great features in Microcosm:

• Macintosh–Intel Support: Now supports Intel Mac well as Macintosh PPC and Windows.

• 16-bit and 8-bit Support: Amazing compression ratios are found at both bit depths.

• Alpha Channel Support: Supports full 64-bit and 32-bit color images.

• Variable Compression: Microcosm analyzes footage using different methods to get more optimized, tailored compression.

• 6:1, Lossless Compression: An average of 3:1 compression over other common lossless codecs.

• Free Decompressor: Users can encode files using Microcosm and send to other users, who only need to download the free decoder to view and open.

• No Resolution Limits: Compresses your work without being tied to a particular resolution.

work with 64-bit

As desktop computers get faster, high-end applications like Maya, Shake, and After Effects are breaking the 32-bit (millions of colors plus alpha) barrier. These tools allow you to work in 64-bit color (trillions of colors plus alpha).

A key advantage to Microcosm, besides its industry leading compression ratio, is that it's a lossless RGBA QuickTime codec. With 64-bit, you can maintain smoother gradients and more accurate color.

maintain quality, not size

The benefit of rendering a QuickTime movie, as Microcosm does, over an image sequence is that you end up with a single file. Instead of saving out thousands of individual frames, Microcosm saves your entire movie into one super-packed QuickTime movie.

This intermediate render is kept at the highest quality possible. Unlike other uncompressed renders, Microcosm does not require a lot of hard drive space.

choose fast or optimized encoding

Microcosm analyzes the video to select the algorithm to use. It can analyze on a frame by frame basis or just analyze the first five frames. The Fast Guess option allows for faster encoding. The Full Guess option is a more optimized compression tailored to specific footage.