Help with Live 11 and 10 crashing/hanging when working with long video track

[therealthing89]

Ableton + Video = Bad

Ha, I've read that before, so I get where you're coming from. What drives me nuts here is that I've had no issues importing/editing/playing my Set with hundreds of video files until I'm now trying to open it on my new MBP. The 2015 and 2019 MacBooks both work fine with this, but something about the M1 MacBook is hanging (eventually leading to a force quit) when a certain number/amount/length of these videos are imported.

Based on what I've tested, it's not always the same point that causes this, so it doesn't appear to be one specific video file or one specific spot on the timeline. I created a new Set with ONLY the video track and no other audio/MIDI tracks, then deleted ~150 of the videos, it opens OK, then only deleted 140 of those videos, then it crashed, then I went through one-by-one...etc. Towards the end of that process, it opens OK sometimes and crashes other times.

The way we use these videos really benefits from warping within Live so that it's synced up with the audio, even if BPM values are changed, so I've avoided using an external software option.

Thanks for your reply.

[agamben]

Hi, I think Reaper can warp video, but its warping system and overall interface are unfortunarely nowhere near as intuitive as Live's. Personally, I've given up on importing any videos into Live because it crashes instantly and can't even read a short mp4 clip (I'm on PC, though). I hope you'll find a solution!

[[jur]]

Yeah, unfortunately Live with video has never been reliable on PC and i’ve no idea why this isn’t being taking care of.
On Mac though it’s always worked flawlessly as soon as Live is ok with the file format. As we said earlier, just use photo jpeg, this makes bigger files but also problem-free sets. h264 is workable too, but here again you could experience syncing problems, but if you’re not doing sound editing where stuff needs to be on the exact frame then it shouldn’t be a problem.
Ironically, for me .mp4 have always been a problem with my previous macs... and since the m1 it can work ok but it’s random. In any case just don’t use this format as even a single file can disturb the whole set. I already talked to the Documentation team about this IMO totally incorrect recommendation; I thought the doc was updated to correct this... i’ll make sure to check again.

[therealthing89]

Hi, I think Reaper can warp video, but its warping system and overall interface are unfortunarely nowhere near as intuitive as Live's. Personally, I've given up on importing any videos into Live because it crashes instantly and can't even read a short mp4 clip (I'm on PC, though). I hope you'll find a solution!

Oh wow, I had no idea PC users had issues like that with mp4s (or even video in general in Live). That definitely explains a lot of what I've read about Live's video troubles!
As a Mac user, I always just thought Live's video capabilities were really limited, but perfectly stable for simple applications like mine.

[therealthing89]

Yeah, unfortunately Live with video has never been reliable on PC and i’ve no idea why this isn’t being taking care of.
On Mac though it’s always worked flawlessly as soon as Live is ok with the file format. As we said earlier, just use photo jpeg, this makes bigger files but also problem-free sets. h264 is workable too, but here again you could experience syncing problems, but if you’re not doing sound editing where stuff needs to be on the exact frame then it shouldn’t be a problem.
Ironically, for me .mp4 have always been a problem with my previous macs... and since the m1 it can work ok but it’s random. In any case just don’t use this format as even a single file can disturb the whole set. I already talked to the Documentation team about this IMO totally incorrect recommendation; I thought the doc was updated to correct this... i’ll make sure to check again.

Yeah, I've never had an issue with H.264, but I'm actually doing the opposite of most users' process (I imagine): making the videos sync up to the audio.
That's very ironic about your experience with video in Live on Silicon. My two stage computers (Intels on Big Sur) have no problem with this, but I hate the thought of needing to edit our Set remotely and not being able to even open the file on my personal computer.

Regarding photo-JPEG codec, would those files have an .mov extension?

If I do convert the hundreds of source files that are already imported and warped in my Set to photo-JPEG .mov files, is there ANY way possible that I can batch-convert those files and then hot swap them out so that I don't have to re-import, trim clips to correct lengths, re-warp to line up with the grid, etc.? If they have a different extension than .mp4, I suppose I'm out of luck, right?
At that point, I'd either want to look into any external software solutions that could allow for similar warping of video to match what's happening within Live, or just stick to editing the Set on my Intel stage Macs and hope that Ableton figures out a solution for this problem on M1.