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I just bought a Dell xps 15 laptop (fairly high end).
It runs Premiere fine on all files EXCEPT most 4k files from my dji phantom 4 pro drone.
When I dragged and dropped from windows explorer onto premiere timeline a drone file, 19 sec (237 mb, .mov format) file, it worked fine and I could edit in premiere.
However, every time I try to use same process to drag other drone videos onto same timeline, I get the error message "unsupported format or damaged file".
The size of these two other files were 52 seconds (627 mb) and 1:09 (831 mb). I tried others and they would not import either.
Any suggestions on how I can get these .mov files imported or why it's not working? It's driving me batty!
Thank you in advance,
Kelley
Change the extension to mp4 and try again.
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Change the extension to mp4 and try again.
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I changed file extension to .mp4. It worked. I was able to drag onto timeline, but then another error message came up, "a low level exception occurred in: ImporterMPEG (Importer: 39).
Is that something to be worried about?
I went ahead and rendered it ok via Adobe Media Encoder and it seemed fine.
Thoughts?
Thanks so much!
Kelley
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Drone footage is infamous for being highly compressed, and the makers at times get very creative in their internal codec applications to do so. Creative as in, doing something not generally done nor accepted as "standard" practice for a codec.
As PrPro isn't really designed to handle non-standard codec options ... there can be issues at times, and as with yours here, normally one can get through them with workarounds. I do know a couple drone shooters who ... for editing ... transcode all their 4k DJI footage to DNxHR. Larger files on disc, but they edit beautifully with far lower load on the CPU & other subsystems.
Neil
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Thanks Neil! I am not familiar with DNxHR, but I will check it out.
One question, how and where do you transcode to that codec? Is it a setting in the DJI app? Or is it something you do afterwards in a different software program.
Thanks again,
Kelley
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You can do several things.
At times I use watchfolders set up in Adobe Media Encoder. I took a few gigs of UHD 4k on a recent train trip through Glacier Park. As I'd want to get all of that to DNxHR or ingesting into PrPro, I used a watchfolder that AME would do an auto-transcode action on anything appearing there. Dumped the media in there before going home.
For smaller jobs of selected media, I typically just use the transcode on ingest feature in PrPro's Media browser ... or ... more typically for smaller media selections ... use the create proxies option on ingestion.
Neil
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Thank you very much! I appreciate the tips!
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Always happy to help ...
Neil
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Hi, I'm having the same problem when importing 4k video files from Phantom 4 P4P and getting a "low level exception occurred in: ImporterMPEG (Importer: 39)" which makes the video hard to work with in PrProCC 2017. I am fairly new to editing and not following you on how to convert the video files to DNxHR. Do you convert before importing into PrProCC? Can you explain the steps of it a little further?
Any help would be much appreciated!
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For transcoding in the Adobe products, there's three different paths one can do.
First, if you use Prelude for "ingestion" purposes, that can do the work. Prelude is designed to view files, and then use presets that you make within it to copy to (including multiple!) locations on your system, rename, transcode, and add metadata. With a little learning & practice, you can set it up to get through a fair amount of media with not that much time of your's spent on doing things.
Second, Media Encoder (or AME) which is included with PrPro, can be used manually (you open it, navigate to files & select, then apply a preset to them), or automatically by using watch folders. For this kind of thing, I'd use watch folders. You can easily setup watch folders in AME with a preset so that as soon as you drop files in it, AME starts whatever you've got in the preset ... up to renaming & transcoding ... then puts the finished files in the folder you've specified as part of the watch folder setup. Within that setup would be of course the choice of which format/codec/options are to be used on the media involved.
To get precisely what you want, you likely will need to create an encoding preset from the lower left panel, taking one of the included presets and then going through and modifying as needed to get your final choice. Name & save that encoding preset, then use it as the preset for a watch folder.
Third, you can use the Ingestion process that's been added to PrPro in the 2017 version, In the Media Browser panel in PrPro, there's a check box with "Ingest" next to it. Select that, then go to the wrench "settings" icon next to it, to open the dialog box for setting up ingestion.
There's an option to create proxies and another to transcode. For your needs, you might use this to transcode, and you would first need to make an "ingestion" preset in AME, and save that to the ProgramFiles/Adobe/Premiere Pro 2017/Presets folder. After doing this, restart PrPro, go to the Media Browser selecting that wrench icon and the option to transcode, then using the resulting dialog box to select transcoding & then the particular preset you've just made.
On thinking about this, it might be easiest for your general working purposes to both transcode and create proxies then within PrPro. This would mean dropping the camera-produced media in a chosen folder on your computer (the watched folder), and when AME is done creating your transcodes, opening PrPro and ingesting using the proxy process there. You'd have both "original" media in high-quality full frame-size and the proxies to make faster editing.
For the transcoding by AME, use a full-quality intraframe media such as the Cineform 10-bit YUV or the DNxHD/R using the watch folder process from AME. I also recommend DNxHD/R over ProRes even for those on Mac as 1) it's totally cross-platform and 2) it's "design" is very recent and it's considered actually better optimized for modern cameras/computers/media than ProRes. Match your frame-rate and size ... and if using the DNxHR for that 4k media, use the HQ version as you want the high quality setting of that, but don't need the 10-bit 4:2:2 of the HQ-X version, as you've only got 8-bit media there to begin with.
There's a couple Cineform preset proxy options in the Ingestion dialog for PrPro, but you can also create new ones to fit if you choose. That starts in AME ... lower-left corner where you can create new presets, choose to create an ingestion preset, start with a base codec choice of either the Cineform (my fav for proxies) or DNxHD/R, then use the various options to get a frame-rate of the same as your media, but scaled down to maybe 1/4 the width/height of the media. Save that as noted above in the PrPro presets folder, close & restart PrPro, and your custom ingestion preset will now be available.
Doing this suggested process of transcoding to Cineform or DNxHR via a watch folder/AME, then importing that media into PrPro 2017 and creating proxies, would take a few minutes of having things run while you have a last morning doughnut. Or for the transcoding, you might run that overnight.
However ... within PrPro, the editing process will now go very smoothly ... easily ... and pleasantly.
Neil
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Thank you very much. I will wrap my head around your solutions and dig into the software to try and figure this out!
Rani
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It takes a few minutes at first ... but after you've done it, becomes pretty easy & fast.
Neil
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Thanks man for such an important information. I have windows 7 running on my laptop and was not supporting even 19 sec files but now worked fine. Well, i am also writing articles and reviews on drone and its latest technology and programs.
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Happy to provide it ... that sort of info takes some hunting to find at first.
Neil
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I changed 4 out of my 6 .mov files to .mp4. That worked.
The other 2 came up with an 'unknown error'.
Changed them to .mpeg.
Now, import successful.
So - if .mp4 extension doesn't work, try .mpeg
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How do you change it to a mp4?
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Rename the files, but only do the extension. In the OS file manager, either Explorer or Finder. Or another file management utility.
Neil
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Adobe do your Homework!
We are working on a long-term documentary and are now surprised to discover that many .mov-files in our project are suddenly offline!!!
Changing the extensions from.mov to.mp4 does not help.
This bug has already cost us a lot of time and is, very, very, very annoying!
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I'm not "Adobe". Just another user with noted experience in several areas.
As to the mov files that aren't working, what era are those files? There are some older 32-bit format mov codecs that have been removed from the 'supported' category, which is a real pain when you've got them as your archived media. At this point, for the older files, finding a utility app to convert them to a 'modern' format is probably necessary. Most other apps either have or will drop support for those codecs also.
It's one of the issues of primarily digital file storage. As in, I've got a fair amount of files that were in earlier word processing apps, that app ceased to exist, but hey, MS Word could open and work with them. Then got a couple versions of Word down the road and found that oh, that capability was with the earlier version of Word, which doesn't work on this OS ... and this version of Word can't open those files. Right. Still looking for a way to get into my older documents.
Neil
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Hi Neil, I know you're not Adobe, thank you for your help!!!
These are 4K/25p/mov files of a Phantom 4 - nothing older. The project includes 90% XAVC/4K/50p shots of a Sony F55, the long-term documentary began in 2013 and many of the Phantom4 clips in the timeline and in the project are suddenly offline. Strangely, not all of them. I also noticed that mp4 files from Phantom 4 cause less problems than mov files, although I have the feeling that DJI only changes the extension in their settings.
Anyway, we thought the files were corrupt at the beginning and tried to fix them. During various tests we noticed that ALL programs had no problem reading these files. FCPX, Resolve, Catalyst, Vegas... ALL - except Premiere.
Plus: Premiere ALSO had no problems with all of this files - until the last update.
It's definitely the case that - AGAIN AND AGAIN - with an update of Premiere, problems suddenly arise that you hadn't previously suspected.
This is an absolute NO GO for professional work!
Therefore, my request to Adobe: Do your Homework!
If you work with a tool professionally, you have to be able to rely 100% on it to work. Reliability is more important in daily work than any trendy gimmick !!!
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File a bug report on this using their spiffy new system linked on the Overviews page. Or search and find, im sure there's other's filed, and add to them. That's not good.
Neil
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I tried all of those ingest methods and none of them worked.
I then reverted to the good old faithful Sony Vegas Pro and it accepted those .MOV files straight away. I'm trying to move away from Sony Vegas because it's not the industry standard but it just always proves to be so reliable.
So pull those files into the timeline if you have Sony Vegas Pro and from there you can export them to whatever format you like.
Hope that helps someone.