Importing MP4 Into Premiere pro CS3

[Guest]

Hi I'm Hayley, I was just wondering, I have footage in a strange format; .mp4, and it wont import into Premiere. Someone asked me if I had all the updates, etc, I do, and still no luck with it...

I was thinking of doing a reinstall of it, but if i do that, I will likely have to download all my updates and stuff all over again, and in the end, the mp4 thing still may not work.

Before I try the reinstall, I was just wondering if anything else can be done about the format.

Any ideas, friends?

Thanks in advance!

[the_wine_snob]

Hayley,

Welcome to the forum.

The MP4 format is most often H.264, and is just as often contained in an AVCHD wrapper. What camera produced these files.

If one has an AVCHD (and the source footage matches up), there should be no issue, so long as one has a very stout computer, especially the CPU. Knowing the camera will be very useful in helping us to help you.

Good luck,

Hunt

[Guest]

The camera was a friend of mine's, I'm not sure what camera it is, possibly a sony. But he captured on final cut pro.

I'm on a PC, and he used a mac for capture.. is that part of the problem, maybe?

[John T Smith]

Read Bill Hunt on a file type as WRAPPER http://forums.adobe.com/thread/440037?tstart=0

What is a CODEC... a Primer http://forums.adobe.com/thread/546811?tstart=0

What CODEC is INSIDE that file? http://forums.adobe.com/thread/440037?tstart=0

Once you know the codec, you may post again to ask how to edit what you have

[cyancat · Accepted solution]

I also had this problem yet found a solution from Adobe themselves

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404610.html

When you attempt to import XDCAM EX clips or MP4 files into Adobe  Premiere Pro CS3, you receive the error message "Unsupported format or  damaged file."

"For MP4 files that give this error message, rename the file extension  from MP4 to MPG or M4V. This will invoke an alternate import module that  will correctly handle the file."

Hope it helps!

[dailyrevolutions]

I have been trying to find the answer to this for over an hour!! Thank you for making it so easy and not all crazy talk.

[the_wine_snob]

Welcome to the forum, and glad that this thread helped. That is one of the beauties of the forum - if a user does a Search, they will often find that another had the same issue in the past, and there is often an answer in that thread.

Glad that the forum worked, as it should, and thanks for reporting that it helped you.

Hunt

[premiera13]

this rename works for me. I just renamed to .mov. Original encoding is H264, AAC.

In details:

I recorded using camera app in Windows 8. It names the files as mp4 but Adobe Premier Pro CS3 wasn't able to import it. Try rename to mpg, m4v doesn't work, converting using FreeMake Video Converter to WMV, MP4, MPG also doesn't work. It turned out that a simple .mov rename does the trick.

[gabrielatn]

This helped me so much. Thank you!

[Codacity]

Still an issue in the latest 2014 edition of Premiere. I import everything from my Canon SLR into iPhoto and then wanted to import some videos into Premiere, but ran into this problem.

So it looks like I have to search through my hard drive looking for the actual underlying storage folders used by iPhoto to change the file extensions because Premiere won't open a file extension that every other piece of software on my Mac will open and play without a second thought.

This is a truly terrible user experience that Adobe should be ashamed of, fortunately the software in the CC suite that I'm primarily paying to use is not like this!

[Guest]

Hello, Hailey

Have received your question, I got the similar experience like yours. At last time, Igot  the AVI files in Premiere Pro bu t refused too. Then I searched online and know that just for Premiere, three best video format are supported, MOV, MPG and WMV.

So that's the point! change your MP4 to compatible format is okay. Some hd video converters you may have a try!

Good luck with you!

[julialloyds45]

MP4 files are compressed using the h.264 codec which is not meant for editing purpose. On the other hand the Adobe Premiere Pro CS3/CS4/CS5/CS6 let you to edit them faster using the native format support. Thus you may have problems while importing the MP4 footage into Premiere Pro. For smooth editing of MP4 files you need to convert them so that it can be easily edited by Premiere Pro CS3/CS4/CS5/CS6. But in this process there may be many situations when you may lose your MP4 files as a result the synchronization of the file get effected as a result you need convert or import them on the Premiere Pro CS3/CS4/CS5/CS6. For such a situation you can make use of the MP4 File Repair Tool (#1 MP4 Repair Tool - Repairs Corrupt MP4 File) which efficiently repairs and restores any sort of corruption issue in your file.

[kissmecomix]

I was having no issues until I installed the update now I can't import my Youtube video back into my project. does renaming work the same way?

[Guest]

MP4 is a container format which could be encoded with several codecs. In consideration of this, Premiere Pro didn't take MP4 as an acceptable format because of the complexity of codecs.

My suggestion is to convert this MP4 (no matter what codec it use) into MPEG/mpg or AVC(mov) format, both work well with Adobe Premiere Pro. I own a Mac so I downloaded HD Video Converter from AppStore, the best video converting app on Mac I've used ever.

[Gerald-HCP]

The Canon VIXIA G30 records in such an MP4 format and my CS6 Premier Pro spends lots of time with a  message stating "rendering media". I simply use Adobe Media Encoder to compile into a different format but I'm puzzled too as to why CS6 won't play it back immediately...

[Ann Bens]

Your camera is avchd, best is to stick to that format (mts) instead of filming in mp4.

There have been reports of issues with cs6 and mp4 from these camera's.

[eddyv39874579]

Rename the extension from mp4 to mov thats all.

For example movie.mp4  to movie.mov

[Nitn]

Are you kidding me? I am paying £50 per month for this software package and I can't import files to edit a video from a mobile? I hope you will get bought by MacDonalds, Adobe.

[Ann Bens]

Start a new tread in the Premiere Pro forum, this one is about CS6 and older.

[sometimescasey]

I know this is a thread from 2011 but I came across this issue today with an .mp4 of a screencapture created in Kazam (Kazam Screencaster in Launchpad) that would not load into Premiere no matter what (I tried renaming, installing Quicktime, some re-wrapping scripts etc - all no dice).

Original file showed as H.264/MPEG-4 AVC in GSpot.

Put into VLC and converted to "Video for MPEG4 720p TV/device". Took around 2 minutes to convert a 24MB file, so a little slow, but it does not seem to have suffered any quality loss, and filesize stayed about the same. I noticed that the audio import failed for some reason (fine for my purposes since I didn't need it) but you may also want to output your audio as a separate file if you need that too.

Hope this helps someone.