The video shows in the arrange page, when i double click to see it the video display is black, I have tried quite a few formats, Quicktime, MOV, MP4 all show black…
Very annoying, all vids run on the Mac Version but not on Windows.
It’s all about the codecs. Some codecs might be installed in macOS but not in Windows.
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True, but since Cubase can extract thumbnails from the video, it’ll have basically handled the video format (container, codec) properly, i.e. just the Video Player fails.
@andyp13, please try this video in Cubase:
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It’s also about the hardware. This my experience. Up until a few months ago, I used an AMD 6700 XT GPU. Cubase video worked as expected. Changed the GPU to an AMD 7900 XTX, now Cubase won’t play mp4 video. Plays MOV videos, though. Tried all the drivers from the past year, no affect.
Had the same issue in my browsers (Vivaldi, Edge), switched off hardware acceleration, videos play. I firmly believe the newly introduced and highly touted non-switchable hardware acceleration is causing a lot of issues.
From the New Features page (my italics):
… and improved video engine
VIDEO ENGINE
The Windows video engine has been improved, including GPU hardware decoding for H264 and better overall performance.
It is a problem with Cubase 13 as videos that play on Cubase 12 won’t play on 13. I raised this and it is a bug but wasn’t fixed in the last release.
I’m using the workaround below which is in another thread about this.
Cubase 13 video workaround
The video engine seems to be compatible between 12 and 13, so you can use the v12 video engine without a problem in v13 as a workaround until Steinberg fixes this. I just imported a > 2 h movie file mp4 in 13 with the v12 engine, and it worked beautifully.
Here is how (I’m on Windows):
- Close Cubase. Open Windows Explorer.
- Go to C:\Program Files\Steinberg\Cubase 13\Components
- Rename videoengine.dll to videoengine.dll_13. Confirm the warning.
- Rename VideoCodec-Apple-ProRes.dll to VideoCodec-Apple-ProRes.dll_13. Confirm the warning.
- Go to C:\Program Files\Steinberg\Cubase 12\Components.
- Select videoengine.dll and VideoCodec-Apple-ProRes.dll.
- Right click and chose “Copy” symbol or hit STRG+C.
- Go to C:\Program Files\Steinberg\Cubase 13\Components.
- Right click into the empty space and chose “Paste” symbol or hit STRG+V.
Works beautifully here. Please don’t forget to undo this change before installing any further 13.x update, otherwise the existing files won’t be accepted by the updater and consequently won’t be updated. That’s why you made a backup in step 3+4. Just delete the copies from 12 and rename the backup files to their previous names to undo it.
Have fun
Timo
Hi Timo, thanks for the reply, I don’t have a Cubase 12/Components folder…
Tried changing with _13 but got no warning of change, did it anyway and Just get the following message when i try to import a vid -Video engine can not be initialized.
If you don’t have the Cubase 12 folder you can’t do it.
Can anyone from Steinberg help out?
getting desperate, tried Mpeg4, Mov, Quicktime just get black screen…
where can i get codecs from? how much do they cost and which ones would i need?
You can download Cubase 12 here for free. You don’t even need to install it. Just unpack the archive Cubase_12.0.70_Installer_win64.zip and the contained file Cubase12.msi, e.g. with free 7-Zip. Copy the two .dll files as described by @mkok in his post, items 6-9.
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Forget what I wrote as missing codecs do not seem to be your issue. As @ASM rightly pointed out, thumbnails get created. So it’s gotta be something else (graphic card or Cubase 13).
The vids play on the computer ok, it’s just Cubase 13 that won’t show them
Get the dll files from Cubase 12 as per instructions. You can download and install Cubase 12 copy the files and uninstall. If the videos still don’t play then Cubase doesn’t support the format. Just because you can play them on your computer does t mean cubase can play them. I have plenty that I had to convert do Cubase would play them.
The same vids play ok in Cubase 13 on my Mac laptop, I just want it on my studio computer which is PC 
Tried that, still black playback screen…
Done that, but didnt work, Black playback screen still
Reinstalled Cubase pro 12 and all the vid formats work fine - the issue is Cubase 13…which is why I guess Steinberg would not respond to any emails etc etc…
The new update will now play videos that Cubase 12 did without a workaround.