Importing .AVI files into After Effects

I've got Adobe After Effects 6.5 on a Windows XP computer, and a Canon digital camera that records onto a 256mb compact flash card as AVI format.

My problem is: when I try to import the clips straight into After Effects, it doesn't work, saying After Effects error: no such AVI compressor.

I don't think it's just my recorded files because I downloaded Durb's cloning example project and wasn't even able to import the clip that came with it.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Sounds like you don't have the codec you need on your computer. Use something like G-spot to determine what codec the video is using, and then go download that codec.

 

The problem could be AE audio not compatible with AE (like AC3) or that the right codec is missing. Try separating the audio from your video footage and import again. I had the same problem with some ripped DVD footage with AC3 audio that didn´t work wit AE.
If that´s not the problem try some other codecs, maybe updating to the newest Quicktime version could help. Other than that I don´t know what could be the problem.

 

You have windows xp... run your footage through windows movie maker, then use that in AE. Thats what I do, quality drops abit, but it works, untill you can find something else.

 

Actually, JDCT, that's what I've been doing, but it's becoming really inconvenient and time consuming, and I want to keep quality loss to a minimum. However you are right, it works well until I can find something better.


Use something like G-spot to determine what codec the video is using,
I don't want to sound ignorant, but what's G-spot?

 

Canon digital camera encode AVIs with the Motion JPEG codec. You need to install that codec. One should have come with the software for your camera. Pegasus Imaging has a Motion JPEG codec. The unregistered version will read Motion JPEG, which should be all you need to import it into AE.

Justin

 

G-Spot is a woman's pleas...wait I mean its a small program that detects what codecs a file is using. pretty handy...

 

Thanks for the link JustinZ, I've downloaded and installed the file and now it's no trouble importing straight from the camera's compact flash card into AE.

Thanks everybody for the help.

 

Upon further inspection, the download does allow me to import straight into After Effects, however now on all my AVI clips it has printed:

PICVideo M-JPEG 3

www.pegasusimaging.com

Is this because I only downloaded the trial version and not purchased the full thing, or is there some way to deal with this?


OK, just re-read the page and found Free full-featured trial version available for immediate download (unregistered copies of PICVideo will permanently watermark videos compressed and saved with this codec) which I missed on my first read of it. By unregistered does it just mean not having the full version?

 

OK, uninstalled it now and am going to have a look through the stuff that came with the camera.

Thanks for letting me know what I need to look out for though.

 

Does it add the watermark when you import your video or just when you render it out? If it's just when you render it out, you can eliminate the watermark by rendering with a different codec.

Justin

 

senor poop

 

Insightful.

 

You have windows xp... run your footage through windows movie maker, then use that in AE.

I had similar problems with WMM2. I used a DVConverter to go from WMM (DV-AVI type I) to Premiere etc. (type II) and also needed a Panasonic DV codec