Would you like to save a dump?

One of the things I do “on the side” is compress video for delivery on the Web. Given my television background B.P. (before programming), it seemed like a natural fit to get into it.

The software I use is Cleaner, which is now owned by Discreet. Cleaner 5 was a great product. I personally use it with the Sorenson Video codec to squeeze out high-quality QuickTime. If it's good enough for movie trailers, it's good enough for me. Cleaner 5 had a great interface and great output.

Then, I think more than a year ago now, some clever idiot decided to diverge the product lines. Cleaner 6 would appear only for the Mac with the tried and true interface, and Windows would get Cleaner XL, a totally new product. The positives were that it encoded almost twice as fast as Cleaner 5, and it was written in .NET (not a feature, but kinda cool at a time when you didn't see a lot of commercial desktop .NET apps).

The bad part is that the software is pure shit with an illogical interface that never works. Even after two service packs, I can't get it to even run anymore. When I try to launch the program, I get, “Cleaner has crashed. Would you like to save a dump?” No thanks, I'd rather flush it down the toilet. That's where my dumps go.

I guess at this point I'm going to have to explore Sorenson Squeeze because it won't ask me if I want to save my dumps. Anyone have any experience with the tool?