Persistent Video Engine Errors

[Alex H.]

Originally Posted by audiobob

IMO, until Avid gets the video engine working natively under M-x....I think we'll still have these issues. Just my thoughts.

Ugh…

[Eric Lambert]

There are a lot of threads about this -- it's an ongoing issue. I just added to a recent thread that although I've been plagued with these faults for years I'm very rarely seeing them these days.

I use an applet I'd created in FF Works to convert to DNxHD (I don't remember the specs but could look them up) and video has been smooth in PT. I don't know if it's because of the method used for conversion or fixes within PT and/or the OS, or maybe all of the above.

Some of the guys in my company use Shutter Encoder and they've been happy. It's a free app made by an editor who's very good about keeping it updated and current.

We don't know if this is part of the issue but the Avid video engine is still Intel. We don't know why it's taking so long to make the jump to hyperspace.

[Alex H.]

Thanks. Downloaded Shutter Encoder and converted the video.

Now, I'm back to hitting iLok authorization issues with Pro Tools. "This software cannot be run because the activation experience thinks the authorization was found, but the wrapper could not verify it."

[Alex H.]

Okay, so...

Got PT to launch after popping out and reinserting my iLok several times.

After downloading Shutter Encoder and re-encoding the video to DNxHD 36, launching the session, deleting the video track, and trying to import the new video... same "missing codec" error.

PT then paused trying to shut down. "Video Engine had an unrecoverable error and will now reinitialize."

Now, PT will not relaunch at all due to the same "wrapper could not verify it".

Rinse, repeat.

FML.

[audiobob]

Just spitballing...but have you installed the Apple Pro Video Formats?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/106396

[OpiZA]

Honestly at this point do the best thing for yourself and ditch the avid video engine and invest in VideoSync 6.

Is it a few more clicks to add to the top of your production? Yes.
Is life better when you don’t have to deal with the Avid Video Engine? Unquestionably yes.

Edit. I see you’re on studio. So I don’t think you can use satellite. I’ve never used it with MIDI so YMMV. Grab a trial

[its2loud]

I think the fact that you migrated this system is what's causing these issues for you. At this point, you should resort to doing a clean install on the machine. It's unfortunate but you'll be happy in the long run.

[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.

[Alex H.]

Originally Posted by its2loud

I think the fact that you migrated this system is what's causing these issues for you. At this point, you should resort to doing a clean install on the machine. It's unfortunate but you'll be happy in the long run.

I’d suspected that since the beginning. Did the whole OS reset and fresh re-installs yesterday, and it seems to have resolved the issues. What a massive PITA.

[Alex H.]

Originally Posted by AlexandruMateescu

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"

If the video engine issues pop up again, I’ll definitely give that a try. Thanks.