@sjmackinder

Hi.

In theory, in the past (Not too distant) we had some experimenting with Pro res 4:2:2 files with some success so it may just be the amount of audio channels that is the problem or something on your computer.

It is difficult to tell without supplying information either about the files in use or your computer specs. A short sample file put onto google drive or dropbox where the files are not altered would be a good start for conformation that VPX can't handle the files.

As was pointed out, (and my mistake) mov is a wrapper containing a codec which could be mp4, avc, or something else. I know from looking at the Black Magic website that you have the choice of their raw format or mov. How many of the audio channels do you use? What was the video wrapper the camera itself recording in before you got the BM VA 12G?

Ray.

I have provided Magix support with short example video files with 2 & 16 ch audio files. This initiated their response telling me the files were incompatible and are not supportec by ProX14 along with DNxHD files. Oddly enough I do seem to be able to import ProRes pxy 2ch video files but the timeline playback window is dreadful and not at all smooth. The camera files are fine as they are mp4 formats of one derivative or another. I only need 2 audio channels, I was opening up the number in an attempt to discover why the SDi input to the BM 12G had no audio present. Their other suggestion was to convert the ProRes or DNxHD files to MP4 prior to importing, yet another time consuming excersise if I can even find a suitable package to do this as they will probably have the same issue as VPX.

@sjmackinder

Hi.

It would useful to know the encoding method for the audio. Dolby Pro Digital for instance is not longer supported by a lot of NLEs due to a dispute with Dolby Labs that has withdrawn their product for use in the majority of editors.

I doubt Apple charge any manufacturer for its encoding wrapper as the more cameras that support Pro res, the more likely people will switch to using apple products for their editing.

vp09 is the open source equivalent but has not had so much of a take up so far. Why Android has not used it for use on phones is beyond me with them preferring HEVC but again that means having to pay for the codecs at the consumer end whereas there is no profit in using vp09.

Call me a cynic but I think that is the point of consumerism , for better or worse 😓.

Ray.

I have provided Magix support with short example video files with 2 & 16 ch audio files.

@sjmackinder Are you going to share a file as I & others have asked for?

my existing equipment even having spent £3500 on a top of the range DELL XPS9710.

@sjmackinder There's a few options with this machine so... would you go to your icon at the top, click it - My Profile, & fill in your Signature with your Magix version, Windows version & system specs, full name of CPU, GPU, & amount of RAM etc. this will then show at the bottom of the comments 

@sjmackinder

Hi

. . . . discover why the SDi input to the BM 12G had no audio present . . . .

Was there a recording level visible on the BM 12G?

Is the mixer SDI output and the BM 12 G input cable or fibre optic?

Do you have the audio as discrete audio files? If so then these could be imported into VPX and synced easily enough as VPX allows for displacement at sub frame level.

John EB

I have provided Magix support with short example video files with 2 & 16 ch audio files.

@sjmackinder Are you going to share a file as I & others have asked for?

I can do but wonder if anything will get resolved as I am a lowly technician with no corporate clout and Magix have already stated that they will not support ProRes or DNxHD

I am curentlu logged on with my HP Win8 machine so I would have to shut down and start the Dell XPS, not a problem at all though but not sure how to get all the tech details of the Win11 machine as asked for

The 12G had audio levels showing as I ended up using the HDMi route because for whatever reason the SDi did not have audio levels showing, yet to find out why

The SDi signal was via Cable from my Roland V60HD. There are no discrete audio files as I did not use a separate audio input and ProX14 sees no audio in the 16ch stream at all.

@sjmackinder

Hi

To get the basic system information about your system, you can use what’s already built into Windows 11. To get started, head to Start > Settings > System > About.

Here you will find basic device specs like CPU, installed RAM, system type, and version of Windows 11

For graphics card, press Ctrl,alt,+del then click task manager, performance, Gpu.

Stephen

Forum Moderator

@sjmackinder

Hi

. . . . ProX14 sees no audio in the 16ch stream at all . . . .

As we have asked before, a sample file about 10 - 15 seconds long and of the same format would help, can be of anything that is not private/confidential, so long as the audio shows the same issue in VPX 14.

John EB

https://www.mediafire.com/file/9yjy94aw2q0sqdk/Video_Assist_16ch_audio.mov/file

https://www.mediafire.com/file/v2hqqchgo3rpnre/Video_Assist_2ch_audio.mov/file

Not sure how to upload files on this forum so here above are a couple of links I use for remote client access

11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-11900H @ 2.50GHz   2.50 GHz

32.0 GB (31.7 GB usable)

64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Windows 11 Home

GPU Intel(R) UHD graphics

@sjmackinder

Hi

Thanks for the sample files I have been experimenting with them and find the following (Quicktime is installed) for both the 2 ch and 16 ch clips:

• Audio is present in channel 1 and is standard PCM 24 bit little endian.
   
• VPX 14 - as you are getting, no audio, no restoration of sound is possible. VPX 14 does use Quicktime as I have other MOV files that do import when QT is installed and don't when not.
   
• Movie Edit Pro 2016 (I do not have an older version of VPX installed) - both video and audio import.
   
• Handbrake conversion of the 16 ch file to h.264, with audio pass through, to mkv file format - the audio is 'converted' to AC 3 surround sound format (???) with 6 channels present -  L, R, C, LFE, Ls and Rs - and imports OK into VPX 14 - audio is only in channel 1 (L + R)
   
• Magix Video Sound Cleaning Lab (old v20.x.x.xx) - both video and audio are present and I can extract the audio to another file format eg WAV.

As you can see there is some consistency in that older programs do open the files correctly, and, there are 2 workarounds to get a file format that contains the audio and will import into VPX 14 or extract the audio to another audio file format.

John EB

Hi.

Both files play smoothly back on my system. Video portions only. It does not see the audio at all.

I personally think the Tiger Lakes' GPU is also probably struggling a bit without the help of an additional GPU. Although the files are small they need a lot of grunt to decompress the codec in real time for the editor.

VLC media player of course plays the files with audio but Windows players can't again reinforcing it is not a recognised Windows codec. You could play this on an Apple product without the need for a third party player.

Then again Apple products can't play a lot of YouTube content encoded to vp09 but that is because Apple choose not to support a competing codec. Not because it is not available to them.

I think I have the correct Intel inboard GPU showing in this graph showing comparative performance.

Only Macs so far do not need third party graphics cards to play such highly compressed video without problems.

The lack of sound could be down to the files not showing any fps for the sound at all. Of that I'm not sure but it's unusual and the audio is PCM and the amount of audio channels seem to be correctly read as well as the bit and sample rate by the program even though it thinks they are devoid of any content. This is purely down to Apple. They could easily change the way they encode the audio but want people to only be able to access their codecs on their products or charge Microsoft for the ability to incorporate it into their codec packages.

I don't know if anyone on the forums has DaVinci Resolve to try the files out. I would also like an answer to this.

Your file data from the 16 channel clip. Only the amount of audio channels showing varies from one clip to the other.

General
Complete name                            : C:\Users\Ray\Downloads\Video Assist 16ch audio.mov
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : QuickTime
Codec ID                                 : qt   2005.03 (qt  )
File size                                : 37.3 MiB
Duration                                 : 3 s 320 ms
Overall bit rate mode                    : Constant
Overall bit rate                         : 94.2 Mb/s
Encoded date                             : UTC 2022-06-27 19:15:13
Tagged date                              : UTC 2022-06-27 19:15:13
Writing library                          : Apple QuickTime
com.apple.proapps.reel                   : 1
com.apple.proapps.scene                  : 1
com.apple.proapps.shot                   : 99
com.blackmagic-design.camera.environment : interior
com.blackmagic-design.camera.dayNight    : day
com.apple.proapps.cameraName             : A
com.blackmagic-design.camera.dateRecorde : 20220627

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : ProRes
Format version                           : Version 0
Format profile                           : 422 Proxy
Codec ID                                 : apco
Duration                                 : 3 s 320 ms
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 75.7 Mb/s
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 50.000 FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:2
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.730
Stream size                              : 30.0 MiB (80%)
Writing library                          : bmd0
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : UTC 2022-06-27 19:15:13
Tagged date                              : UTC 2022-06-27 19:15:13
Color primaries                          : BT.709
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : PCM
Format settings                          : Little / Signed
Codec ID                                 : lpcm
Duration                                 : 3 s 320 ms
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 18.4 Mb/s
Channel(s)                               : 16 channels
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Bit depth                                : 24 bits
Stream size                              : 7.29 MiB (20%)
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : UTC 2022-06-27 19:15:13
Tagged date                              : UTC 2022-06-27 19:15:13

Also not sure why it says 4:2:2 Proxy.

Ray.

@johnebaker

Hi John.

I have QuickTime installed but can't get any audio in VPX 12.

Ray.

Hi, I've got to work so i'll be brief, just for the record i tried these files last night, MEP only showed video no audio, but Vegas showed this,

for the 2ch it'd have to be duplicated & Left or Right chosen for each copy

I tried Hitfilm Pro, both files played but on the timeline only one audio track, i didn't look to see if it was stereo,

& i only have Free Resolve.

Considering buying VPX14 but it looks like you know the answer to that program n these files.

@sjmackinder @Former user

Thanks for that Gid.

It does then look like, for additional file support you have to go from Magix VPX to Vegas Edit Pro to get the additional support for those Pro Res files but there is also additional support for the Black Magic RAW as well.

Now why couldn't Magix support have told you that?

Now we at least know those Pro Res files can be edited on the Windows platform. At least in the 2 channel form for certain.

It may be possible to upgrade or cross-grade from VPX to Vegas Edit Pro at a reduced cost and that may get to also keep your current copy of VPX. Just try using the upgrade path on the website to find out the cost.

However Vegas Edit Pro may need additional help in the form of a separate GPU for the best performance at this level of editing. Gids system is one of the most powerful systems out of the users on this forum and even his system sometimes struggles with his full copy of Vegas Pro

Also the program is a different learning curve again.

It worries me that you only mentioned having an Intel GPU in your processor which when handling any editing in a video editor will be pushing its limits when handling codecs capable of extreme compression of video data.

DaVinci Resolve may work better on your system than Vegas will. It relies more on CPU grunt than GPUs although it still uses both. I would try that first to see. If it doesn't work in the free version of Resolve but only in the paid for version, then the Vegas option would then be the cheaper alternative.

Ray.

Thank you everyone for your extensive help with all this. I seem to be lucky at present in that VPX14 will import ProRes pxy files albeit with a glitchy timeline playback monitor although the final export exhibits no issues at mp4. I will just have to avoid switching my BM 12G to multi channel audio, that reminds me I must find out why I had no audio on my V60HD at SDi but no issues via HDMi. I had better see how the V160 behaves as well.

I have tried Resolve Free version and this is fine for file handling ProRes from the BM, very different platform though, quite daunting enough to put me off paying £294 for the studio version

@sjmackinder

Hi.

The exports should be fine as they do not happen in real time. The glitchiness of the playback is just the amount of graphics processing needed to play back such a compressed file in real time is much more than say using a straight MP4 file. Try changing the program setting in VPX.

(folder path within VPX is File / Settings / Program / Device options)

In the Hardware acceleration box beneath , Import Processing and Export should all be set to the Intel GPU when you look at it. Change Import to CPU then save.

See if that helps improve playback performance for your machine as it should take some of the strain away from the Intel GPU and there should be enough additional grunt on that CPU to cope.

Ray.