Import video file

Hi seablade,

unfortunately nothing in the log.

Best

What else can I do to help diagnose the problem?

Best
Drazen

Unfortunately because I don’t run Windows it is hard for me to diagnose the problem. Typically when you import a video, it is reencoded for Jadeo to use and placed in your session folder. Assuming this holds true on Windows, you might want to check that video to see if it is also black.

        Seablade

Hi seablade,
thanks for help… I will try that

Best
Drazen

Here’s a zip file which contains an mp4 video:- http://www.avtoolkit.co.uk/videoplayback.zip

If you unzip it you should end up with a file called videoplayback[2].mp4

This morning I installed xjadeo and harvid and I was able to see the video (and play it okay) in Ardour, running under Windows 8.1.

What’s interesting though is that I couldn’t make it work with Mixbus. I tried loading it in Mixbus (with the exact same copy of Win8.1, running on the exact same machine with the exact same copies of xjadeo and harvid). But any attempt to load that video in Mixbus would crash xjadeo !

Go figure…

I’m not sure how to add a screenshot to a post here so I’ll have to describe this verbally. After a re-boot I can now reproduce Drazen’s problem and I noticed something interesting…

I open a session, then select ‘Session->Import video…’. A dialog window appears with the title:- “Transcode/Import Video File”. The topmost field in that dialog is called “Output file”

Previously (when this was working) that field would contain a pathname for the imported video file - but after a re-boot, that box is now invariably empty :frowning:

A little further down, there’s a field called “Import Settings”. Earlier this morning, that field was saying something like “Import/Transcode Video File”. But after re-booting it now invariably says “Do Not Import Video” and if I continue, I just get an empty video timeline! My guess is that this explains Drazen’s problem.

FWIW I’m not seeing any difference here between Windows 7 or Windows 8.1

I guess Robin needs to come here and see if he can shed any light on this…

Any chance an update installed to your Windows between working and not?

         Seablade

Just checked the Windows Update history and my last update was yesterday (an update to Microsoft Security Essentials)

I’ve found out where (in the code) this is going wrong…

gtk2_ardour contains a file called ‘transcode_video_dialog.cc’. Line 133 has a section of code which looks like this:-

if (w > 0 && h > 0 && transcoder->get_fps() > 0 && transcoder->get_duration() > 0) {
ffok = true;
}

What’s happening is that on Windows, the calls to ‘transcoder->get_fps()’ and 'transcoder->get_duration()'almost always return zero. I’ve no idea why it’s happening though (my guess would be a problem with the ffmpeg module on Windows).

Is there a bug report about this anywhere? If so, I’ll add my observations.

Some more information in case it’s useful…

  1. Launch Ardour and open a session
  2. Press the green dot which opens the Ardour Log window
    3a) Select 'Session->Open Video…"
    3b) The above produces an error in the error log (HTTP request failed: (7) couldn’t connect to host)
    3c) A dialog box opens (sometimes) which shows a path to Harvid (which is the correct path)
    4a) Continue by pressing ‘OK’. This launches Harvid (as can be seen in Windows Task Manager)
    4c) A dialog window appears entitled “Set Video Track”
    4d) Any attempt to select a video file produces a new error in the error log (HTTP request status: 404)
  3. Pressing ‘OK’ then produces the (incomplete) Transcode/Import dialog that I reported 3 posts ago.

On both my machines (Win7 and Win8.1) this worked fine the very first time I installed Harvid and xjadeo - but after re-booting, it’s never worked since… :frowning:

Finally, it doesn’t make any difference whether I launch Ardour as an administrator or as a normal user.

One extra bit of information…

If I select the option to send ffmpeg’s output to stdout I see this output when I select my video file at step 4d):-

image preview request failed http://127.0.0.1:1554/?sample=0&w=240&h=135i&file=F%3A%2Fvideoplayback[2].mp4&format=rgb

What’s strange though is that the file’s video information (frame rate / aspect ratio etc) do get printed in their relevant fields at the RHS of that dialog.

Let me know if there’s an existing bug report about this and I’ll transfer my findings over there.

And finally…

The actual error comes from this call at line 217 in ‘gtk2_ardour/ardour_http.cc’ :-

cc = curl_easy_getinfo (_curl, CURLINFO_RESPONSE_CODE, &_status);

Earlier I thought I saw error 404 but what I seem to be seeing now is error 400 (Bad Request Status)

Hope that helps . . .

Bug report filed:-

http://tracker.ardour.org/view.php?id=7544

Seems to be fixed now (25th Jan 2018)

I just wanted to add that I had the same problem on Windows 10 with Ardour 8. I noticed that video path had included non-standard things such as double underscores.

Importing audio from the same directory worked without issues, so it is likely an issue with the video-related code / libraries. Apparently, the code originally developed for Unix-style OSses has trouble with certain characters or chacter sequences in file paths on Windows.

The workaround that did it for me was to put the video file into a different directory and open it from there.

1 Like

I also want to mention that the diacritic letters like Ä or ą in the video path are also non-standard. This is just a Windows issue, as MacOS and Linux work properly.
https://tracker.ardour.org/view.php?id=9675

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