HDV Footage will not work in AE or Quicktime

[Kevin Camp]

the only thing i can think of is that your fcp is a powerpc version only (not a universal that runs on both intel-mac and older powerpc mac, like a g5). and as such it only has the powerpc codecs. this means that you can use the codecs on a macpro only for applications that are running under powerpc emulation (rosetta).

you can easily test this theory… select the fcp application in the finder and choose file>get info. in the ‘kind’ property it will say either ‘application (universal)’ or ‘application (powerpc)’.

to see if you have only the powerpc codecs, select the quicktime application, choose get info and check the option to run under rosetta. then try to open one of your hdv clips in quicktime. if it opens, then the problem is that you don’t have universal binary versions of the codecs that came with fcp.

there are only two ways i know to get the universal versions of the codecs… upgrade your fcp, or find someone who has the universal version fcp and ask them to give you the codecs (they should be in library/quicktime).

the third option (that i wouldn’t recommend for ae) is to run your universal apps under rosetta, giving you access to all the older powerpc codecs. i don’t recommend this for ae, because running an application under rosetta restricts the amount of ram that an application can use, and ae wants a lot of ram.

a better option for now would be to export your hdv footage from fcp to lossless animation or photo-jpeg. ae doesn’t work well with hdv footage anyway, and those two other codecs are a standard part of quicktime (powerpc or universal) so you’ll have no problems in ae (ae will actually run better with either of those codecs than it would with hdv).

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Jake Scott]

Alright. I checked FCP and it is the PowerPC version. I set quicktime to run in rosetta and It plays the hdv clips fine. BUT, i still cannot view them in After Effects. Any more ideas?

There is a macpro at my job that DOES play my hdv clips so I went into the hard drive>Library>quicktime and copied all the component files and put them into my machine in the same spot and it still does not work. Is there anywhere else in the computer that would store codecs?

thank you

[Kevin Camp]

[Jake Scott] “I set quicktime to run in rosetta and It plays the hdv clips fine. BUT, i still cannot view them in After Effects. Any more ideas?”

to get ae to read them, you would need to set ae to run under rosetta too… if you have cs4, then there is no powerpc version, so you won’t have that option. it would be best not to run ae under rosetta anyway, there are some pretty severe performance penalties that you would probably encounter, not to mention stability issues. i struggled with ae7 -powerpc only- on a macpro for a year before getting cs3, after that it’s been quite smooth. you’d be facing the same issues with cs3 under rosetta if you chose that route…

[Jake Scott] “There is a macpro at my job that DOES play my hdv clips so I went into the hard drive>Library>quicktime and copied all the component files and put them into my machine in the same spot and it still does not work. Is there anywhere else in the computer that would store codecs?”

the particular codec that you are most likely looking for is called ‘AppleHDVCodec.component’. this would be the most likely codec that fcp would create hdv encoded .mov files from. at work try a search for that file name. there are 2 other places that it could be in: system/library/quicktime; and users/username/library/quicktime.

you might also check that the codec (component) is a universal binary in the get info window… it’s possible that they are running quicktime under rosetta too and that is allowing you to read the hdv files…

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Jake Scott]

That codec came already installed on my MacPro.

I can’t believe in this day and age a MacPro cannot play HDV footage right out of the box.

It’s looking like the only way to get my footage to play with quicktime and after effects is to upgrade my FCP. But I heard rumor that a new version of FCP is going to be released soon so it would be pointless to upgrade right now if in a few months a newer version is going to be available.

This is frustrating……

There have to be other people out there that have this same problem, and fixed it somehow…..

[Kevin Camp]

[Jake Scott] “That codec came already installed on my MacPro.”

the apple hdv codec for quicktime isn’t a standard part of quicktime, it’s a part of fcp… and until apple releases it as a standard part of quicktime, it’s only available with fcp… same goes with prores, dvcprohd and probably a few others i’m missing.

so, if you want the intel versions (universal binary versions) of those codecs, the only way i know how to get them is to get a universal version of fcp, or find someone who has it and get their codecs…. note, i’m not sure how legal that is… it would be nicer if apple just released their pro codecs for free, like avid does, but there’s not much we can do about that.

if all you want to do is view the hdv files, you may be able to find a player that will play them, try googling ‘hdv player mac’…. but of course you can view them in your fcp5 or quicktime with the open in rosetta option.

if you want to use the footage in after effects, as both dave and i have mentioned, you’d be better off converting the footage to another codec anyway. hdv really doesn’t work well with after effects. so if you are going to use the clips in ae, just convert them (export from fcp, or qt pro) to a standard quicktime codec like lossless animation or photo-jpeg. as standard qt codecs, you have universal binary (both powerpc and intel native) versions of those on you mac. those codecs will work much better in ae, and you’ll effectively work around your hdv issue. you can then convert them back to hdv when you import into fcp.

another option might be to try the avid codecs. you can download them here. they are quicktime codecs, so i would imagine that fcp will be able to use them just fine. the dnxhd codec is very similar to apple’s prores 422. it will also play nice with ae. you’ll just need to change some settings in fcp to capture and encode using one of the avid codecs.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW