I had a really strange thing happen to me…my virtual cluster (the thing where you use QMaster to set up all your processors to render faster…I’ll post how at the end of this blog post)…as I was saying, before the long parenthesis aside, my virtual cluster in Compressor upped and vanished. Just went away. POOF! One minute it was compressing a file to MPEG-4 for the audio house, the next…just gone. I was perplexed.

So I iChatted with my buddy Jim Geduldick of Final Cut User and asked if he knew what happened. I figured he was a Compressor guru, having written CRAM. And sure enough, he did have an answer. A little known of button that you have to know where to find.

Well, he blogged about it and posted a tip video on how to find that button and fix all of this.

Thanks Jim.

Now, as for how to set up QMASTER to use all of these processors you have on your MacPro.

– In System Preferences at the bottom is a black splotch icon thing, that is Apple Qmaster. Click on that.
– Select Share this computer as “Quick Cluster with services.”
– Share Compressor.
– “Options for selected service” should be 1 instance for each of 2 processors, so if you have an Octo MacPro, set it to 4 instances.
– Click Share…

Then when you submit from compressor, change it from “This Computer” to whatever you named your cluster. Works like gang busters…