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Support Pro Video codecs from Apple in latest AE update (cc2018) (seriously, WTF)

WTF is wrong with you guys. Why would you release such a sweeping, massive change to support for codecs without highlighting it extensively? People, STUDIOS, rely on these Pro Res codecs, and all of a sudden AE, Premier, and others on cc2018 suddenly throw ******** errors saying they're unsupported file formats. Unbelievable. This change is costing people MONEY and TIME.

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  • AdminTim Kurkoski (After Effects Senior Quality Engineer, Adobe DVA) commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    Please see my previous comment. The reason that the file can not be imported into After Effects 15.1 is not because it uses the ProRes 4444 codec, but because there is some other issue with the QuickTime file that After Effects is unable to parse.

    (Summary of my post below: QuickTime files contain other data than just the video or audio streams. Header data, edit lists, etc. That data could be malformed, or it could be a type of data that After Effects doesn't know how to read.)

    Please file a new request on this UserVoice site that is specific to the problem you're experiencing with that file. In order to investigate the problem, we will need to examine the file, so please either post it or provide a link to where we can get it. Or, if necessary, we can give you an alternate, non-public method to share the file with us.

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    An example of a file that worked just one version before, and now throws the error "unsupported file type, no importable streams". Its a ProRes 4444 .mov file with transparency. This should be supported. It was just one version prior. If I fall back one version and reopen the same project file, it has no issues.

  • AdminTim Kurkoski (After Effects Senior Quality Engineer, Adobe DVA) commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    The forum thread mentioned in the previous comment is misleading, in that it does not accurately describe how After Effects and other Adobe applications currently support codecs in a QuickTime container. Apple ProRes codecs are, in fact, supported.

    Please refer to this page for a list of codecs supported for import and export in After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Adobe Media Encoder:
    https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/multi/quicktime7-support-dropped.html

    Since QuickTime 7 legacy support was removed, we have investigated reports where some QuickTime files result in errors or other problems when imported into Adobe applications, even though they use codecs that are supported.

    These problems generally fall into one of two categories:
    - The QuickTime file was not formatted correctly by the application that wrote it. In previous releases of After Effects, where the legacy QuickTime 7 support was available, if After Effects could not read a malformed file natively, it could be passed to the QuickTime 7 components, which was often more tolerant of faults like missing or bad header information (for example). Now that the QuickTime 7 components are not available, there is no backup case for these files. When customers have provided us samples of such files, we have made adjustments for some of these cases to provide tolerance for common malformed files.
    - The QuickTime file requires a feature that was specific to the legacy QuickTime 7 components and is not natively available in After Effects. An example of this is complex edit lists, which was like an NLE's edit list in that it could specify playing segments of a video or audio track out of order. Similar to the malformed files problem I describe above, previous versions of After Effects could not read these files natively and would pass the file to the QuickTime 7 components, and that backup no longer exists. Again, we have examined sample files provided to us, and we are making adjustments for some of these cases, but others (including complex edit lists) require significant engineering effort.

    In this context, it is helpful to remember that QuickTime is a 25+ year old software package that has evolved to include many unique features. Re-engineering all of that functionality is not simple.

    Our goal is to keep up with the most modern workflows, support formats, and codecs broadly used across the professional film and video industry. Part of that means no longer relying on legacy components like QuickTime 7.

    When you find a file that should be supported but produces errors or other problems, please report the problem as a bug here on this UserVoice site. Sample files will be helpful. We can arrange a method for you to share them if you don't want to post them publicly.

    If you have a file that is not currently supported but you would like it to be, please file a feature request for the codec or functionality that you would like to see added.

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