Participant

Question

Where to get codecs for Premiere Elements?

Forum|Forum|12 years ago
May 3, 2013
6 replies
42093 views

i just bought Premiere Elements 11 and would like to edit some video produced by a screen capture program. The capture program is called Bandicam, and according to the VLC video player, the video codec is "mpeg 1/2". The actual file type is AVI. When i try to import this file, Premiere Elements says that the file type is not supported, and the codec is missing. The thing is, I am able to use these same files in Windows Movie Maker without any problem. How do I get around this issue? Thanks in advance for any help!

This topic has been closed for replies.

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SophieBurls

Participant

I've experienced something very similar recently with m4a files (seem to be when sent from iPhones and iPads, but have also had it with videos downloaded from online video making progs). Adobe support team still cannot get to the bottom of it. The videos and audio files work absolutely fine on all playback software and in Premier Elements timeline when editing, but when I come to export it says "Unknown error compiling". The only way to get round this is by exporting the videos from Windows Movie Maker - SO frustrating. I never had this issue prior to Jan 2020 either so no idea what has changed.

I don't know too much about Codecs (this forum has been insightful though!) so if it's to do with that I'm a little in the dark, particularly if it's something I can fix myself. If anyone knows of a way to help further or has any advice, it would be much appreciated.

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Steve Grisetti

Legend

This is a very old and very long thread. It was started in 2013. So if you want to discuss this further, it might be best to start a new topic.

That said, the problem sounds like it could be related to the files. You don't say if these are iTunes music files, but iTunes music has copy protection built into it to prevent your using them in a video editing project. Any attempt to will throw up an error like you describe.

nitrostreet

Participant

I have used Premiere Elements 11 for a few years and never had any problems with codecs, it ran .avi files fine, but then my hard drive started sending failure eminent warnings so I saved everything I could (for some reason I was never able to save a backup with my old system), I got a new hard drive, loaded a clean new Windows 7 install and built my system from there.

When I got to the Premiere Elements 11 and used it I noticed it came up with the "no codec for .avi" message that I had never seen before and would not play the same .avi movies that I had played with it hundreds of times before.

I was a little baffled so I went back and installed my old Premiere Elements 8 that I used to use and same codec message came up.

I remembered that I had some other video players installed on my old system so I went back and installed the old players one by one.

1. Cyberlink PowerDVD from the original Dell install didn't fix the codec problem.....

2. I had the "REAL" player on my old system so I installed it next and it didn't fix the codec problem....(The new "REAL" player live is a little to aggressive for me so I uninstalled it when it didn't fix my problem)

3. I had Quicktime installed so I installed it again and BINGO, my Premiere Elements 11 now plays .avi files like it used to.

I won't guarantee it will work for everyone but the basic Quicktime player is free so it won't hurt to try it (And it definitely worked for me)

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A_T__Romano

Inspiring

nitrostreet

It is a known fact that QuickTime installation on your computer along with Premiere Elements (any version) is one of the Adobe System Requirements.

Edit video | Adobe Premiere Elements 12 - Tech specs

Consequently I would ask you to give us some further insights into the observations that you just posted.

a. Before and after the QuickTime uninstall/reinstall, did your Premiere Elements 11 have QuickTime presets listed in the Publish+Share/Computer/QuickTime area? (I am assuming that you could open Premiere Elements 11 but it just would not accept .avi files. Was it accepting any video formats other than .avi?)

b. What version of QuickTime did you have installed when you decided to uninstall it? And, what version of QuickTime did you use for the reinstall?

c. What type of .avi files were involved in your situation...MotionJPEG.avi, DV.avi, or other?

d. You wrote

When I got to the Premiere Elements 11 and used it I noticed it came up with the "no codec for .avi" message that I had never seen before and would not play the same .avi movies that I had played with it hundreds of times before.

Did this happen at import or export or both. What player are you referring to...for the import, Edit area monitor or other?

Depending on your fine tuning of the details, are you suggesting that after changes in your system (hard drive failure and other repairs), that the QuickTime install was compromised and that a uninstall/reinstall of QuickTime was necessary to correct the ".avi" situation? What was going on with your Windows Media Player while all this was going on?

What was the specific message that you received from Premiere Elements 11 after the computer repairs...actually "no codec for .avi" or just a generic "not supported or codec needed" message?

Both Premiere Elements and QuickTime require Administrator use? Were your permissions adjusted anywhere along the line?

Your further details on your posted observations will be appreciated especially since you seem to be associating a QuickTime involvement with .avi failures.

Thanks.

ATR

nitrostreet

Participant

ATR,

After I posted this I did some more looking in the PE11 help and saw in one of the subjects this sentence: "Some video files are encoded with codecs (DivX, Xvid, 3ivx, and so on) that are not installed by default with Windows or Apple QuickTime" which tells me that Adobe apparently expects everyone to know that they're supposed to have Quicktime installed....seems like Adobe should include Quicktime in their installation if it is needed to make PE11 work right.

For your questions:

{a. Before and after the QuickTime uninstall/reinstall, did your Premiere Elements 11 have QuickTime presets listed in the Publish+Share/Computer/QuickTime area? (I am assuming that you could open Premiere Elements 11 but it just would not accept .avi files. Was it accepting any video formats other than .avi?)}

I don't know what was in the Publish+Share before, but Quicktime is there now with many different presets. What I was doing when I got the "codec missing" was going to: Add Media>Files and Folders>(the .avi file). It did play .wmv files but I didn't try any other files.

{b. What version of QuickTime did you have installed when you decided to uninstall it? And, what version of QuickTime did you use for the reinstall?}

Keep in mind that I did not uninstall Quicktime, I replaced the hard drive and did a clean install of Windows so this computer was like it never had Quicktime on it when the PE11 codecs weren't working. I don't know what version of Quicktime I had before but the version I have now is Version 7.7.5

{c. What type of .avi files were involved in your situation...MotionJPEG.avi, DV.avi, or other?}

I really don't know the exact type of .avi files, they were shot on a Canon Powershot S3 IS

{d. You wrote

When I got to the Premiere Elements 11 and used it I noticed it came up with the "no codec for .avi" message that I had never seen before and would not play the same .avi movies that I had played with it hundreds of times before.

Did this happen at import or export or both. What player are you referring to...for the import, Edit area monitor or other?}

It happened every time I tried import with the: Add Media>Files and Folders>(the .avi file) it would not even load the file, it would just come up with the codec missing box (I'm not sure of the exact wording of the error box) then all you could do was hit OK and the box would close.

The .AVI files would all play in the Windows Media Player with no problems.

I also have a second Laptop with Windows Vista that I use out in the garage that I had PE11 loaded onto that I thought I had used (the PE11) before, but tonight I went over and tried to use it and it also came up with the "codec missing" box. I searched the computer to see if it had Quicktime and it did not. I simply went online to http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/ and downloaded the Quicktime player there, went back and reopened PE11 on that computer and the .avi files play on it now, too. (I didn't have to change any settings or anything on either PE11 or Quicktime)

Wizarddamacumba

Participating Frequently

How do i install codecs on the Premiere CS6 ?

B

Bill Sprague

Community Expert

Try the Premier Pro forum.

Good luck!

Bill

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A_T__Romano

Inspiring

Cubicleslave2

Very recently someone asked me the same question at a forum that I no longer visit. Was that you?

My recollection is that I gave the person asking the question the same reference that Bill just gave you and asked about source media properties involved.

Bill's suggestion is an excellent one, trying alternative Bandicam capture format. If that fails, try to convert the Bandicam output file to another format known to be compatible with Premiere Elements. If your system has a problem with MotionJPEG.avi, often installation of the Morgan MotionJPEG codec resolves that type of issue that is not being addressed by the installation of programs like QuickTime Player, Windows Media Player, and the like.

We will be watching for your progress and further details.

Thanks.

ATR

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Cubicleslave2Author

Participant

Hi Romano,

That wasn't me, I've never asked this question in any other forum. But here is an update. i went to Bandicams website and searched for premiere elements, and it appears that they are fully aware of this problem. Their first solution is to switch to the motion JPEG codec, but they warn that this will result in lower quality. Instead, they suggest a 3rd party codec called Lagarith. This is supposed to give better quality and smaller file sizes. I tried it, and it yielded about 10x bigger files than the original mpeg-1 codec that I was using. it also resulted in frequent stuttering of the video, due to the high disk activity. So I ditched that solution and tried Bandicam's other suggestion, which is to convert the mpeg-1 avi to another format using a free program called "format factory". This conversion takes ages, but it works. So this is where I sit today. I've now encountered a difficulty with using premiere elements, but I think I should post in a new thread. Will do that later. By the way everyone, VLC told me the name of the codec in my problem file. Dont know if yall noticed that I mentioned it. The codec was named "mpeg 1/2". I suspect premiere might not like this name, either it should be "mpeg 1" or "mpeg 2", I think.

Thanks all for your help!

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Bill Sprague

Community Expert

Cubicleslave2 wrote:
..... So this is where I sit today. I've now encountered a difficulty with using premiere elements, but I think I should post in a new thread. Will do that later. ....

Seems to me the encountered difficulty is with Bandicam, not Premier Elements!

The screen capture subject comes up fairly often. Camtasia Studio seems to be the gold standard for those that produce online training tutorials. The last time the subject came up Screencast-O-Matic was mentioned. I did a quick test and it seemed to work very well.

There really should be an easy solution for you!

Bill

John T Smith

Community Expert

>capture program is called Bandicam

The first place to ask is the vendor of that program... to find out if they have an installable EDITING codec for Premiere Elements

As you have discovered, simple playback is not the same as editing

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Bill Sprague

Community Expert

A simple search for "premier" at the Bandicam website and user forum brought out this:

"Bandicam supports "MPEG-1, Motion JPEG, Xvid, YV12, RGB24" codec.

You don't have to convert the recorded video to edit in Adobe Premier Pro.

Click the 'Settings' button under the 'Video' tab of the Bandicam, and select 'Motion JPEG (MJPEG) video codec' and 'PCM audio codec'."

Looks to me that trying some other recording formats might work. If not, posting to that forum might well find another PrE user that has it figured out.

http://www.bandicam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=133&p=468&hilit=premier#p468

Bill

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Anonymous

Weird software. I have Camtasia just for things like this and once we install the codec, the Camtasia-generated-file plays back just fine in Windows Media Player, and hence in Premiere Elements. With this one, even after installing the codec, I am not able to playback in Windows Media Player. I have tried it on my 64-bit Windows laptop as well. No luck.

Are you able to play it back in Windows Media Player?

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Cubicleslave2Author

Participant

Yes, the avi fille plays just fine in both vlc and windows media player. It

is also able to be imported into Windows Live Movie Maker. The only program

that has a problem is premiere elements. So it looks like I just threw away

$100? Is it possible to get actual help from adobe or get a refund?

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Steve Grisetti

Legend

You can certainly contact Adobe, or whoever you bought the software from, and ask for a refund, if that's a dealbreaker for you. (The program is primarily designed to work with camcorder video.)

AVIs can use any of thousands of codecs, and sometimes simpler programs like MovieMaker don't run deep but run very wide.

If you open one of your AVIs in a program like G Spot or Media Info, it will list the resolution, frame rate and audio and video codecs. Knowing them will help identify the program -- although you can probably say with certainty that they do not use the standard DV camcorder codecs.

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