Hi, is there a codec or format that is supposed to work better than anything else in N11? It seems no matter what I use, even Nuendos own export format, I’m getting sluggish and slow response. I need at least 2 sec pre roll to get a clean first frame start and scrolling/nudging is just out of the question.
This happens both with the video card (BM Intensity) and onscreen video.
What are your experiences?
ProRes or Dndx.
Nothing else. (And that goes for all other DAW’s too)
Fredo
Ok, thanks. Hard to convert to prores without a Mac and I don’t have the Dndx license but I’ll look into it. 
Agree with Fredo.
I use ProRes 422 proxy, that’s fully responsive, and I have not a powerful windows computer.
N11 is not a video editor.
IMO video is only a reference for audio editing, I never use video bigger than 1920x1080.
I render audio only, to be sent to video editing software.
Regards,
AlexBell,
Try to use mp4 at 1920x1080 with a maximum bitrate of 10MB.
Handbrake (free) may help you to convert the video file to a reasonable size and bitrate.
May be this helps if you cannot render in ProRes.
I use Premiere with a windows computer and Prores and DNxHD are available for render.
Regards,
Thanks, I’ll give that a go.
In the current state of the video engine, personaly I would suggest to always use:
Maximum resolution of 1920x1080 pixels
Lower than 30 fps: 23.98, 24, 24.98, 25, 29.97, 29.97df, 30, 30df frame rates, only!
(Anything else would not work for onscreen video playback anyway)
I have never experienced any issues with H.264.
The only problem with H.264 in my opinion is that this codec is resource hungry, so if you have an old or slow computer, there may be an issue for comfortable playback/scrubbing.
The best performance in my experience has always been with MJPEG codec, almost imperceptible resources usage (but bigger file size than H.264).
Of course DNxHD (or ProRes) are the best overall quality/performance solutions, as mentioned by Fredo. The only downside with these codecs is that the file sizes are huge (compared to h.264).
This is the best converter in this universe.
Cheap, easy, fast, bulletproof.
HTH
Fredo
When you have to use the embedded audio as a “guide” (Typical these days - don’t get me started …), you will get into trouble …
Fredo
ER Media Toolkit is by far, the best out there. I’m Windows at home and Mac at the office, and ER keeps things seamless.
tg
If you’re not afraid of the Command prompt, you can do it for free with ffmpeg (which is all ER is using, with a GUI):
D:\ffmpeg.exe -i D:\YourSourceFile.mp4 -codec:v prores_ks -profile:v lt -qscale 10 D:\YourNewProresFile.mov
You can get pre-built ffmpeg binaries for Windows from here (grab one ending in win64-gpl.zip), unzip and place ffmpeg.exe from the ‘bin’ directory on D: (to match the example above, or put it where you want and modify the command as appropriate – same for the mp4 and mov filenames/locations)
Had forgotten about ER… it got lost when I installed Win10. 
Thanks, I’ll reinstall it.
This is excellent ManChicken!
Would you please post the download links, because there are too many options on Google and I don’t want to end up with Malware.
Will this also convert .MOV or .AVI files to ProRes?
EDIT:
I tried your syntax line in Command Prompt, both running normal or as Administrator, and keep getting “No Permission”.
Any idea why?
I did put a link to ffmpeg for Windows above (click “from here”)… ?
Hmmm, I guess I’d have to see a screenshot of what exactly you’re seeing, I’m not sure where ‘No permission’ is coming from (ffmpeg, or WIndows…)
Otherwise double-check all your typing and that the paths your giving to ffmpeg, the source and destination files are applicable to your system.
It should convert anything ffmpeg can read, which is almost everything.
ManChicken
Got it to work!
Just copied and pasted a simple syntax line at Command Prompt.
Thank you!
Is there any info on the values for the video quality?
I am asking because I don’t know what quality qscale 10 gives me,
and if I could choose a different option. Just curious.
Either way thanks kindly.
Even though you are absolutely correct @ManChicken , the time you spend communicating with FFmpeg directly costs far more than using ER. Plus, your code lacks some extra instructions to the FFmpeg libraries, that will make it force output size (video dimensions), combine a new audio if needed, separating audio and video streams, define specific audio quality, and much more.
In short, using FFmpeg directly requires memorizing huge lines of code and modify them each time to work correctly for each file you want to process, and that just to save a few bucks while spending much more in valuable production time. This may be nice for someone who do it once in a while but very unwise as a daily routine, that’s why I created ER in the first place, and as you can see I know FFmpeg handling quite well and still use ER as it saves me extremely valuable time and hassle.
All the best,
Sagi
I never said no one should buy ER or that it wasn’t worth the price. But I happen to know what I’m doing also, and subsequently just shared some knowledge that I thought other DIY geeks might find useful. In the end, people can do whatever they want and decide the value or lack thereof for themselves.
The qscale basically lets this particular encoder play a little fast and loose with the bitrate constraints it normally enforces based on the profile (‘proxy’, ‘lt’, ‘standard’, ‘hq’). The lower the qscale, the harder it tries and the slower it is to compress; the higher the qscale, the faster it will go but at the “risk” of making larger-than-usual frames (I say “risk” because in this case, for the purpose of making a video file just for Nuendo, it doesn’t really matter too much if the bitrate exceeds the ProRes norm.)
You can actually just leave the -qscale option & value out and choose the relative quality just by the profile; you’ll just see it compress significantly slower, but also might be a smaller file… it highly depends on the content. I chose the ‘lt’ profile and qscale 10 as a decent enough quality/fast speed that’s good enough for me most of the time. It’s not an exact science.
Happy to answer other questions but we’re perhaps wandering a bit too far off-topic now, so probably message me instead.
DIY is great, we are totally in agreement about that, I just think it is important to point that it is a waste of valuable production time and therefore a waste of money.
But if we’re already sharing ProRes DIY, I will add some of my favorites:
"C:\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg.exe" -i "H:\Path\to\Source\File.mp4" -c:v prores_ks -vprofile 0 -pix_fmt yuv422p10 -quant_mat default -vf "scale=1920:1080:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease,pad=1920:1080:(ow-iw)/2:(oh-ih)/2" -acodec pcm_s24le -ar 48000 -map 0:v -map 1:a -y "H:\Path\to\Rendered\Output-File.mov"
Code explained:
"C:\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg.exe" = this points to wherever you placed the FFmpeg binary (.exe on Windowns).
-i "H:\Path\to\Source\File.mp4" = this points to wherever you placed the the original/Source video you want to process.
-c:v prores_ks = this tells FFmpeg to encode using the higher quality method, remove the _ks for the faster encoding method.
-vprofile 0 = this defines what kind of ProRes to create 0=Proxy, the lowest bitrate and the slowest to produce, 1=LT, a bit higher bitrate and takes a bit less to produce, 2=ProRes 422 higher bitrate than LT and faster to create.
-pix_fmt yuv422p10 -quant_mat default -vf "scale=1920:1080:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease,pad=1920:1080:(ow-iw)/2:(oh-ih)/2" = this forces a specific high quality color scheme, and resizes any video into Full-HD (1080p) using the Letterboxing technique.
-acodec pcm_s24le -ar 48000 = convert the audio stream into uncompressed 24-bit/48kHz PCM format (the standard for post-production work)
-map 0:v -map 1:a = defines how to map the video and audio streams in the new media container (not a must if you don’t add or remove anything from the original media)
-y = it says: if a file with the same name already exists, overwrite it. (be careful with that).
"H:\Path\to\Rendered\Output-File.mov" = this points to wherever you want to place the processed media, make sure it always ends with .mov if you wish to use this media in Cubase or Nuendo, but this also works with .mxf if you do it for PT for example.
Good Luck, and remember, it’s time-consuming, do it only if you have a lot of time to spare or buy the ER bundle for a faster, brain-free, video production, audio replacing, and much more.
I didn’t have any problem whatsoever on a four hour 3 video file.
I don’t see any particular show stopper on any of your lines.
It was not time consuming either, because once the paths are correct everything just works fine.
The second and third files took just a few seconds to input.
I now just use a single copy and paste line, and just change the location of new files to convert. Or even just use the same folders and just change the file names.
Again, thank you ManChicken!