I frequently take timelapse videos with my Sony a7sii which spits out an .avi file using the .mjpg codec. Today, Premiere randomly stopped being able to read them.
I am running the latest version of Premiere CC and Windows 10 as of 2/8/18. System is an AMD Ryzen TR 1950x w/ 32gb of ram, gtx1080, m.2 OS and scratch disks.
The first symptom that showed up was that .avi files in my timeline would playback as a different clip (whatever was previous on the timeline) but with inverted colors. I could load the clip into my source monitor, but it would not play back and looked stretched out. I tried re-linking the media, clearing the preview files, and clearing the cache.
Now when I load in any of these clips they just show up as black with faint blue vertical lines. When I try to play back the clips the blue move slightly but I still only see black.
Source and program monitors (showing slightly different vertical blue lines - faint but they are there).
I have also tried
- resetting premiere (holding alt while loading)
- completely uninstalling and reinstalling premiere
- creating a new project containing only this one clip
- tried different time lapse clips (none work)
- moved clips to different (fast!) drives - no change
- loaded a different .avi file containing .mjpg that I downloaded from the internet (it works fine)
- tried using the clips in premiere on another computer (they work fine there)
- Switched renderer between CUDA and software only (no change)
- Open the file in Photoshop (it displays the black screen as well, but works on my secondary computer).
- Completely uninstalling all adobe applications, running the adobe cleaner, and re-installing. No dice.
I should note that these clips play back fine in Windows Media player and VLC. I realize I could re-encode them but I'd rather figure out what the problem is and why they stopped working. It's as if Premiere's internal codec is malfunctioning and a re-install didn't fix it.
I'm not sure what else to try. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Update:
With further troubleshooting I have noticed a few interesting things:
1. Fully uninstalling all adobe applications and running the cleaner tool left my plugins directory intact
2. My plugins directory had a few plugins in it, several of which had the prefix BMD... (as in blackmagic designs)
3. The properties for the clip on the computer where it works look like this:
File Path: C:\Users\gthin\Desktop\10340200.AVI
Type: AVI Movie
File Size: 140.42 MB
Image Size: 1920 x 1080
Frame Rate: 29.97
Total Duration: 00:00:07:04
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0
VR Projection: None
4. The properties on the computer where the clip is not playing look like this (this is for the same exact clip):
File Path: C:\Users\gthin\Desktop\10340200.AVI
Type: AVI Movie
File Size: 140.42 MB
Image Size: 1920 x 1080
Frame Rate: 29.97
Total Duration: 00:00:07:04
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0
AVI File details:
Contains 1 video track(s) and 0 audio track(s).
Video track 1:
Size is 140.41M bytes (average frame = 671.87K bytes)
There are 214 keyframes.
Frame rate is 29.970 fps
Frame size is 1920 x 1080
Depth is 24 bits.
Compressor: 'MJPG', Blackmagic 8 bit MJPEG Codec
VR Projection: None
Notice the extra info there - it says Blackmagic 8 bit MJPEG Codec on the machine that is not working. I looked in add/remove programs and found a program called Blackmagic Design Desktop Video on the trouble machine and not on the working machine. Looked promising! I uninstalled it and.... BINGO! Premiere is acting normal again. I don't know why I ever installed that since I totally don't need it even for its intended purpose.
So the lesson is... when all else fails in troubleshooting Premiere, looks to troubleshoot third party software instead. The clue is that the codec was listed in the clip properties and looked wrong. So if someone is having a similar issue, look there.
1 Correct answer
The problem was caused by a conflicting codec from Blackmagic designs. A short description of how I troubleshooted has been appended to my original post in case anyone else is running into a similar issue.
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