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Replace with after effects composition isn’t bring any media into AE
I wasn’t sure if I should post here or in the After Effects forum so sorry if its in the wrong spot.
I’m working on a green screen music video and I am using after effects CS6 to key out the green screen. I’m using the replace with AE Comp feature and it has moved 98% percent of my media over with no issues. I have a few clips that for some reason are not sending any media over to AE.
Let me break down my work flow first. I have three video tracks and two audio tracks. The bottom video track is what fills in the green screen the middle track is the bulk of my footage and the top track has about 10 clips that are B-Roll.
All of the footage was shot on the same day on the same camera a HPX170 that recorded to P2 cards that uses .MXF files. So I don’t think the media is the issue.
When I try to link over the B-Roll it creates a composition in AE that has nothing in it and it doesn’t bring any files over. I have also tried moving the B-Roll to alternate tracks and I have tried opening a blank AE session before linking as well with no success.
I’m working on windows based computer.
Does anyone have any idea what is happening? Let me know if you need more details.
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3 Replies
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I’ve had a similar problem.
It turns out that the P2 cards used FAT32 storage, limiting each media file (MXF) to 2GB. If there was a long-running take it forces the shot to be split into 2, or more, MXF files on the card. When you import the media into Premiere, it stitches these 2GB files together and treats them is one clip (as expected).
However, the problem lies in After Effects… it cannot interpret these media files correctly in the dynamic link from Premiere, and doesn’t stitch the clips together. So, if you have a clip that sits within the 2nd or 3rd 2GB section of your continuous media file, it doesn’t read the meta data, and simply cannot locate it, hence showing nothing in the AE comp.
The work-around I did, was to export each problematic clip from Premiere (with plenty of handles), then import that stand-alone clip (that now exists with new meta-data} and replace the original clip on the timeline with this new clip.
Then, when I did ‘Replace with After Effects Composition’ it worked just fine.
Make sure when you export the clip from Premiere you use a codec that suits your grading/finishing needs, as this clip will now become your new master file. I chose Pro Res 4444.
Hope that helps.
Editor / After Effects
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Hey James thanks for your help your work around did the trick. I’ll have to pass that P2 information along to my friend who had the camera.
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Hi Chris,
In addition, the ‘problem’ might be avoidable depending on how you import the media into Premiere Pro.
For my project I just dragged the MXF files from the OS browser into the project, but I don’t think that’s the right way to do it. Since then, I’ve learned that I should use the Media Browser in Premiere, which is very simple and intuitive to use.
I believe that importing through the Media Browser maintains the integrity of these split 2GB files.
I haven’t done any tests yet to see if it works, but it might be the root of our problem.
Editor / After Effects
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