Old 06-18-2019, 11:00 PM   #1
babag
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Default video setup?

i'm running reaper on kubuntu/kxstudio and have vlc 3.0.4 installed as a system video player. when i put a video file (tried a dv file as well as mp4/h264) onto a track i see the first frame in the video window but the video is not playing. the audio is fine. reaper is installed in /opt/REAPER. have i got something wrong? do i need to put something in the /opt/REAPER folder?

(fwiw, i'd be happy to use ffmpeg too. instructions for linux?)

thanks,
babag

Last edited by babag; 06-18-2019 at 11:18 PM.
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Old 06-19-2019, 11:38 AM   #2
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I didn't have VLC available as a decoder until recently either (my VLC version is now 3.0.7, after a recent update from the package manager). VLC became available to me in Reaper for Linux after that.

I used FFMPEG in the meantime, and sometimes it's still better to use depending on the specific video file. Reaper seems to detect the FFMPEG on my system and use it without any problems. I think either it was already in the particular distro that I use, or I ran the "MX codecs installer" after I installed the OS (I don't remember).

I'll be switching to Mint in the next couple days so I'll let you know how that goes, if anything is different.
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Old 06-19-2019, 12:12 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JamesPeters View Post
I'll be switching to Mint in the next couple days so I'll let you know how that goes, if anything is different.
Are you doing this just for a test or has MX done something to make you want to switch?
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Old 06-19-2019, 12:45 PM   #4
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There are a couple things with MX that irritate me.

One is the "force full composition pipeline" (for nvidia drivers) issue I'm having. If I write the data to xorg.conf, when I reboot I get just the background image for the desktop and although that's all I see; I could run things, but I could not see them. I figured that out when my mouse cursor turned into the text cursor and I was able to type commands to reboot or logout, even though I couldn't see the text; I used the opportunity to "manually" revert the xorg.conf file in terminal to fix the problem. I had to make the "force full composition pipeline" command part of my startup group instead for some reason. This problem has existed for a couple versions of MX Linux (and my system) no matter what kernel version I chose, or whether I used sysvinit or systemd.

The second thing: because of an update from yesterday (an update that happened several days after I updated to the latest kernel), now when I boot I get a black screen with blinking underscore (and I can't do anything other than reboot with alt+ctrl+del). I'm able to boot using an older kernel which still exists on the system (that's what I'm using now) so I'm ok. But something got screwed up. It may have something to do with the fact I had to choose the latest kernel (which is being used in 18.3) in the package manager otherwise it wouldn't update itself; this is a problem pointed out on the MX forum, including that solution to updating the kernel.

So maybe the "rolling" nature of the MX distro is a bit messed up. I decided that if I'm going to reinstall Linux to get it fixed, at this point I'd rather try a more mainstream distro. If Mint works as well, I have no problem using it. I don't want to stick to the more "bleeding edge" side of things. Besides with my new Ryzen 7 coming, I won't have to be as concerned about keeping the kernel updated due to speculative execution exploits. More people I know are using Mint anyway, so it might be nice to be able to explain things to them from that particular perspective when they have issues (if I'm running the same distro, it's easier to walk someone through a fix).

I'm also not allergic to systemd for some unexplainable reason, like some people. Man, Linux nerds can be annoying. I can't find a significant reason for people hating on it, other than their personal feelings for the main author (and the fact it's a bit more complicated to mess with the kernel if they want, which I don't care about).

One more thing: GCC is 7.3.0 in the latest Mint (not LMDE). The latest Reapack doesn't work with the older GCC. It'd be nice to get the latest version of Reapack. I'm not going to start messing with dependencies to get a more current version of GCC working in MX.

Last edited by JamesPeters; 06-19-2019 at 06:08 PM.
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Old 06-19-2019, 01:11 PM   #5
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Cool. I will be watching to see how your journey goes.

Oh, one thing with that pipeline command. There are two variations of it, which may or may not have anything to do with what you are seeing, but I remember when I was getting it set on my system that one version did nothing and the other fixed the screen tearing problem. May make no difference but if you can still edit xorg.conf you might try flipping from one to the other.

The difference being the addition of "Full" in the second variation.

ForceCompositionPipeline vs ForceFullCompositionPipeline


I've been wanting to experiment with other versions of Linux and maybe setup a REAPER only drive. I think to do multiple installs of Linux though that I will likely buy a four bay IcyDock to put in the front of my machine so I could eject all the drives I use currently and pop in a fresh SSD that is all by itself, where nothing weird or unexpected will happen on other drives.

One of these ICY DOCK 4x2.5 SSD units is what I'm thinking.
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Old 06-19-2019, 01:45 PM   #6
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I tried both aspects ("full" composition pipeline or otherwise) and had the same issue. Anyway if I don't do "full" it would leave screen tear in some apps so I'd have to change it at some point. It's a shame that there's no AMD fanless GPU (especially at a low price) that's quite as good as the 1030 (DDR4) that I have. I hate noise from GPU fans and I don't need much for GPU, but I want some decent GPU (for SuperTuxKart for instance). Anyway a friend is running Mint and he had no problems with writing that change to his xorg.conf, so we'll see how it goes for me on Mint.

I suspect I'll get similar performance for Reaper using Mint as I am using MX. I didn't have to do anything special other than install qjackctl (which did the RT group for me).

And if it sucks for some reason, it's easy to go back again. Either way I think I need to do a clean install of an OS.
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Old 06-19-2019, 02:18 PM   #7
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Just configuring Mint now. I'm already liking software manager better and also some of the configuration utilities.

Force full composition pipeline by appending xorg.conf worked fine, as I expected.

(edit) I just tested Reaper with my standard "stress test" project that I've used with various kernels (and also with Windows). Performance in Mint (19.1, 64-bit, XFCE) with its stock Kernel is comparable to MX Linux when the RT group setting is added (and I also had to install rtirq-init). It might be a hair less stable (more dropouts) with the CPU near 100%, but it's close. I'll poke around a bit for more optimizations but I even if I can't optimize it more, I don't think I'll notice a difference in performance compared to using MX since that test Reaper project is purposely ridiculous.

I was also able to update to the latest version of Reapack and it works fine now, as I suspected.



Back to the video topic for Babag:

In my fresh install of Linux Mint 19.1, letting the software manager do the update for VLC to its most current version (3.0.4), Reaper for Linux uses VLC for a decoder. Also FFMPEG was available (that might be due to the fact I used an option during install which said something like "install 3rd party drivers and codecs" because I figured it might include FFMPEG as well as the nVidia drivers I need for my video card).

I specifically tested VLC and then FFMPEG decoders by changing the decoder preferences, just to be sure. Both work fine.

When you go to preferences -> video/rex/misc, and click on the "show available decoder information" box on the top right, what do you see in that window? I get this, plus a lot of stuff below it for the ffmpeg/libav configuration (which I cropped out):

Code:
Available decoder information:

========== VLC ==========
VLC v3.0.x
Loaded from: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/vlc/plugins

========== ffmpeg/libav ==========
ffmpeg/libav DLL decoder v57.107.100

Loaded from: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libavcodec.so.57
If you don't have FFMPEG, check the software manager for "multimedia codecs" (if you're not using Mint though, you might have to get FFMPEG some other way).

Last edited by JamesPeters; 06-19-2019 at 06:23 PM.
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Old 06-20-2019, 10:49 AM   #8
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ok. so, i tried various files in various versions of reaper (5.96, 5.974, the current) and all are doing the same thing: they all display the first frame but never play the picture. the audio track of the file plays fine. these files all also play fine using vlc and parole media player.

i tried removing vlc from the preferences for video decoding and i get the same behavior when only ffmpeg is being used. i updated vlc. same thing. should i be trying an old vlc? couldn't find a link to 2.2.x.

should i have put something in a reaper folder someplace? when i r-click the video window i can get an option to show various video info and it does say that vlc is the decoder (pretty much the same as the quoted code from james).

ideas?

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Old 06-20-2019, 11:40 AM   #9
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Do the video files play in Linux, but outside of REAPER?

I'd never tried pulling video into REAPER since moving to Linux, so I pulled up my most recent project and added an MP4 video I created in Windows using Vegas. It played without a hitch.

One more quiz. Are you using an nVidia based graphics card, and if so are you using the 3rd party nVidia driver? Reason I ask is Google Earth doesn't work properly unless you use nVidia's proprietary drivers. Otherwise you get a tiny square of attempted video in the top left corner.
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Old 06-20-2019, 12:03 PM   #10
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thanks, glennbo. i think i said in the last post that, yes, the files, all of the files tested, played fine in both vlc and the patole media player (something that seems to come with ubuntu).

also, yes, i am using the nvidia proprietary drivers. i'm also running gavinci resolve for which i needed them. btw, resolve runs fine.

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Old 06-20-2019, 12:31 PM   #11
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Another thought, where is REAPER installed and are you running it as a normal user and not as admin? I'm thinking privileges could be part of the equation since you can play the videos elsewhere.
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Old 06-20-2019, 01:04 PM   #12
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that's a good thought. it's in /opt. i'm not at the daw now but will be tonight. i'll look into that. thanks.

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Old 06-21-2019, 01:25 PM   #13
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well, that turned into a nightmare. figured i'd just run reaper from sudo to bypass any possible permissions issue. bad idea. totally corrupted my installs. only way to get around it was to reinstall which i did using the newest version. got through that andf still have the same issue with frozen video. i have another test to do but it may take me a couple of days to get to it as i'm out of town tomorrow. sigh.
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Old 06-21-2019, 01:55 PM   #14
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You may want to check out what I said in my previous post, including the question I asked you about what codecs Reaper shows in the preferences.
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Old 06-21-2019, 03:12 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by babag View Post
well, that turned into a nightmare. figured i'd just run reaper from sudo to bypass any possible permissions issue. bad idea. totally corrupted my installs. only way to get around it was to reinstall which i did using the newest version. got through that andf still have the same issue with frozen video. i have another test to do but it may take me a couple of days to get to it as i'm out of town tomorrow. sigh.
Likely it re-wrote the reaper.ini file with admin locations. Admin could alter it, but after that can a regular user? Maybe not if it got super user attributes set.
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Old 06-21-2019, 07:59 PM   #16
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thanks james. i think i said before that the info was similar to yours but here's the decoder info from reaper prefs:
Code:
Current video frame: 720x480 'YV12 => RGBA' #0

Available decoder information:

========== VLC ==========
VLC v3.0.x
Loaded from: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/vlc/plugins

========== ffmpeg/libav ==========
ffmpeg/libav DLL decoder v57.107.100

Loaded from: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libavcodec.so.57
ffmpeg/libav configuration:
  --prefix=/usr
  --extra-version=0ubuntu0.18.04.1
  --toolchain=hardened
  --libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
  --incdir=/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu
  --enable-gpl
  --disable-stripping
  --enable-avresample
  --enable-avisynth
  --enable-gnutls
  --enable-ladspa
  --enable-libass
  --enable-libbluray
  --enable-libbs2b
  --enable-libcaca
  --enable-libcdio
  --enable-libflite
  --enable-libfontconfig
  --enable-libfreetype
  --enable-libfribidi
  --enable-libgme
  --enable-libgsm
  --enable-libmp3lame
  --enable-libmysofa
  --enable-libopenjpeg
  --enable-libopenmpt
  --enable-libopus
  --enable-libpulse
  --enable-librubberband
  --enable-librsvg
  --enable-libshine
  --enable-libsnappy
  --enable-libsoxr
  --enable-libspeex
  --enable-libssh
  --enable-libtheora
  --enable-libtwolame
  --enable-libvorbis
  --enable-libvpx
  --enable-libwavpack
  --enable-libwebp
  --enable-libx265
  --enable-libxml2
  --enable-libxvid
  --enable-libzmq
  --enable-libzvbi
  --enable-omx
  --enable-openal
  --enable-opengl
  --enable-sdl2
  --enable-libdc1394
  --enable-libdrm
  --enable-libiec61883
  --enable-chromaprint
  --enable-frei0r
  --enable-libopencv
  --enable-libx264
  --enable-shared
  --enable-version3
  --disable-doc
  --disable-programs
  --enable-libopencore_amrnb
  --enable-libopencore_amrwb
  --enable-libtesseract
  --enable-libvo_amrwbenc

ffmpeg/libav search path:
  $PATH
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Old 06-22-2019, 12:29 AM   #17
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Ok I just compared all my video codec info, and it is identical to yours.

If I can think of anything else I'll post again, but I'm stumped for now.

(edit) I'd recommend completely uninstalling, and then re-installing using "option 2" during the REAPER install, which is in /home/(your username)/opt/REAPER (instead of /opt/REAPER). Keep your VSTs in folders that have user permissions too (not admin).

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Old 06-22-2019, 11:04 PM   #18
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thanks, james but nope. tried installing to ~/opt/REAPER/ and same exact behavior: frozen on first video frame, audio plays fine.
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Old 06-23-2019, 12:25 AM   #19
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Can you host the video file somewhere I can download it, then send me the link by private message? I'll try playing it in Reaper on my system.

Is it just one video file, or one type of video file, that's causing problems? Or can you not play any video.
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Old 06-25-2019, 09:24 PM   #20
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been continuing to investigate this and getting VERY frustrated. tried a bunch of files both in mp4/h264 and dv/avi format. also tried transcoding to various formats like mov and mjpeg. non will play in reaper. all play in my media players as well as things like shotcut and openshot.

is reaper missding somethiing? was i supposed to put something in some folder when i set reaper up? change something in a file somewhere? i really need to get something done now and this is starting to really drive me crazy.
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Old 06-25-2019, 10:16 PM   #21
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Why not try extracting REAPER to some other folder like Downloads, then run it in place from there, which would be similar to the Portable Install option in Windows.

I installed REAPER to ~/.local/share/reaper_linux_x86_64/ months before there was an installer, and I continue to run it from there. I chose that location because I wanted to avoid any potential permissions issues and saw that other applications lived there.
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Old 06-25-2019, 10:39 PM   #22
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thanks glennbo. i've actually done that. i was running things from /opt and everything, audio-wise, was fine. then this video issue cropped up so i reinstalled a couple of versions in ~/opt and same thing. audio-wise fine, video frozen on the first frame. i have a forty meg file i can wetransfer to anyone who wants it if you send me an email address. pm me for that, i guess.

thanks again,
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Old 06-26-2019, 09:37 AM   #23
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ok. just discovered something odd. only just found it so no details yet.

i made a prores file as another test. same thing: frozen video at first frame but sound plays fine. i don't know what prompted me to do it but i went to the end of the clip and dragged it shorter. that's it, i wanted to see if the video would update as i dragged, which it normally would. it did! not only that but, after altering the length, the video plays normally. have to do more tests. probably later today or tonight.

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Old 06-26-2019, 08:35 PM   #24
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so much for that idea. appears to have been a one-time event. haven't been able to get anything to play since.
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Old 06-27-2019, 11:42 AM   #25
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just posted in bug reports about this. found similar behavior in w10. when trying older versions of reaper, though, found that somewhere between reaper 5.01 and 5.12 this problem started.

thanks,
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Old 06-27-2019, 12:02 PM   #26
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Check your private messages.
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Old 06-27-2019, 05:59 PM   #27
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thanks, james. before i go and bug you with files, i may be on to something regarding this. i think it has to do with permission, groups, etc. someone, maybe you, mentioned this before but it looks to be the cause. i just set up the latest build and it's running fine so far. all the video is playing properly. details to follow.

thanks for your interest and offers. hopefully this solves things and i can move on. if this does seem to solve my issues, i'll start a new thread. i set up a lot of things to test this and will want to clean up now. not sure the proper way to do that linux-wise.

thanks again,
babag
(btw, the amps look awesome!)
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Old 06-27-2019, 08:36 PM   #28
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it had to be too good to be true. didn't survive a reboot. now same behavior as before with an added bit of detail. this time around i've been able to get dv/avi files to play. the way that seems to work is that, if i play one in the media explorer first and it successfully plays there, then it successfully plays in the timeline as well. not so with the mjpg or prores files. they don't play at all. audio does play but not video.

more info:

i installed the latest 5.979+dev625. i took things incrementally. started by just extracting the tar to my downloads folder. ran reaper right after extracting and imported the various video files. each played fine.

then i did things like adding sws, importing configs from past version, copying reaper folder to ~/opt. each time i did one of these things i ran reaper through a test import of all of the video files. each time they all played fine. started to look like problem solved. then i rebooted and the problem returned as described at the start of this post.

Last edited by babag; 06-27-2019 at 08:58 PM.
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Old 07-01-2019, 12:54 PM   #29
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just posted a possible solution in the bug reports forum:

https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=222434

bottom line is there seem to be no problems with video if i save, close reaper, reopen reaper after adding a video file. seems very clunky but i tested 17 different video file formats and they all worked with a save, close, reopen procedure. none worked unless i did that.

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