The 9.0.3 new video engine seems a serious downgrade.

Hi all, 9.0.3 upgrade was flawless on my Win7 setup.

New video engine seems to be integrated as there are no more child video processes running alongside Cubase. (Decode, etc…)

Good, but:

  1. Cubase wasn’t able to extract any audio from video importation (ticked in preferences)! Got only blank audio tracks.

Tried with dozens of files H.264 720p 25-30fps Mov or Mp4 container all with Mpeg AAC audio codec, witch seems to be the most common.
All those files where perfectly importing with audio into 8.5 and 9.0.2 thru the Quicktime engine.
Old projects, with already extracted audio, worked fine.

So at least, video (H.264) is playing but…

  1. It’s a CPU hog!

Simply toggling F8 (Any window size) while playing shows a huge 20-25% CPU overload or release in task manager on my I7 3770@3.4 (720p video!)
This is even more obvious when testing an empty project containing solely the video file.
Same videos playing within Cubase 8.5 (QuickTime) gives me 5% CPU usage on the same machine.

Reading the forum, I don’t feel to be the only one. Please report your experience.

Is the new video engine really such less capable (and eating 4-5 times more CPU) than the old one?

Come on, what are you doing Steinberg?

I think it has to do with security issues on the Quicktime stuff…

Here’s one statement from Steinberg on the matter:

Many applications out there (not just Steinberg stuff) have been forced to put together some other option, or their users are at high security risk.

I’m not aware of the full story, but I gather Apple backed a lot of folks in the software business into a corner…they’ve decided to pull support for Quicktime on the Windows platform.

If waiting for the new engine to be optimized and features added isn’t an option, one can run the video in a plugin like VidPlayVST until the new engine is up to the task.

Muxing and Demuxing [extracting/packing a/v streams into a video format container without transcoding] isn’t a big deal these days with free utilities like ffmpeg. It’s a command line utility, but there are numerous Graphical based shells out there for folks who hate the good ole command line. Xmedia Recode is one example of a free package that includes ffmpeg and a GUI for it.

Sorry, I do realize work-arounds are not a proper fix, but that’s where we stand for now.

@Brian, thanks for those links!

@igbro, I feel your pain. I’m not surprised that the video engine is half-baked though.

My guess is that it rather quickly be a fix for audio left out - or is the separate function to extract audio from video working?

Performance - it will probably take a while to fix. Since video engine was said to be ready already Q1 - and they waited for licensing stuff only until Nuendo 8 in june - one wonders how this was tested.

Last fall looking at video editors - Premiere Elements 15, Nero Video 2017 and PowerDirector 15 all removed quicktime requirement for most formats by then. And this VidPlayVst run fine without quicktime.

And both PowerDirector and Nero Video at least are very cpu efficient, as is the VidPlayVst plugin. Premiere a little more heavy.
So there seem not to be all due to there is no efficient player code out there.

Corel with VideoStudio and Pinnacle had not removed quicktime requirement then. Then they release v10 - don’t know if they attended to that.

Magix Vegas - no idea if they bothered with this. Magix are not the fastest on maintenance overall - most stuff is at least 16-18 months lead time before fixed. Don’t know if that time has passed since Magix bought all the Sony stuff.

Think it’s time for vacations in germany now - so Steinberg might be gone for a month or so…they could have left everybody with a choice, a setting, to use quicktime still for those more dependent on it. It’s not usable with this cpu consumption - at least the internal player.

One would think so…it probably was a difficult decision to make on how to handle the .30 release. Offering the option to keep the old engine and the the other updates…or…release something less than mature now and get feedback for the next release…or wait longer and face other sorts of problems…etc.

These days so much of those sorts of decisions are tied up with legal matters, while also being sorted with a lot of finite math (probabilities equations). I.E. The odds and percentages of CuBase pro users likely to actually use the Video engine. They have data on DAW sales…various sorts of consumer patterns and tolerance levels, etc. Pro studios typically test releases in an isolated bed somehow before implementing them in mission critical settings, etc…so I guess they do alot of risk assessment math and roll some dice.

I feel the pain, but over my lifetime there’s never been a technical utopia…especially for the home user who always runs a risk of losing productivity during and after an update/grade. To those ends, I learned some time ago to keep different clones of the whole system drive on a swappable caddy, or in a multi-boot scenario…that way I can try stuff out, and rolling back is as simple as changing a hard drive or booting form a different partition.

Steinberg has been releasing updates earlier than usual. I think it’s likely that they’re planning to release a .40 update or maybe even a .50 with some additional video engine improvements.

I am having the VERY same issues as #1 above. extracting audio from video gives me ‘empty’ wave file as well. :frowning: Other suggestions to even use this new vid engine - otherwise it’s back to 8.5 (bummer - I actually liked C9.0.2 - now this ‘step back’.)

Thanks guys.

I don’t think I’ll pay extra money to compensate their lack with an external player.

Used to use this free player long time ago: new pvst beta (updated 07-Jul-2022) - buzz forums
Will give it another try…

Maybe they’ll quickly fix this beta thing but the problem is the meaning of “quickly” at Steinberg’s house witch is not reactive anymore.
I doubt they’ll fix it before 9.5 which we’ll have to pay for.

I’m a early Cubase lover and pro user on daily basis since the Atari times (so that’s V1.0 on 2 floppy disks) that’s why I’m upset with the actual direction this company, which has been the leader in creativity and innovation in this market, is pointing to.

Im deeply saddened.

I havent yet paid attention to the cpu consumption… because i’m still stuck at the extract audio functionnot working.

I use Cubase everyday for 8 hours a day… and scoring to video is my main profession… if this ultra basic feature is non existent, its a sad day for guys like me.

Working around it right now by using cubase 8.5 to extract audio and then importing track from project into cubase 9. What an unneccesary addition to workflow complexity.

I refuse to pay extra bucks to get vidplay vst.

Really pray that Steinberg fixes this fast.

:frowning:

Just thinking if this vid issue on importing audio is happening with our Nuendo/Cubendo brothers and sisters…they have to be close to torches and pitchforks by now. :frowning:

Hi out of curiosity, is there anyone having this issue who is not on Windows 7?
rsp

Great question Richard.

I see one user has 7 and 8.
@beanstalk40 does it happen on both of your machines?
rsp

Dont know about WIN 8… havent used my laptop yet for this…

Ok if you get a chance, would appreciate it to see if it is just a WIN7 thing.
rsp

Same here win 7 ,even video files that played fine before are not responsive like it use to be…I’m curious about decklink users,how video is handled by the card?

Not being able to extract audio is a Windows 7-only issue at the moment. Steinberg says that they’re working on a fix:

For now you’ll have to use free tools to extract audio from video files, but at least you don’t have to worry about Quicktime leaving your computer unsafe anymore.

Ahh indeed… another work around is if you have 8.5 installed you can use that to import video. Save the project and then open that project in Cubase 9.
rsp

I’m thinking… can’t you just extract the audio from the video file using VLC? That should be the easiest workaround for now.

60 fps content doesn’t play at 60 fps and drops frames on my system, especially when in full screen.