Well, I’m a little shocked to say that if you’re a Sorenson Squeeze user, as of September 1st, its hit its end of life! As of right now, you can no longer purchase any Squeeze product, and the Squeeze online services (Sorenson 360, which had been rebranded as Squeeze Stream) will be shut down as of September 1, 2018.
Final Cut Pro and Premiere users might not be as familiar with Sorenson Squeeze as Media Composer editors are but, at one time, Sorenson Squeeze was THE application for compressing files for the web, for approval, for our demo reels, and for pretty much everything else you can think of, when it came to converting your file from the master format to anything else.
The last version of Sorenson Squeeze, version 11, was released over two years ago, on August 27, 2016, and there hasn’t been any updates since then. When released, version 11’s biggest features were:
- Improved 4K export with 64 bit support
- Text Watermark
- Updated codecs (x264, H.264, VP9, x265*)
- Multi-track audio
- Sequenced image files
- High bit-depth dithering filter
- XDCam*(MXF)
- And More!
My last review of a Squeeze product was version 10 of SS, here on PVC.
Let’s be honest, though. Adobe Media Encoder was the application that really would have been the nail in the Squeeze’s coffin, as it’s included in every subscription to the Creative Cloud, and every editor has the Creative Cloud, no matter what NLE you use, as we all use After Effects, and Photoshop in one form or another. For Mac users, there was a major problem with Squeeze, and and that was that only version 11 was supported in Sierra and High Sierra, and any version prior to 11 required an upgrade.
I’ll be honest. I’m a little sad. Squeeze has been around for seventeen years. That’s right. The first version of Squeeze came out on October 29, 2001, and I know that a lot of Media Composer editors are still probably using version 8, that came with one of the releases of Media Composer. I believe you got it alongside BCC8, when you purchased a Symphony update. And it was a “go to” application to get the type of files my clients needed, and it very rarely let me down.
Sorenson, the company, is still moving along with support for their Sorenson Spark product line. Good-bye Sorenson Squeeze. I can’t count how many files you’ve streamed for me. It was awesome while it lasted.
FTC Disclosure
I have received no financial compensation from Sorenson Media for the production of this article/tutorial. Opinions in this article, whether you agree with them or not, are my own!