Persistent Video Engine Errors

[Eric Lambert]

I do remember needing to switch the video track to Blocks view so it wasn't trying to generate thumbnails but that was on a 2013 machine. Since upgrading to the M I've not needed to do that and I'd be surprised if it had much real effect on the CPU. That said, my template has the video track set to Blocks so I don't think about it anymore.

[smurfyou]

Originally Posted by AlexandruMateescu

Hi, I'm working almost daily with video files in Pro Tools. The issues you're describing with the video engine comes from Avid, since the Video Engine is not native for our Mac Silicon CPU's.

I'm doing all my work on a MacBook Air M1 8GB, which I had a lot of issues with video over time, because Rosetta can't emulate the old code flawlessly and efficient.

What did work for me:
The most important aspect and it will improve video on every computer, especially M silicons, is to set the video Track from Frames to Blocks. This helps because the video engine is not properly optimised and generating thumbnails kills the emulation so hard. So once I did that, I didn't had to do any workarounds anymore, and could work with very compressed H.264, not wasting any time converting video and wasting lots GBs just to have it "work"

The work arounds I did until I moved from frames to blocks, was to convert videos in DNxHR / DNxHD and using Clean Ram function from Clean My Mac, which would had solve the hiccups for another 30min or so, just so I can get my project done.

Hope this reply helps everyone reading it.

Sorry but I strongly disagree. Running in Rosetta has nothing to do with video engine performance. Its always been a mess but with a clean PT install it works for me and plenty of other people all day every day. Blocks view has always been preferable for performance (frames is useless IMO anyway).

AVE has always been a huge memory hog with latent performance and very questionable compatibility with all but the most basic formats. I'd love to see some of that change with an AS native version but I'm not optimistic.

[Eric Lambert]

Originally Posted by smurfyou

Sorry but I strongly disagree. Running in Rosetta has nothing to do with video engine performance. Its always been a mess but with a clean PT install it works for me and plenty of other people all day every day.

True, but that cuts to the core of the topic. You (and me) and others who aren't seeing issues very likely use consistent media types and have their sessions set up in consistent ways, ways that don't piss off the video engine. Because we don't have issues doesn't mean there isn't an issue with the engine -- their clearly is.

So the best we can do is try to figure out exactly what formats and settings are best, and worst, for the video engine. Which I think we've done to a large extent.

The hardware and the software are identical for everyone at inception, but it's what we do after installation and setup that creates most issues, assuming there isn't hardware failure or software corruption. Working through the proper setups typically helps the OP.

[its2loud]

we are five years into the Apple Silicon game. It's time that Avid stepped up and made the Video Engine silicon native. That's all I have to say about that. Needing to run that engine under Rosetta is giant boat anchor for Pro Tools.

[Eric Lambert]

Originally Posted by its2loud

we are five years into the Apple Silicon game. It's time that Avid stepped up and made the Video Engine silicon native. That's all I have to say about that. Needing to run that engine under Rosetta is giant boat anchor for Pro Tools.

It's the irony that kills me. If it were Broderbund's Print Shop from 1987 I'd understand but this is one of the top *video* companies in the industry. Of all developers you'd expect them to jump forward sooner than most, if not first.

Someone said that Avid Composer was only recently updated to Silicon so that's a good sign. But again, "only recently?!?!" When did Final Cut and Adobe Premiere become Silicon compatible?

[its2loud]

Originally Posted by Eric Lambert

Someone said that Avid Composer was only recently updated to Silicon so that's a good sign. But again, "only recently?!?!" When did Final Cut and Adobe Premiere become Silicon compatible?

Yep, MC became Silicon Native with MC 2024.12. However, I can't seem to find anywhere if the underlying video engine is as well. Hopefully, this means we'll be seeing some video engine improvements soon inside PT.

[smurfyou]

Originally Posted by Eric Lambert

True, but that cuts to the core of the topic. You (and me) and others who aren't seeing issues very likely use consistent media types and have their sessions set up in consistent ways, ways that don't piss off the video engine. Because we don't have issues doesn't mean there isn't an issue with the engine -- their clearly is.

So the best we can do is try to figure out exactly what formats and settings are best, and worst, for the video engine. Which I think we've done to a large extent.

The hardware and the software are identical for everyone at inception, but it's what we do after installation and setup that creates most issues, assuming there isn't hardware failure or software corruption. Working through the proper setups typically helps the OP.

I agree, I listed some of the many problems with AVE . I hate it. But it was plenty problematic on Intel systems too.

[Eric Lambert]

I've always wondered how much real damage Rosetta is doing to AVE. We all know that Silicon native would be ideal, but is its running under Rosetta actually contributing to these errors? I've assumed so, but when just now thinking about it a bit deeper I'm not so sure exactly how that would be happening.

[Alex H.]

Well, back to square 1. The video engine just won't play at all anymore.

Opening any existing session, the video file is missing. When I try to re-link, it won't let me confirm the link.

If I delete the video track altogether, and re-import video, it gives me the "codec no longer supported" error. Then, shutting down PT, I get the
"video engine failed and will re-initialize" error.

And yes, I installed the codec packages.

Dead in the water here.

[Frank Kruse]

Not much help but...
the ancient LE codecs are not needed for ProTools anymore since the AVID video engine was integrated years ago (10 years? Can't remember). They do nothing for ProTools. They were needed for the QT engine that PT has not used for many years.