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Known Participant
November 6, 2022
Question

Imported videos won't play

  • November 6, 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 2250 views

I'm importing an MP4 video into my AE composition to be played on top of another video, but whenever I add the video to my comp, the primary video area either goes gray (disappears) or simply stops playing anything. Like, nothing plays. I have to revert my file to get anything to work propperly.

 

Weirdly enough, when testing the same videos in Premier, everything works fine. So, it's def. an AE problem.

 

Stesp I've taken:

  1.  Done everything here: https://community.adobe.com/t5/after-effects-discussions/my-after-effects-preview-is-all-black/td-p/8307052/page/2
  2. Cleared cache 
  3. Updated memory preferences
  4. Re-started my machone
  5. Scoured the internet for feedback

 

About my machine:* 

  • Mac Pro Desktop Tower (2019)
  • 3.2 GHz 16 Core
  • 96 GB Ram
  • 8 GB Graphics card
  • 4 TB HD

 

I've heard that MP4s can be tricky, but I've convered them in Media Encoder to, what I would assume would be Adobe's preferred codec/ouput (since they own the bloody software). 

 

Also, when I duplicate the primary video layer (also an MP4), it does the exact same behaior. When it's just one video it works flawlessly. 

 

I'm at a loss for why layering video files in one application (Premier) works when doing the exact same thing in AE doesn't. I'm also at a loss for what could be causing this issue.

 

Thoughts? Ideas?

 

 

* Even though I've taken steps to clear cache and adjust performance, given my build I don't think that's actually the problem here.

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Mylenium
Legend
November 6, 2022

Turn off the Fast Draft icon at the bottom of the comp viewer. For some reason your hardware acceleration is completely bombing out. Based on the project info that can be gleaned from your video a 4k plate with an odd aspect ratio might simply be too much. As a test I'd definitely try this with a standard HD 1080 or 720 comp and see if that works at least. Not saying that AE is the good guy here and this definitely needs to be fixed, but for the time being this may be the only way to get work done.

 

Mylenium

yetimadeAuthor
Known Participant
November 6, 2022

Here's a video of the behavior. It's absolutely bizzare and I have no idea why it's doing this. Feels very bug like to me.