Not sure if lazy or stupid

[Dadeo]

Did a little video for a client last week. Yesterday they email a request for it to be compressed to mp4 and xvid/avi. In the email are screenshots of the settings they want, in the compression software, with the video loaded into it.

I don't want to turn away paying jobs but I can't, for the life of me, figure out why they didn't just click on the "Start" button.

[RealUnimportant]

Maybe their POS machine can't handle the job?

[scruff]

I don't want to turn away paying jobs but I can't, for the life of me, figure out why they didn't just click on the "Start" button.

It's called job security. (I once had a client who swore he didn't have an 'enter' button, just a 'go', as he was looking on the AOL screen instead of the keyboard...)

[Zoom]

Maybe when the video plays for them it has enormous Huffman blocks (or whatever those giant pixels are called) and they want a different encode.

On the other hand, if they're asking for more compression, maybe they're using an old comp and are running out of RAM?

[AmbrosiaWriter]

Maybe that screen shot was sent by someone else who did the compression, but they have no idea how to access the program/get to the window of the program that lets them put in settings or something?

I don't know, but being as that I like communicating effectively, I would've put in the e-mail why I'm requesting it (computer doesn't have enough power/program crashes computer/don't have access to the program/don't have license to the program/too busy sticking peanut butter up my nose... etc.)

[Chromatix]

I can tell you that compressing video takes a lot of CPU power. You can quite reasonably run a short clip through the settings to figure out what they do, but still find that it takes all night to compress the whole thing, unless you have one of the newest and most powerful CPUs (or some kind of accelerator and the right software that can use it). Meanwhile the same machine will be perfectly usable for other, less demanding tasks.

Even so, if you have enough CPU power to research settings enough to be really specific about them, surely you have enough to let the encode run overnight - instead of the hassle of organising someone else to do it for you?

[Dadeo]

I can tell you that compressing video takes a lot of CPU power.

1. They have the newest and fastest Macs. Powerful enough to handle Photoshopping full res banners - some of their images are upwards of 2gb. My machine is a fair bit less powerful.

2. The video is less than 3 minutes long. I did both encodes in less than 15 minutes.

3. They have the compression software, the screenshots are from that software with the video loaded into it.

Having said all that, I'm happy to do it, it's billable and it keeps me busy. (For a few minutes anyway)