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Proxy Playback: Same Setting, Some Work, Most Don’t
Hi,
I built proxies for a catalog of time lapses using the custom proxy setting in the screen shot linked below.
The original time lapse Quicktimes are all of varying codecs. The proxies that fail to playback have time code, but the visual is simply black. The proxy QT files can be located in the finder, but fail to open in Quicktime Player.
Any suggestions on another proxy format to try? Or other workaround? I suppose I could re-encode my master time lapse Quicktimes to match a file that is working. Other ideas?
Thanks!
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6 Replies
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I should also note that the screenshot features one of the proxies that is working. The working proxy files will open in the separate Quicktime player.
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While the custom FFMPEG export setting in the screen shot has been adequate for the majority of my media, perhaps it is not robust enough for these larger time lapse files?
I began experimenting with different proxy settings, and found that using the Quicktime exporter, instead of FFMPEG, with an H264 codec is working well.
Perhaps this tidbit of information will prove useful to someone else.
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Thank you for that.
Yes, FFMPEG might need some tweaking to do certain files. The presets offered out of the box are suggestions and as you have probably seen, you can add your own arguments to the settings to override the defaults.
Are your time lapse clips at strange frame rates or standard ones?
bryson
bryson “at” northshoreautomation.com
northshoreautomation.com
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I haven’t heard of the black screen, but that might be apple’s answer on improving the white screen bug. Try changing the frame rate on your export screen to the actual frame rate instead of “current” That works for the white screen.
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Hi Lindsay,
The FFMPEG presets work for most cases.
Could you forward this matter to support@squarebox.com and we will be happy to investigate and provide a solution.
Lee Phillips
Square Box Systems Ltd -
In terms of playback, the original format shouldn’t matter (although it may well impact what transcoding technology / settings you need) the important thing will be the target format. The older CatDV Web Client defaulted to using the QuickTime player in the browser, so could play back many QuickTime formatted files directly, but as support for plugins is removed from popular browsers, and is not typically available on mobile devices, so we have had to move with the times and migrate over to using the HTML5 video player component.
Using the HTML5 player component means that the supported proxy formats will depend entirely on what browser/device you are using. However, by far the most widely supported format is MP4 (H.264/AAC). This format should work on most browsers/devices, though sadly even this is not guaranteed to work in absolutely all platforms/browsers, as the H.264 codec is patent encumbered and therefore cannot be included in some strictly open source browsers.
Going forward expect to see support for multiple proxy formats, so that the correct format can be served out to different browsers/hosts – but that isn’t currently supported.
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