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Inspiring
September 14, 2017
Answered

Black Screen when 4K footage is imported

  • September 14, 2017
  • 6 replies
  • 7567 views

I'm about to start shooting a short film only on an iPhone 7 using Filmic Pro. I was testing some shots and when i imported them to AE and they were all black . I shot in 4K 30FPS. Other people have had this issue and i cant find a solution.

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Rick Gerard

    Ok, you have h.264 in a .mov container. Apple does not really support h.264 movies in a QuickTime container any more and it never was a really good idea. Try changing the extension to .mp4 and see if AE will recognize it. Sometimes that works.

    If it does not work then you'll have to transcode the footage to a better format. I would not recommend re-encoding the move as h.264 in any container because the quality of recompressed MPEG files goes down very quickly. Pick a suitable Mezzanine format for your DI.

    Mezzanine format means visually lossless frame based and DI means digital intermediate. You can learn a little more about those terms with Google..

    6 replies

    Inspiring
    September 14, 2017

    It worked! Thank you so much.

    Community Expert
    September 14, 2017

    That's a big reason why you should never use the Output Module or the Adobe Media Encoder to render an H.264 QuickTime.

    I'm glad it worked.

    Inspiring
    September 14, 2017

    So I've opened my file in VLC Media Player and looked at the codec information and this is what is says. I thought H.264 was supported I'm not sure what all the other stuff behind it means.

    Rick GerardCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    September 14, 2017

    Ok, you have h.264 in a .mov container. Apple does not really support h.264 movies in a QuickTime container any more and it never was a really good idea. Try changing the extension to .mp4 and see if AE will recognize it. Sometimes that works.

    If it does not work then you'll have to transcode the footage to a better format. I would not recommend re-encoding the move as h.264 in any container because the quality of recompressed MPEG files goes down very quickly. Pick a suitable Mezzanine format for your DI.

    Mezzanine format means visually lossless frame based and DI means digital intermediate. You can learn a little more about those terms with Google..

    Participant
    March 24, 2023

    Hello! I understand that you have been talking about this for so long, but I have the same problem but when I opened my video through "VLC media player" I got slightly different values. Should I follow the same steps or maybe my material needs to be re-encoded into some other format? And could you explain exactly what settings I should choose in "Media Encoder" to get the result?

    Inspiring
    September 14, 2017

    Sorry for loading you guys up on pictures but I interpreted the footage and it wont allow me to change any of the settings.

    Community Expert
    September 14, 2017

    There is no codec, frame rate or other video information in the movie you have imported. The only thing the file shows is that it has audio at 48 Khz 32bit Uncompressed Stereo. That's not a standard audio format for video. That's why you cannot change the the video settings. This means that it is probably an unsupported format. It has nothing to do with the frame size. If you try and open it up in a media player can you see any info in the properties panel? Where did this video come from? Will Adobe Media Encoder recognize the footage? Have you tried to open it in Premiere Pro. If it will open there then try and find out what the Properties are there.

    Inspiring
    September 14, 2017

    Opps disregard the last image. this is the correct one.

    Inspiring
    September 14, 2017

    Hey guys thanks for the help. The problem with clicking the video file in my project tab is that nothing shows up. This is what it looks like when i select my file.

    ToolfarmJP
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    September 14, 2017

    Hello,

    What format and codec did you use to shoot your video? Can you play them by other preview applications like VLC media player?

    Community Expert
    September 14, 2017

    Just selecting your footage in the Project Panel will reveal most of the important properties of the movie.

    It's pretty hard to answer a question about footage problems without knowing exactly what kind of video you are talking about.