Are the apps fighting?

Yesterday, I went to import the audio from some Windows Media Videos on N6 and, surprise, nothing happened. Then I remembered that Nuendo stopped supporting everything except Quicktime (which still irritates me, since Nuendo was SUPPOSED TO BE A PC BASED APP. Then they just caved in to Apple and…sigh don’t get me started down THAT road!) as of version 5.0.

So, I went back to N4.3 and did my imports. However, something really strange happened with these imports. Normally, I would set up the number of stereo tracks I need and import the files to each track inturn. I started out the same way for this batch. But after the first import, N4 wouldn’t see the files for the next import. I’d have to save the first import, SHUT DOWN N4, RE-OPEN N4 AND THEN DO THE NEXT IMPORT. I had to do this a total of 5 times to get my imports loaded (?!!?) This never happened before. Is there something in N6 causing this new glitch in N4?

Hi Keyplayer,

sad to hear you are having trouble.
It’s unlikely that this is caused by N6 I think, since the video engines are completely separate as you write correctly.
My educated guess is that one of the reasons why Steinberg chose the Quicktime route is that there is little on the OS side that can mess up video playback. If you have QT 7 installed, supported formats will play whereas there is nothing that Steinberg can do about your video experience if some dodgy software messes with your codecs merits on your PC. That way Steinberg can guarantee a proper video performance on PC as well as a number of supported codecs.

Unfortunately this causes the rather strange situation that Nuendo 5+ supports .wmv on OS X but not on PC (via the .wmv for mac codec component that is not available for Windows). However as a long GOP format wmv is not strictly one of the preferred codecs for audio post anyways.

So, I guess the easiest/safest way would be to transcode to DNxHD or Photo JPEG. (and to use N5 or N6, since the video engine is just so much better in my experience). With the correct hardware (Blackmagic) and chosen codecs it just works. My experience is, that most video people are fine exporting to .mov containers with the given codecs of choice and it’s wise to have a transcoding app at hand just in case. If you stick to those rules video has become a zero hassle thing in Nuendo 5/6 and that’s something worth applauding imho.

Hope this helps

Ollie