matkeane Posted February 10, 2021 Report Share Posted February 10, 2021 Hi, I'm in the process of setting up a new production laptop, and I'm encountering errors when trying to import & playback HAP video files in Watchout. When I tried to add HAP media to the project, I got an error message: 'Error: Not recognized as a media file'. When I opened an older project, which already has HAP media imported, playback results in a 'Quicktime error -2095'. I've tried a 'repair' installation, as well as a complete removal and re-installation of Watchout 6.6.4. I also tried installing Quicktime, but that just results in a 'Quicktime Error -8961' error (as mentioned here: https://forum.dataton.com/topic/6365-hap-q-from-avf-batch-converter-quicktime-error-8961/) when attempting playback, so I uninstalled Quicktime and am back to a barebones Watchout installation. This is a new installation of Watchout 6.6.4 at the root of the C drive. Other video files with h264 and Mpeg2 codecs are importing and playing back fine in Watchout. I started to have doubts about the Hap encoding, so I encoded some test files in HAP, HAP-Q, and HAP-Alpha flavours, using Adobe Media Encoder and AVF batch converter. All of the HAP files play with no errors in VLC, Disguise and Notch, but I still get an error when I attempt to import them into Watchout. I wondered whether there is a possible conflict with the other software (Disguise, Notch) but they are cohabiting fine with Watchout on another Win10 machine. That machine also has several versions of Watchout installed (via the zipped installation folder method) and all seem to be working OK. As an aside, on the other laptop, I notice that HAP files encoded with Adobe Media Encoder show generic file icons in the Media window (but playback is fine), while those encoded with AVF batch converter show as thumbnails. The laptop is a new MSI machine running Windows 10 Pro (20H2 Build 19042.789) with a Nvidia RTX2070 Super card (driver DCH 461.40). I've deactivated many of the Windows services but, since this is a production machine, I haven't applied everything in the display machine tweaking list. I'm pretty sure there are no dodgy codec packs installed. So it looks like it's something related to this new machine - if anybody has any ideas or pointers to the problem, I'm all ears... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAHENDRANARANGIKAR Posted February 22, 2021 Report Share Posted February 22, 2021 i have same problem Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ectoplasmosis Posted July 6, 2022 Report Share Posted July 6, 2022 Did you ever fix this problem? I'm seeing it on a new Win10 production laptop also... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matkeane Posted July 11, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 11, 2022 On 7/6/2022 at 7:01 PM, ectoplasmosis said: Did you ever fix this problem? I'm seeing it on a new Win10 production laptop also... Not fix it exactly, but I found a workaround. After more testing - performing a restore of a clean Windows installation and then installing software until things broke - the culprit appeared to be vMix. After contacting vMix support, who swore up and down that their software didn't install any dependencies, I noticed that the Dot Net framework is installed as part of the vMix installation. After another factory reset, and a separate install of the Dot Net framework, the problem reappeared. So the workaround is to not install anything that requires that framework. So far Watchout is happily co-habiting with Disguise, Modulo, TouchDesigner and Notch on the same machine. To confuse matters further, on a Bootcamp partition of my Mac - running Windows 10 but with an AMD GPU - installing vMix doesn't cause the same issue. But now that live events are happening again, I haven't needed vMix again and so haven't investigated further. In any case, it's not related to the HAP video files themselves or the manner in which they were encoded. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RBeddig Posted July 12, 2022 Report Share Posted July 12, 2022 Thanks for this input. Can you specify which version of .net caused the problems for you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kkghost Posted July 12, 2022 Report Share Posted July 12, 2022 I'm not sure what the issue is, but it could be due to a difference in the versions of Quicktime installed on the new and old laptops. Make sure you have the same version of Quicktime installed on both laptops, and try again. If that doesn't work, there may be something else going on that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ectoplasmosis Posted July 13, 2022 Report Share Posted July 13, 2022 On 7/11/2022 at 9:16 AM, matkeane said: the culprit appeared to be vMix. Thanks for your detailed reply; since writing mine, I had also determined the culprit to be VMix, in particular the codecs and ancillary applications that are installed along with it. After removing those, Watchout and VMix now happily co-exist, with HAP files of all flavours playing as they should. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyShamel Posted July 15, 2022 Report Share Posted July 15, 2022 Side note did you have quicktime installed? I had an issue with hap playing back on my win 10 production and the issue was quicktime was not installed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jfk Posted July 15, 2022 Report Share Posted July 15, 2022 25 minutes ago, TonyShamel said: Side note did you have quicktime installed? I had an issue with hap playing back on my win 10 production and the issue was quicktime was not installed WATCHOUT installs its own decoder for HAP. QuickTime is not needed by WATCHOUT and is not recommended. (Note: All Dataton WATCHPAX do not include QuickTime.) QuickTime does not decode HAP with its default install, HAP is an extension that can be added to QuickTime. More often than not, HAP issues are caused by third party HAP decoders interfering with WATCHOUT’s decoder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matkeane Posted July 19, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 19, 2022 On 7/13/2022 at 9:44 PM, ectoplasmosis said: Thanks for your detailed reply; since writing mine, I had also determined the culprit to be VMix, in particular the codecs and ancillary applications that are installed along with it. After removing those, Watchout and VMix now happily co-exist, with HAP files of all flavours playing as they should. That's interesting, as un-installing vMix (via the Windows control panel - remove apps/features) wasn't enough to get Watchout Hap playback working again on my system, and I had to revert to a fresh Windows installation. I even tried a custom installation of vMix without the vMix codec, as I generally try to avoid installing any extra codecs, and the problem still showed up, which is why I thought that the .Net framework might be the culprit (I'm afraid I didn't make a note of which version is installed by vMix). I'm pretty sure Quicktime is not a factor, as I don't install it any more. As @jfk says, it's not a required part of Watchout, despite the reminder in the installer. This is on a laptop dedicated to media-server software, with as much superfluous Windows stuff as possible uninstalled. I guess Disguise and Modulo also use internal HAP codecs, as their installation doesn't seem to conflict with Watchout. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ectoplasmosis Posted July 22, 2022 Report Share Posted July 22, 2022 The culprit, in my case at least, was definitely the crapware that VMix installs with it (Haali Media Splitter, VMix codecs, etc etc). Having removed those, but kept VMix, everything now works fine, including VMix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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