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Incompatible codec with AVI file in Premiere CS4; don’t know the codec and need to get this to work ASAP
Here’s my dilemma. I’m editing a talk show on a Mac Pro (OSX 10.5.8) in Premiere CS4. My boss has given me a keyed out lower third that he tells me works fine on his Windows PC in Premiere CS5. Unfortunately I get the error “Codec missing or unavailable” when I try to bring it into Premiere on the Mac. I’ve asked him what codec was used to encode the file and the best answer he can give me is “It’s an AVI”, so I have no idea what mystery codec was used to encode this file. I’ve tried programs like AVIcodec to identify what it is and they’ve yielded no results. He also doesn’t have the source project the lower third came from so he can’t just re-export it as something compatible.
I can’t open it in Compressor or Adobe Encoder so I can’t do the simple thing and just re-encode it as an Animation or something else with an alpha channel. Any attempts with freeware programs such as Handbrake or MyVideoConverter don’t bring the alpha channel over so the transparency turns to a block of white.
I need help bad. I either need to find a way to identify this codec and find the proper codec pack for Premiere, or I need to find a free program that both recognizes the file and can convert it to something compatible with Premiere that keeps the Alpha channel.
Actually above all I need this to work and I need it sooner rather than later. Any and all help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
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3 Replies
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a lot of “PC-only” codecs can be read with the Flip4Mac plugin. Give it a try:
https://www.telestream.net/flip4mac-wmv/overview.htmAlso, if you open the file in Quicktime 7, you can usually find the name of the codec. You may get a “We don’t have the necessary codec” message, but it will open anyways (a white screen) and if you press command+I for the info window, the codec name is typically there, even if you don’t have it installed.
Ben Unguren
Motion Graphics & Editing
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Can you tell us the length of the file, it’s resolution and the file size? Any and all info about the file will help.
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I feel a little dumb for not having tried Flip4Mac, I’ve been using that for years on my Macbook. I’ll let you know if it works. In the meantime we got this show done by re-encoding the file as a series of png’s and importing them as a sequence. I’ll remember that Quicktime trick to, I’ve a feeling this is not the last time I’ll be running into this problem. Thank you.
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