some videos displaying, some not

[viaspiaggia]

Just moved my HD2 system over to a new Mac running Mountain Lion. finally have all plugs etc running and happy, but did all my initial testing on a session with a live action feature QuickTime in it.

Opened up another session with an animation series, and while I see the video frames in the edit window, I just get a black screen, no moving picture.

I religiously convert all incoming video to MotionJPEG A, keeping the native size that it arrives at. Doing a bunch of conversions to test now, and will test on a bunch of movies from other projects, but thought I'd see if there was someone with similar experience out there.

thanks!

[viaspiaggia]

no different formats or conversions have helped, but I have found ONE other QuickTime on my drive that plays - nothing I can see about the files is the same about those two but different from *all other* videos in my system.

changing the drive I play back from, dimensions, format, source doesn't seem to help

FYI I'm on PT 10.3.3 on Mac 10.8.2, HD2 Accel. It's maddening that 2 videos work flawlessly while none others do - so it's clearly not a graphics cards issue that I can tell.

Any codecs I need to install, or anything different to set in Mountain Lion? Seems lots of strange little details changed in ML that surprised everyone.

Speaking of which, my user/ folder has no Library folder in which to find preference to trash - what am I missing there?

Any help or more things to troubleshoot or try are appreciated.

THANKS!

[viaspiaggia]

I can get all videos to play in a 44.1kHz session, but not a 48k session - or 88.2 or 96k. Quite odd and unhelpful since all my Post work happens at 48k, obviously, but I'm hoping this will help someone come to a conclusion.

The main session I used for setting the machine up is a 48k session, and it has working video.

Again, there's nothing obvious about the two videos that will play in a 48k session - one has a sound track, the other does not; both are motion jpeg; both had 48k audio in the original video from the editors.

I saw a vaguely similar bug where I teach - motion JPEG movies in a ProTools session suddenly stopped displaying - we could see frames in the edit window but no image. That was PT8 on 10.6.8, and converting to any other video format worked, but a similar symptom.

Totally mystified and hoping for some input from Digi techs?

[viaspiaggia]

ok my last update for today and then I'm hoping Digi support or others will chime in.

converted the session on my plate this week to 44.1k, and without any hassle or tweaking or changes the video loads up right away with the session.

so I can mix in 44.1 and import the automation back into my 48k session to print, or reinstall on my old computer, but obviously I need a long-term resolution here.

thanks!

[Chief Technician]

Originally Posted by viaspiaggia

my user/ folder has no Library folder in which to find preference to trash - what am I missing there?

Nothing. Apple thinks they are doing you a favor by hiding that folder. Hold the option key while clicking on the Go menu in the Finder and you will see the Library folder as an option.

Do any of your movies (playable or not) have embedded soundtracks?

[viaspiaggia]

OK Thanks, at least got the prefs trashed but unfortunately it didn't help.

Of the two movies that do play, one has audio on it and the other doesn't. of all the ones that don't play at 48k, it's a mix as well - some yes and some no.

I've been googling for general video issues on Mountain Lion and have seen some folks with issues with Open GL / Quartz Extreme problems when upgrading to 10.8.2 - is that an issue with PT or does PT not use those protocols?

thanks!

[viaspiaggia]

here's my update for the day, SRC'd a session down to 44.1k and everything's running smoothly.

got a new movie file for the feature film that has the movie that DOES play back at 48k. Was terrified that the new file would not play back but lo and behold it DOES.

is there some way I can really needle down into a QuickTime file to see how it's set up / compressed / etc? I know that dimensions are only one factor, and even within .264 for instance editors will tell me they're going to make it "Small" or "Medium" but I can't find a way in QuickTime Player to identify those settings.

thanks

[Chief Technician]

Originally Posted by viaspiaggia

I've been googling for general video issues on Mountain Lion and have seen some folks with issues with Open GL / Quartz Extreme problems when upgrading to 10.8.2 - is that an issue with PT or does PT not use those protocols?

In this context, Pro Tools does not use those protocols directly. Pro Tools treats QuickTime as a black box. This means that when you press play, Pro Tools reads the content of the video file on the timeline and sends it to the QuickTime engine for playback. Once Pro Tools has passed the file to the QuickTime engine, Pro Tools effectively wipes its hands of the situation.

I would expect QuickTime to use either Open GL, Quartz Extreme, or both. Open GL is usually used by ATI graphics cards. NVIDIA doesn't focus on Open GL support, though their cards may use some Open GL code.

Use Google to find a program called VideoSpec. That might help you find out what is the same or different about these files that work or do not work as you expect.

[viaspiaggia]

Thanks very much. I have an Nvidia card, and indeed VLC is reporting Open GL / QE problems, so I'm on the hunt for a solution there while I use my work-around this week.

VideoSpec is cool but doesn't show me anything to go on with my two main videos I've been using as tests. Bitrate is less on the working file, but it's even lower on some other files that don't play.

My last conversion tests are underway now, we'll see if that helps.

Otherwise I may see if I can dig up my old Canopus box and give that a whirl till I get the QE/GL issues sorted out.

Thanks!!