Video Issue: "..could not be read ..." HELP!!

[chris vine]

[Colonel_Bo]

I am using Ableton (10.1.9) with K-Lite Codec and FFDShow to work with video files, but suddenly videos can't be loaded anymore. A message states: "The file could not be read. It may be corrupt or not licensed". But the very same project worked just fine a few weeks ago. It definetly had no issues before Feb 11th, which was the last time I used Ableton with video (mov using Photo JPEG). Looks like on Feb 24th some Ableton files, including "Ableton Live 10 Suite.exe" were updated.
I already un- and reinstalled K-Lite AND FFDShow, both with default settings and with no adjustments. No success yet.
Anyone any ideas?

[Dave Human]

If anyone's still struggling with this, all I had to do was install the Haali media splitter and bingo!
https://haali.su/mkv/

Basically, I followed the advice in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn0-19IZYns

[Colonel_Bo]

I tried that too. Did not work for me though.
I am currently testing with K-Lite again. It seems like Ableton does not trigger DirectShow, when I load a mov (Photo JPEG) in the DAW. If I open the same video file on its own in Windows, using the Media Player Classic, the LAV splitter, LAV audio decoder and LAV video decoder pop up in the tray (K-Lite default installation). But in Ableton the splitter does not even react to the mov video file. If I load a avi or mp4 file in Ableton, the LAV Splitter and its decoders load instantly. So it seems to me, that Ableton is failing to trigger DirectShow for whatever reason, only when I use a mov. I also repaired Ableton (running the latest installation file) and it didn't change anything.
I already used a registry cleaner to get rid of leftover codec bits and removed some haali entries by hand and lo and behold my system is still running. And I tested older versions of K-Lite. Yet no progress with ableton + mov.

[Colonel_Bo]

I did a fresh install of Windows 10, installed the K-Lite Codec Mega Pack and it still did not work with the same files, that had worked a month ago. I can't even get mp4 to work anymore. I uninstalled the K-Lite Codec Pack and installed the CCCP, which did not help either.
But I found a workaround for now: I use MPEG Streamclip to convert the mov/Photo JPEG to avi. In the avi container I tested "Apple Photo - JPEG" and "Apple Motion JPEG A" as video codec and MPEG Layer 3 as audio codec. Both seam to work fine so far. Videos can be imported into Ableton without any error messages. Performance of video playback also seams good so far. No sluggishness.
I still use the CCCP but I guess the workaround might work as well with the K-Lite Codec Pack.
Tip: files in avi/Apple Motion JPEG A format result in a 80% smaller files compared to avi/Photo JPEG.
I still can't open old projects containing mov/Photo JPEG videos, but at least I can continue working

[Kie.music]

Is this because of a windows update? I had my codec working with CCCP but similar to others my past projects show corrupted files and my current projects can not read the video files. I have double checked they are h.264 so I am sure this is a problem with the codec but I am at a loss for how to fix it.

[Colonel_Bo]

Is it an option to convert the video files? As I wrote, I converted the video of my current project with MPEG Streamclip, as a workaround. (check my post from before)

[Clexxx]

hey guys.
I have the exact same problem as you guys. The CCCP worked for a while for me but stooped somewhere around last month.
Went back to ffdshow and haali, which worked for a few days, but now live crashes on import.
Will try out k-lite again (did that way before) and the reaper re-wire solution.

It's a freaking mess to have the greatest sound design DAW (imo) with such a poor video support.

Edit:
Tried the reaper solution - works but only problem is that whenever i hit pause (SPACE) in Ableton, Reaper jumps back to the starting point and not the actual frame where I left off, which sucks if you want to do audio for certain frames. Furthermore it just sucks to setup everytime.

Tried the k-lite again. works for now. still get crashes now and then.

If everything fails I#ll try out a plugin called VidPlayVst
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIGnReGz_XE

Looks super ugly but if it works, I'll definitely buy it. Once again: It's a damn shame that Ableton made this awesome music and sound design DAW and just can't do the video function right. Coming from a Mac system to Windows I was so confused why I had to setup all these stupid codecs and stuff. Also every other DAW like Cubase or Reaper has figured it out. It can't be that hard, can it?

[Monsterboy]

I have gone through all of these steps looking for an answer to this issue. I regularly used video in our live performances, and around the time this post was made, all of the videos in my library are 'corrupted or not licensed'. I hope someone at Ableton takes notice of this and helps to sort this out.

[Hunterwolf]

same problem here... it's driving me crazy... I used video in Ableton til 2 months ago...

[[jur]]

same problem here... it's driving me crazy... I used video in Ableton til 2 months ago...

What did you update since then? Your graphics driver? Windows? Live?
Did you read this Help article?

[strykekyte]

Count me in as a VERY dissatisfied new Ableton Live 10 Standard owner.

The comparison list showed that Lite was not supporting video but that Standard did, and since I need to score a video right now and I am familiar with Ableton Lite I thought it was a no-brainer to upgrade and get video support instead of moving to Reaper. Keep it in the family I thought lets just stick with Ableton.

After trying for hours to get it working and blaming myself, I found this thread. And I have to say I am absolutely shocked that Ableton Live 10 64bit Standard DOES NOT support video import as of now.

I feel betrayed, and I would expect immediate attention to this as it amounts to false advertising.

This has been an issue since 2017?

Unbelievable.

[carrieres]

i switched from dedicated to integrated graphics and it worked
https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... ring=video

[haven]

I just went through this with Live 64 10.1.14 on Windows 10... after my second codec pack install, repeated transcodes with Handbrake to various formats and running Live as administrator I gave up.

Installed Reaper, spent a bit of time learning my way around and now I am editing audio with video. Bonus for those who miss the linear editing experience of ProTools, Reaper supports TimeCode and ripple edit.

[pottering]

Here it worked after I installed K-Lite, then the Matroska (Haali) demuxer then set Live directly in the GPU driver (nvidia in my case) to force use only Integrated (not Auto) .

The tricky steps are:

1- The Matroska (Haali) demuxer supposedly already comes with K-Lite already, so I always skipped it. Took me a while to try installing something that was already installed with K-Lite. But yeah, you got to install it after K-lite, even though the codec pack already installs it. The one inside K-Lite doesn't work for some reason.

2- The Nvidia driver offers 2 options named "integrated", one is simply "Integrated", another is something like "Auto (Integrated)". It is gotta be "Integrated", the Auto one doesn't work.

https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... ecswindows

So, IMO, after steps 1-4 in the link above, Step 5 - Install Haali Media Splitter (also known as MatroskaSplitter), Step 6 - Go DIRECTLY to your GPU driver Options (not run options or Live icon or whatever) and set it to FORCE Live to ALWAYS use of Integrated Graphics (not any auto option).

[EDIT 2020-07: Seems some Windows 10 updates break the codecs... I had to re-install the MatroskaSplitter after I recently updated Windows 10 to the 2004 version...]