Video Engine Problems with Pro Tools 11

[wintermelon]

Originally Posted by Stereo Missile

I'm just wondering what is the best codec to use with PT 11? Should I be asking for DNxHD? ProRes? It's 24 frames per second. I don't have an external video monitor or a BM or AJA card or anything like that, just using my PT monitor for video playback. Is anyone doing this successfully?

I'm on Mac Pro 2009, OS 10.8.5, PT 11.2.1, HDX-1. System is running fine generally, but I have not done any work to picture with it yet. So is anyone doing this successfully? What is the least taxing and most stable codec to use?

Thanks in advance for your help!

I don't know about other places, but the major studios here mostly work with ProRes, 422, LT, etc. I rarely see other codec nowadays. But I think it really depends on the editor.

It should run pretty smoothly with your system. However I had no luck at all working with picture on PT 11. Haven't figured out why. Since you are on OS X 10.8.5, running PT 10 on the same machine would be a great backup. I've done a lot of works to picture on PT 10, super solid!

[Stereo Missile]

Thanks Wintermelon,

I haven't done anything in PT10 for ages now, would hate to have to try to make my system backwards compatible to 10....... fingers crossed it will not come to that! Thanks for the info! :)

[5JMedia]

I was having some issues with my video engine as well all of a sudden in PT11. Was also getting the "unable to create thumbnails" message. I found this and it worked for me:

Copy the file

System/Library/Quicktime/QuickTimeComponents.component
(in my case info said the file was version 7.7.1)

to

~/Library/Quicktime/QuickTimeComponents.component

My user library folder did not even have the Quicktime folder so I had to create it. The info I found also said to replace the file that may exist in that folder with the one you are copying if it is an older version. Hope it helps someone else.

[sauna-l]

Like many of us I experienced some issues with PT 11 HD and video. I also discovered a workaround for resolving bad video exports I thought that may help some of us :

dnxHD format is clearly recommended by Avid for PT 11. However, in my experience, the Quicktime7 codecs that Avid does propose for dnxHD make any video about ten times heavier, any settings you pick. That's a problem.

Noone but Avid seems to use dnx, btw. No other converter but Quicktime 7 so far does handle that format; not handy, to say the least ...

H264 usually works fine in PT11, even if Avid warns for possible issues with it (they'd better warn for working with video in general ... )

Video Bounces are SLOW; I've tried some on some brand new Mac Pros equipped w a BlackMagic card and it didn't help much. Macminis were quite as fast (but Macminis have serious RAM issues ...)

We encountered some bugs while bouncing sessions where the first video and audio clips started at 00:01:00:00 and the session start was at 00:00:00:00 :the first seconds of the video bounce were missing.

Setting the session start to 00:01:00:00 before bouncing solved the problem.

Some Pro Tools Quicktime network components are always red in Mac activity monitor status, as soon as Protools is launched. I'm not sure how much this affects Pro Tools video performances, but this sure doesn't look too good.
(PT 11.1.3 out of memory)

Originally Posted by Stereo Missile

Hey guys,

I'm about to start on a film score and the editors are asking me what format I want the film in. I only need a small file so as not to strain the CPU too much, so I'm thinking SD is fine.

I'm just wondering what is the best codec to use with PT 11? Should I be asking for DNxHD? ProRes? It's 24 frames per second. I don't have an external video monitor or a BM or AJA card or anything like that, just using my PT monitor for video playback. Is anyone doing this successfully?

I'm on Mac Pro 2009, OS 10.8.5, PT 11.2.1, HDX-1. System is running fine generally, but I have not done any work to picture with it yet. So is anyone doing this successfully? What is the least taxing and most stable codec to use?

Thanks in advance for your help!

:)

[the19thbear]

Pro tools runs fine with a prores 422 file as well. You can convert to that via QuickTime 7 (paid version only I think). You get the "approved" watermark on the video in pro tools which means that it's fine for pro tools.

[Stereo Missile]

I've been working on this movie for a while now with DNxHD 36 and so far PT11 is running it well, not having any problems with it. Getting full screen 1080p playback on the computer monitor, had the occasional glitches with the video but generally it's running smoothly for me. Had to install a bit more RAM to use some of the contact libraries with video though.

:)

[Danny Caccavo]

Originally Posted by mofateam

Today I removed everything avid-related on my computer and reinstalled only pt11.1.2
Still the same problem, the video engine doesn´t launch.

AVID, are you listening ?

btw - it´s a joke to charge people for support when they are reporting bugs and bad written software...

I go back to PT10...

I did discover a wacky bug a few months ago - if you have any volume mounted that has a "/" in its name, the Video Engine will not launch.

dc

[fretfingers]

What's wrong with Photo JPEG? Has always worked for me.

[8dB.co.uk]

I recently did my annual reinstall from scratch, with all the latest drivers. I also now run my media off SSDs. PT11.2.1 now runs H264s completely seamlessly, so long as there's no scaling involved, ie if your client sends it to the size of a postage stamp then it's going to have fun up-res'ing that to 1080.
I also learnt a valuable lesson. I thought that I would be a smart arse and install the blackmagic drivers before ProTools. Wrong. Unless the BM installer detects an existing ProTools installation, it doesn't install the ProTools components, leading to external hardware not being available in ProTools.

With the latest drivers, my decklink mini monitor card takes only 5ms to get pictures out via HDMI. No play/pause, no waiting for video operation, and really fast bounces to Quicktime - indeed the video part is much faster than the audio.

Finally, using system monitoring software, I can see that ProTools takes advantage of your GPU even when you're outputting to hardware like a Blackmagic card. Always best with PT11 to have the very best GPU you can afford.

[8dB.co.uk]

The AVE is working as advertised. This thread is as much about that as it is about you going on saying that it's broken WHEN IT ISN'T.

I also gave good reasons why people might be experiencing problems - hardware greyed out etc, which you seem to have overlooked.

Discussion goes two ways. Don't dismiss something just because it isn't what you want to hear.