Video Playback and Exporting

[axolotl]

Thank you Airon, and everybody else in this thread to contribute for solving issues with video.

I have now ("kind of") make it work little better. I have re-installed both quicktime (not latest version) and also latest VLC (with codecs) and now I export to .mov with mp3 sound!

I suspect I must have missed (?) some codec before somewhere. Or maybe it has something to do that I have 2 versions of Reaper installed. Anyway, I am very grateful to have found this thread.

All the best
A.

[airon]

Could you please post a screen shot of the Video section of your preferences ?

The files I use have the same source properties that yours do.

Are you running your system as an administrator (I don't) ?

Are you using a somewhat new version of Quicktime ? The last two versions run just fine on my system (7.7.1 and 7.7.2) and gave me no trouble at all.

I'm also using MPEG Streamclip v1.2.1b5 (the latest beta) which works just fine.

Also, can you share the clip you're having trouble with (via PM if necessary) or a clip from the same source produced with the same encoding parameters ?

[Mwhlr]

Originally Posted by airon

Could you please post a screen shot of the Video section of your preferences ?

Hi there, airon. Here is the screenshot of my video preferences:



I am running as the computer administrator, I believe, and am using QT Lite 4.1.0.

I decided to try running the video through Stream Clip. Lo and behold, it has actually resolved the issue - The video runs a little smoother in Reaper and the render looks fine. HOWEVER, I now have another issue - When I render, the audio is slightly out of sync. I've tried the QT/MOV/MP4 formats and AVI, but to no avail so far.

[airon]

I recommend you keep the audio separate by using the "Export audio" function of Streamclip. Use 24-bit PCM audio if you can. When exporting the video, just use "No audio" in the encoding window.

Your video preferences are almost identical to mine. I simply use the snap offset as a reference for "Video window follows edits".

[Swamp Ape]

Okay, so I've read this thread thoroughly a couple of times and downloaded all the codecs, set up my video prefs according to Aeron's, and all that, and my rendered videos still look awful and sometimes won't play, even on VLC. I've tried every possible rendering option, messed with bitrate, resolution, buffer, all that, and across the board every render is pixellated to an unreasonable degree and I get occasional black flickers. Am I missing some simple step?

I've tried both HD video I shot myself, HD and low-D from youtube, and a montage of high-quality photos and no matter what they come out awful. As I'm rendering I can watch the videos and they look fine, but when I go to play it back on VLC, Winamp, or WMP i get the pixellation. Some variations even crash VLC or windows explorer, specifically the huffuv and other lossless codecs.

I'm on XP, and my computer's pretty old, but I've used Lightwave and rendered nice crisp video so I figured Reaper should be able to do this too. What am I doing wrong?

[airon]

Let's see a screenshot of your "Render" window setup. That'll tell us a lot.

What do you want to do with these resulting videos ? Upload them to Youtube ?

[Mwhlr]

Thank you, airon. I eventually fixed my problem.

[Swamp Ape]

Originally Posted by airon

Let's see a screenshot of your "Render" window setup. That'll tell us a lot.

What do you want to do with these resulting videos ? Upload them to Youtube ?

Well, as I said, I don't have a specific setup as I've tried every possible variation I could think of to try and get usable results. Here's one example though:


I have put a couple on Youtube but I don't have a specific goal in mind as of yet. I'm just experimenting, learning what Reaper can and can't do. I've used Lightworks as I said, but being able to synch video in Reaper along with the BPM of one of my own songs is just too awesome to pass up, if I can get it to work.

Weirdly, the one I made from still pictures, a kind of timelapse thing, got the worst results across the board even though the photos are hi-res. Every cut will start off looking pretty good and then dissolve into a mess of pixels before the next photo. I'll upload it to Youtube so you can see what I mean.

Thanks for the help.

[Swamp Ape]

Okay, here's a quick example using the settings above.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78kSk...ature=youtu.be

You can really see it in the first four seconds; the first frames of the first still are fine, but get progressively worse until the first cut. I really feel like there's some simple solution to this but so far I'm baffled.

[airon]

Originally Posted by Swamp Ape

Well, as I said, I don't have a specific setup as I've tried every possible variation I could think of to try and get usable results. Here's one example though:


I have put a couple on Youtube but I don't have a specific goal in mind as of yet. I'm just experimenting, learning what Reaper can and can't do. I've used Lightworks as I said, but being able to synch video in Reaper along with the BPM of one of my own songs is just too awesome to pass up, if I can get it to work.

Weirdly, the one I made from still pictures, a kind of timelapse thing, got the worst results across the board even though the photos are hi-res. Every cut will start off looking pretty good and then dissolve into a mess of pixels before the next photo. I'll upload it to Youtube so you can see what I mean.

Thanks for the help.

512 kbit for the video is not a lot, and XVID isn't exactly the most efficient tech either.

The "1xOffline" setting worries me as well. Try a different setup :

MKV for container (Youtube excepts this)
H264 for video codec
16-bit PCM for audio codec (no need to double-lossy-compress audio since Youtube transcodes everything anyway)

3000 kbit for video, and whatever you like for audio since it makes no difference on 16-bit PCM audio.

30 fps may be more compatible than 24 fps btw. Youtube often transcodes videos to 29.97 (or 30fps), though I haven't tested it in over a year. Be careful with that too.

"Full Speed Offline" should be chosen as well, since the video might not be encodable in real-time.





Alternately, you can use uncompressed AVI with PCM 16-bit audio and encode the video to a Quicktime H264 with AAC sound with the program MPEG Streamclip, which uses Quicktime itself for the encoding process. You can then use the codec settings recommended above as well.

[Swamp Ape]

h.264 either gives me blank screens or totally unusable files, even after re-installing the codec. What am I missing? neither of the lossless AVI codecs seem to work either. I guess I'll try re-installing all the codecs again, I must have done something wrong. This is so frustrating.

Edit: I finally got a nice-looking result with .mov format and 3000 bitrate. I'll experiment further and try to work out why h264 doesn't work for me but at least I am able to render usable stuff after days of trial and (mostly) error. Thanks a lot, Aeron, this thread is great. *whew*

[sam1]

Ive finally got Reaper to playback video a lot more smoothly than before, instead im using MP4 with a framrate of 25 fps which was transcoded from quicktime using handbrake.
However when it comes to rendering i have to use MJPEG video codec and that comes out really pixelated and nothing like the playback in reaper. What good video codec can sort this problem out?

EDIT: video format was avi.

[airon]

I need more information about the bitrate, frame size, frame rate and container format. It could very well be that the bitrate was just too low for what you chose to render to.

What will this video be used for ?

[sam1]

Originally Posted by airon

I need more information about the bitrate, frame size, frame rate and container format. It could very well be that the bitrate was just too low for what you chose to render to.

What will this video be used for ?

Sorry for the extremely late reply, it was the bitrate. Btw i am using AVI and the video codec is FFv1, not to sure what the recommended bitrate should be but i just put it to around 2000 and comes out alright.
I am using some video in college assignments.

Thanks for this thread, it really did help sort reaper out with video, even though it took countless trial and error tries.

[Nandhu Kartha]

Hi,

A little bit off topic question. But it deals with video,anyway.

In most of the DAW tips/tricks around the globe I have read that is better to keep dedicated drives for OS, audio and video. Reaper is different from the ones I've tried(Cubase,Protools), that it copies video files also, into the directory. I have enabled the option to copy all media files as I don't want to miss any audio file, later.

You know, high resolution video files are getting much bigger that they consume a lot of space. Is there any way 'not to copy' the video files?
Am I missing something?

Airon..?

[airon]

Updated the first post with a link to the new video mailing list, inspired by Cockos updating Reaper to work with the most recent FFMPEG libraries.


Nandhu Kartha, as far as I can tell, this setting to copy everything you import to the project directory has no separate setting for video.

Might be a good FR.

Got your join request too.

[Nandhu Kartha]

Hmmmmmm. Thank you Airon for the heads up.

[airon]

Good news.

Reaper v4.26 will be supporting the newest FFMPEG builds from

• Zeranoe
  
  
• Libav (binaries only for Windows AFAIK)
  
  
• Aegiscorp

I'll update the first post as soon as v4.26 is out. Until then you can grab the latest pre-release via the Pre-Release forum section and the FFMPEG build of your choice.

[agrajak]

OK, not urgent since I can do what I need by converting to MP4, but I'm curious: I actually can get a preview window from the main MOV file (dumb mistake on my part) but no waveforms. (?)

I already have the Aegis FFmpeg in the Reaper file, no difference with the 4.26 version. Tried using the Zeranoe stuff but Windows gets confused and doesn't know what to do with the download?

BTW, ran across your video thread, I'll do some homework there, very informative stuff. Cheers.

[airon]

You'll be using the DLL file from the "bin" directory from each of those binary packages.

I wouldn't trust Reaper with FFMPEG with audio from MP4 files at this time. It has always slightly delayed the audio (2108 samples at 44.1kHz so far). I determined this by decoding the AAC from the video with Quicktime itself(via MPEG Streamclip).

That audio was sample-accurately in sync with the original mix. The MP4 as Reaper displays and plays it is not. Glue the video item and you get delayed audio.

That's why it's always a good idea to extract and decode the audio of a video which is what Protools offers to do I'm sorry to say.

[hecksome]

I'm on a Mac, and have installed the ffmpeg.dylib plus all the dylib files from the folder named "ffmpeg-r25943-swscale-r32676-macosx64-shared"from this link: http://ffmpeg.arrozcru.org/autobuild...cosx64/shared/

When I play a video it freezes after a second. The same video plays fine in REAPER 32.

My video source properties are:
Length: 0:16.783
Video: 720x576@29.97fps, Aspect=1.00, Decoding format=YUY2
Audio: 48000Hz 2ch 16bps

Using Quicktime decoder (bridged)

Does the "using quicktime decoder (bridged)" line mean my ffmpeg plugin isn't working?

The instructions in this thread have said install the ffmpeg into: home>library>application support>reaper>userplugins

but my REAPER app support is here:
home>USERS>myusername>library>application support>repear>userplugins

Does that make a difference?

Also, the "use os video decoding instead of ffmpeg when possible" box is not checked.

[skatedoof]

I am still having a bit of trouble with video in reaper, although the performance has improved(I don't know much about video). I installed all of the .dll s and I ran the other installer. I have poor performance in terms of the video, not the audio. Help? Thanks.

[Fran Guidry]

In order for anyone to assist you'll need to provide some detailed information.

Use the mediainfo program to determine the characteristics of your source clips and post that info. http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en

Do a screen capture or write down the details on your render page and post that info.

And provide some specific information describing your problem. "Poor performance" is not enough to go on.

Fran

[skatedoof]

Length: 0:30.093
Video: 1280x720@29.97fps, Aspect=1.00, Decoding format=YV12
Audio: 44100Hz 2ch 16bps
Source properties:

Using FFmpeg DLL decoder v53.16.0
Video: vc1 (Advanced) (WVC1 / 0x31435657), yuv420p, 1280x720, 5942 kb/s
Audio: wmav2 (a[1][0][0] / 0x0161), 44100 Hz, 2 channels, s16, 192 kb/s

Loaded from: C:\Program Files\REAPER (x64)\avcodec-53.dll
FFmpeg configuration:
--disable-static
--enable-shared
--enable-gpl
--enable-version3
--enable-runtime-cpudetect
--enable-avisynth
--enable-bzlib
--enable-frei0r
--enable-libopencore-amrnb

By poor performance, i mean that the video skips and sometimes does not show at all, however the audio always plays.

[brockorama]

@skatedoof First post here. Hi I am a videographer and a musician. I will be scoring some video in Reaper soon.

Your video specs seem on the large side. Is that uncompressed HD 1280x720?

I will be compressing drastically to h.264 I expect, if I want to do any audio work in reaper. I am thinking 400x260 or similar.

I will export the audio from reaper seperate, and marry the audio and video back in adobe premiere for finished output.

On an older Q6600 quad here. Anyone have good tips for file types for import in reaper? Just need a solid playback for some scoring. I am loving reaper. Does it do video? Y or N?

Running win7 64 bit running reaper 64bit.

[Fran Guidry]

I regularly edit H.264 720/30 files in various containers - I just edited four tracks of MP4 from a GoPro HD Hero2, for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQIrH8f5ZMc I never saw a skip or pause as I hacked and copied and moved clips around. I'm running a Core 2 6600 2.4 ghz with 2 GB on Win 7 64.

I've also used the Zoom Q3HD .MOV 720/30 and the Sanyo Xacti HD2000 720/30 MP4 with equal success.

Fran

[brockorama]

Originally Posted by Fran Guidry

I regularly edit H.264 720/30 files in various containers - I just edited four tracks of MP4 from a GoPro HD Hero2, for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQIrH8f5ZMc I never saw a skip or pause as I hacked and copied and moved clips around. I'm running a Core 2 6600 2.4 ghz with 2 GB on Win 7 64.

I've also used the Zoom Q3HD .MOV 720/30 and the Sanyo Xacti HD2000 720/30 MP4 with equal success.

Fran

Fran, that is good to know I can just use a normal compression scheme. Is that 64 bit Reaper as well? I read about needing 64 bit ffdshow. Where are we at with the newest reaper 64 bit and video?

So, you are editing video in reaper Fran? I can't wait to give it a go. cheers!

[Fran Guidry]

Originally Posted by brockorama

Fran, that is good to know I can just use a normal compression scheme. Is that 64 bit Reaper as well? I read about needing 64 bit ffdshow. Where are we at with the newest reaper 64 bit and video?

So, you are editing video in reaper Fran? I can't wait to give it a go. cheers!

I use REAPER for video editing just for fun, if I need to do color correction or transitions or adjust framing or any other manipulation I use and love Edius. But doing a bare bones edit in REAPER is delightfully quick and easy.

I'm using REAPER 64 on Win 7 64 on the upstairs computer, the one with the Core 2 cpu. We just got an I7 laptop and so far I haven't gotten video in REAPER 64 working on that machine. I'm figuring it's an issue with the graphics card driver but I'm so far too lazy to start updating drivers since the rest of the machine works well. Instead I just run REAPER 32 on this machine.

Fran

[musicbynumbers]

Hi Guys,

Has anyone had the following problem on win 7 32bit reaper?

I'm using Airon's suggested build but I have certain video files that won't preview in reaper's media explorer but work once dragged onto the arrange window. It's very bizarre because I've tried converting them to all types of formats/changing names etc in streamclip but still show's it as blank yet other files with the same settings work fine in the preview bit. I haven't had time yet to ask for the company they came from to re-render but if this happens to lots of people here then maybe Christophe could take a look?

Here's the ffmpeg report on one of the files that doesn't work. Could it be a meta data thing?

Length: 0:01.833
Video: 832x464@30.00fps, Aspect=1.00, Decoding format=YV12


Using FFmpeg DLL decoder v53.16.0
Video: h264 (Main) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p, 832x464, 403 kb/s

Loaded from: C:\Program Files (x86)\REAPER\avcodec-53.dll
FFmpeg configuration:
--disable-static
--enable-shared
--enable-gpl
--enable-version3
--enable-runtime-cpudetect
--enable-avisynth
--enable-bzlib
--enable-frei0r
--enable-libopencore-amrnb
--enable-libopencore-amrwb

[airon]

Looks like you're using a rather old FFMPEG library. Have you tried the latest ?


I've just updated the first post with a LOT of new information, including alternate compiles of the FFMPEG libraries.

The OSX section has seen some updates as well. Go take a look on the first page.

[musicbynumbers]

Thanks Airon, I did try first with the ones that we're mostly version 54 instead of 53 but same problem. Will try your new links and see how I get on.

Something is causing massive crashes on the advert I'm working on now but not had time to see if it's video related although reaper without video is pretty darn stable without it.

Do you find less stability when working on video in Reaper?

[dimitris]

Hi Airon,

Thanks for the update, but I think the link for the Aegiscorp FFMPEG builds, on the updated initial post, is wrong. It points to the Zeranoe/32-bit ones.

Cheers,
Dimitris

[IXix]

Pardon my ignorance but what's the difference between Zeranoe, LibAV and Aegiscorp? How do I know which one to use?

[airon]

Originally Posted by dimitris

Hi Airon,

Thanks for the update, but I think the link for the Aegiscorp FFMPEG builds, on the updated initial post, is wrong. It points to the Zeranoe/32-bit ones.

Cheers,
Dimitris

Thanks. Fixed it.

Ixis, the LibAV ones are a fork of the original FFMPEG development. The new 1.0 of the FFMPEG release uses lots of fixes from that branch however.

Try Aegiscorp first. They seem to stick to stable builds of the normal FFMPEG dev branch. I haven't analyzed the performance of any of these libraries however.

[IXix]

Originally Posted by airon

the LibAV ones are a fork of the original FFMPEG development. The new 1.0 of the FFMPEG release uses lots of fixes from that branch however.

Try Aegiscorp first. They seem to stick to stable builds of the normal FFMPEG dev branch.

Thanks. Maybe you should include that info in the first post?

[John McNeill]

awesome thread! Thank to everyone

[semiquaver]

oh dear god I am losing my mind.

If I render video using FFmpeg and then insert it back in the timeline...

it has a different length. Quicktime player will say that it is 1:00 for example, but REAPER shows it as 58.01...

If I turn OS decoding ON then REAPER reports it at the correct length but... the video does not play back at the right speed

I have found that setting the playrate on the re-imported item to 0.976 gives the right speed.

on OSX

has anyone seen anything like this!!!!!

[Fran Guidry]

Sounds like a mismatch between 44.1 and 48 somewhere.

Fran

[luizdesimone]

Hello, everyone.

This is my first reply to a thread here in the forum. I tried to put it as a topic, but no one replied. I try here now because of the several helpful replies I found in this thread. I know that skilled people is aware. Hope you can help me on that.

I read this very awesome topic, full of tips and solutions and I felt confident to use video in REAPER in order to make one of the Berklee online courses (Film Scoring). They mention several DAWs in the requirements page, but REAPER wasn't there. I then sent a message to the Student Advisor asking about the possibility of using REAPER, if they have some advice to give me about it, etc. I got this answer:

"We don't recommend using REAPER for our Film Scoring. It doesn't have the video sync capabilities that are necessary for these courses. As far as I know, we haven't had students use REAPER successfully in those programs."

Do you think, forum fellows, that this guy is wrong (or not updated with the latest improvements in REAPER)? Do you believe that REAPER can deal with any type of situation regarding video sync, playback and export (considering that they use Quicktime as the video plataform for all the courses they offer)?

I purchased the license of REAPER and I don't intend to change my DAW now. The Berklee online course is not cheap and I'm afraid to enroll it and become unable to do all the assignements and exercises they propose. May I trust the video capabilities of REAPER?

Thank you all in advance!

[semiquaver]

Despite my difficulties above I have successfully scored several films professionally in REAPER.

Just to be clear my difficulties came from trying to use REAPER as a film editor i.e. exporting and reimporting video etc.

Just doing music for picture I found REAPER perfectly competent.