Its been over 3 years since I posted anything here, but this was so frustrating, I thought I would post all the solutions in one place if it could potentially help you save a few hours of tearing your hair out.
Its Easter Monday. One of my tasks today, before the end of the long weekend was to create a soundscape for my friend Adam’s short animation. Sounds easy enough, but I wasted hours trying to get Ableton to load and export video.
I am running:
- Windows 10 Home (1903) 64-bit
- DirectX 12.0
- Ableton Live 10.1.9
- Laptop with:
- NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1060
- Intel Integrated Graphics 630
PROBLEM : Can’t load video in Ableton Live 10 using Windows 10
SOLUTION: Install Matroska Splitter and FFDShow.
When I tried to drag a video in to the timeline in Ableton, it would crash or show error messages like “The file could not be read. It may be corrupt or not licensed”.
See: https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/209773125-Using-Video
The first option, CCCP did not work for me. Neither did K-Lite Codec Pack Mega.
Only Option 2, Matroska Splitter and FFDShow, solved this issue.
PROBLEM : Video not playing in Ableton Live 10 using Windows 10
SOLUTION: Set NVIDIA to Integrated Graphics
Now that I could load the video, it wouldn’t play in Live. Instead I would just get a black screen in the video player.
In my case, I have a laptop with:
- NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1060
- Intel Integrated Graphics 630
See: https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?t=232488
Open the NVIDIA Control Panel and select “Manage 3D Settings”.
Click on Program settings, and add Live into the list.
Set the preferred graphics processor to “Integrated graphics”.
PROBLEM : Can’t export video from Ableton Live 10 using Windows 10
SOLUTION: Set the Export PCM Bit Depth to 16
The final problem was that I couldn’t export the video. Live would export the WAV and then just crash.
See: https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?t=231960
- Click on File > Export Audio/Video
- Set the PCM > Bit Depth to 16
- Select the Video Encoder Settings as you wish
- Click Export
- Voila!
And that’s it. I hope this one consolidated is helpful to you. Seem like a lot of people have issues with Live and Video.
Cheers,
Your friendly neighbourhood Ben X Tan.
benxtan 
Also: when installing Matroska Splitter, tick “enable AVI”!
Hello grand master.
i’ve read all your articile.
Could you tell me where i can download Matroska Splitter & FFDShow,
And what i have to set up in there instalation and also all the install procedure whit ableton ?
Thanks a lot
Hi Eatunes,
Matroska Splitter – can be found here: http://haali.su/mkv/
FFDShow – try http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net/
OMG! That works, thanks a lot Ben X Tan!!
Your post save me hahaha!
Hello Thank you very much for your reply.
I had done all the installations.
I can know load the video but it’s still black screen says : « impossible to decode the video file »
I have a nvidia gt 720.
Any ideas ?
Thanks a lot 🙏
Hard to say. Maybe try a different video file? I find that some work for me and some don’t. Sometimes I have to convert to a different format before it works in Live.
Have a look here also: https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/209774325–The-file-could-not-be-read-It-may-be-corrupt-or-not-licensed-
Hey, I’ve been having similar issues but I’m a bit stuck now.
Got both Matroska Splitter and FFDShow installed, but I get a crash whenever I try to import a video into Live.
If I change “Use custom media type for h.264” to Yes, then it doesn’t crash but I get an error saying it can’t decode the video.
Any advice? I’ve got no idea what to do at this point, I’ve even tried re-encoding the video multiple times now.
Heya, what are you using to convert/re-encode your videos? I use AVC Free – https://www.any-video-converter.com/products/for_video_free/ if you want to try that.