 6, MPEG-4 w/ AAC
audio, MPEG-2 and Kinoma for PalmOS PDAs.
Okay - so at this point you've understood that this reviewer
has been impressed with the controls (so easy to use) and the features
(compresses fast and offers all the Codecs you'll ever need) any streaming
fanatic would want. The truth is we were really shocked at all the features.
It's not about just being able to create files of any format imaginable.
Oh no - for those of you familiar with mastering video on your system
you know it's ALL about touch-ups and color correction. Luckily enough
Cleaner XL also comes with filter settings to adjust brightness, contrast,
gamma, and other such video correction tools. The great thing is that
there is a very handy split-screen tool that shows you the original video
and the corrected edition in real time without any rendering/mastering
time. So right away you know what your changes look like ... it couldn't
be easier or more useful.
Also included are audio adjustments such as a handy noise
reduction tool! These correction tools are awesome, no doubt about it.
This title was already a value without these correction tools, but with
them included as part of the package - this is everything you'd want and
more.
Discreet Cleaner XL for Windows minimum system requirements:
- Pentium 3 or 4, 800Mhz or better
- Windows 2000/XP
- QuickTime 6 or later (included)
- Windows Media 9 (included)
- DirectX 8.1 or greater (included)
- 256 MB RAM
- 200 MB available hard disk space
- 1024 x 768 16-bit display
Cleaner XL couldn't have performed better. We've used this
software to do *all* of the rendering of our videos that we do for our
sister site, Gaming Illustrated. You can view all the videos by clicking
here. The value of Cleaner XL is well worth the $599 price tag for
those of you just getting into the streaming game, but for those with
the old versions of Cleaner, upgrade this very second - you won't regret
parting with the $179 because the return on investment is so high. For
anyone that plans to stream media on websites, or even share video files
on a computer, then Cleaner XL is an absolute must-buy. Overall, Cleaner
XL is everything Discreet promised and a whole lot more, worthy of every
penny you'll pay for it - an Editor's Choice product if I ever saw one.
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10 / 10 |
OVERALL SCORE
100%
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10 / 10 |
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10 / 10 |
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10 / 10 |
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10 / 10 |
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10 / 10 |
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