Sorenson Squeeze 3 now shipping

Sorenson’s Squeeze 3 Compression Suite, one of my favorite new tools, is now generally available. The suite lets you easily encode audio and video into multiple formats including Real, Windows Media, QuickTime, MPEG-4 and Flash MX. By using simple drop down menus to select playback bandwidth, window size and/or file size, Squeeze automatically configures the codecs underneath, taking a lot of the guess work out of encoding.

I just used it last Friday (I got sneak peek at the final version) to convert a 5-plus minute AVI file (567M/bytes) down to a 39M/byte Windows Media file playable from a CD (our events group needed it for a presentation). The built in mini-editor allowed me to eliminate the first 45 seconds of dead air at the same time. The only downside is that Sorenson is currently support Windows Media 8, not the latest Windows Media 9 Series codecs.

Squeeze 3 comes in three flavors: Sorenson Squeeze 3 for Macromedia Flash MX priced at $119; Sorenson Squeeze 3 for MPEG 4 priced at $199; and, the full Sorenson Squeeze 3 Compression Suite priced at $449. Users of earlier Squeeze can upgrade for less than the list prices above. All three products are available for the Macintosh and Windows platforms.