Episode 6 is a transcoding application that allows video editors to automate the encoding and repurposing of media for different output channels such as broadcast, YouTube, iPhone, etc. Episode 6 Engine, which we were allowed to test, is the ultimate transcoding engine: you can have as many simultaneous workflows as your computer allows and easy clustering is possible too. The Engine version also has a parallel processing technology called “Split and Stitch” that dramatically speeds up transcoding jobs. The quality of the MPEG formats has been vastly improved as Episode now uses the superior MainConcept codec. Together with its support for the complete ProRes codec family, its superior performance, scalability, and flexibility put Episode 6 in a league of its own.
This extensive review comes with 7 screencasts of Episode 6 elements.
- Episode 6 – Tour Part 1
- Episode 6 – Tour Part 2
- Episode 6 – Tour Part 3
- Episode 6 – Tour Part 4
- Episode 6 – Tour Part 5
- Episode 6 – Tour Part 6
- Episode 6 – Tour Part 7
Episode Engine provides extremely fast media transcoding. Episode 6 by itself is fast, but the Engine version adds two capabilities which turn it into a high-end scalable transcoding solution: Split-and-Stitch and clustering.
Split-and-Stitch uses all the cores of a machine or a cluster to deliver processing parallelism. This enables the processing of many large files in a fraction of the time it would cost to process them without Split-and-Stitch. The Split-and-Stitch feature cuts up a file in parts and pushes each part to an available core on your machine, or across your cluster.
When processing is ready, the system stitches everything back together into one output file. This results in dramatic speed gains — up to several times faster than real time, especially for Flash 8, Windows Media, and H.264.
I timed the difference between ordinary encoding and Split-and-Stitch encoding using a chronograph. I first tested a short H.264 file. Time without Split-and-Stitch was 14 minutes, both with Episode 6 and Squeeze 6.5. Time with Split-and Stitch: 8 minutes 2 seconds!
Telestream’s Episode manual states the technology doesn’t work for all formats, and indeed it didn’t change anything when I transcoded the same file into ProRes 422 HQ.
The clustering system can further boost processing speed. It’s very easy to set up. All you need is a couple of Episode 6 licenses to create a real cluster, and a network on which all stations can ‘see’ each other. The Episode Preferences panel has settings for load balancing, of which hardware balancing is the most sophisticated and the best suited for mixed machine environments — Episode will by itself figure out which machines can sustain bigger loads.
From a licensing point of view, encode slots and format support are not thrown into a pool, ready to be used by any machine that needs them. For example if an Episode Standard licensed client joins the cluster along with a Pro licensed machine, the Standard client will not be able to do an MXF-encode if the Pro licensed machine is not available to the cluster at the time. By the same token the Standard machine will never be able to do more than one encode at a time because that is all it is licensed to do.
However, the clustering system can be used by unlicensed Episode 6 clients too. As far as unlicensed machines are concerned, they can not contribute anything. They can not do any encoding that will not be demo watermarked. But they can collaborate with a cluster as ‘clients’, submitting work and viewing status. This can be achieved by selecting to ‘submit jobs to’ in the cluster browser. At that point, the results won’t be watermarked.
Even if you have only one license, the Episode application can run in cluster mode and therefore accept jobs submitted by unlicensed Episode clients.
Episode 6 can run in two modes: either as an application or as a background process. If you deselect the corresponding options in its Preferences panel, Episode 6 will run as a GUI application. If you turn on the relevant options, you use the GUI to create the workflows, but for the actual processing you can shut down the Episode application and have all your files transcoded in the background — this does require you to work with Monitor folders in order to benefit from it, of course.
As part of the review, I also tested the quality of the encoding results and found all of them to be very good to excellent. I saw no artefacts, no colour shifts, pixellation, etc.. The only output that I couldn’t get quite right was the smallest file 3GP output, but my original frame size was very big (1600 x 1200 pixels) while the target frame size was very small (176 x 144 pixels). This really needed tuning in order to get acceptable results. On my own, I couldn’t get it right without blowing up the file size, so I called in the help of Telestream’s technical support. They suggested to apply the “Low Pass for Large Downscales” filter which fixed the output.
The problem I ran into showed me that Episode 6′s Inspector is a lot more efficient when it comes to the controls/parameters you can change than its predecessor. It has a daunting number of controls that you can change. The manual does a great job at explaining all the different settings and what you’d use them for, and unless you transcode a lot of different formats on a regular basis, I think keeping the manual close by is a necessity.
Episode Engine 6 can be integrated into any media encoding workflow environment. It integrates with Matrox MAX and Telestream’s own Pipeline system. It can use input monitors — aka ‘watched folders’ — and can automatically transcode while a clip is still being “copied” to that folder using Telestream’s own TIFO format, which is a lightweight transport stream codec. Input monitors work with local files, mounted network shares, and FTP servers.
Output or “deployment” can be done to multiple folders, and even to YouTube. I would have liked an additional option to deploy to other services such as Vimeo, but that’s not yet included, although given the fact that Episode can import and export Tasks (one component of a workflow) and Workflows (the whole workflow), I would guess it won’t be long before other services will be made available, perhaps as a downloadable task or workflow component.
Just as with Monitors, you can also deploy to an FTP server or a network share, so if you run video from your own web site, for example, you can upload files from within Episode 6 directly.
Only one file list or Monitor can be set per workflow, but that is not a limitation at all, as it is possible to run multiple workflows simultaneously. In fact, you can have several Episode 6 workflows running as background processes, each ingesting transcoding jobs from its own watched folder. For that to work smoothly, I think you do best to set up one or several dedicated machines, though.
Final Cut integration no longer exists as a Compressor plug-in. In fact, the Episode 5 plug-in does not work with Episode 6. Not all is lost, though. Just save the Final Cut project as QuickTime Reference movie and transcode that with Episode 6, and it will work just fine.
To conclude the text part of this review: I think Telestream has done a wonderful job with Episode 6. For automated and semi-automated transcoding in professional environments, there is currently nothing that compares favorably with Episode 6′s raw performance, scalability and quality of output.
In prosumer environments, where the user tampers a lot with settings file-by-file, Episode 6 seems to be overkill, although the Standard version is not that expensive at approx. 360.00 Euros. The Engine version costs approx. 2900.00 Euros.
[...] interesting to see that Sorenson Media has chosen to go this path. Telestream’s approach with Episode 6 is by splitting up the encoding job in small chunks that are then fed to different cores in a [...]