Solved – After Effects won’t play AVI video

Facing problems when importing AVI files to After Effects CC/CS6/CS5.5/CS5 for further editing? You can easily fix the problem via transcoding AVI to AE compatible video format first.

Adobe After Effects is a digital motion graphics, visual effects and compositing app developed by Adobe Systems used in the post-production process of filmmaking and television production. The point here, sometimes you will find it a painful experience to import AVI files to After Effects for movie editing. There’re some frequently asked questions quoted as below.

Q1: AE won’t play AVI video.

I’d been using AE for a few month now, and suddenly whenever i import an AVI file it doesnt preview in AE, I can see the soundtrack but not the image. To edit my video I have to convert it to a different format e.g. Mp4, which is a real pain when you have to deal with a few video. It will render as Avi but for whatever reason it wont preview it. I read somewhere that it is associated with Quicktime PLayer, cause my QP doesnt play Avi as well.”

Q2: How to import .avi in After Effects CS5?

Im trying to import a .avi video in After Effects… but always I have this error: “After Effects error: file ‘DVD Los hombres de Pep-Los amos del juego.avi’ cannot be imported — this ‘MooV’ file is damaged or unsupported.” I downloaded the latest Perian version, so now I can play all .avi movies in Quiktime, but is not posible to import in AE…

There are the common problems encountered by many AE users. Actually, After Effects like CS4, CS5, CS6, CC supports AVI natively. However, MP4 codec is a final delivery codec it is not one you want to use for editing. Thus, there are many video, audio codec problems while importing AVI video into After Effects for editing. Plus, even the Adobe program can ingest your AVI files directly, it takes a long time for rendering. The best method to avoid those problems and save time is to convert AVI to a more editing-friendly format, such as AE’s MPEG-2 (the most compatible video format for AE).

To convert AVI files to AE, we need to get some help from third-party software. After countless tests, I highly recommend EaseFab Video Converter for Mac to all of you which can help the users to encode any AVI file to Adobe After Effects supported format at super fast speed effectively. What’s more, besides Adobe After Effects, it also supplies powerful profiles to other NLEs, like FCP, iMovie, Avid, Premiere .etc for Mac users. It has an equivalent Windows version Video Converter for PC users. Just get the right version according to your computer’s OS and follow the step-by-step guide below to convert AVI videos to After Effects smoothly.

How to convert AVI to MPEG-2 for After Effects CS5/CS5.5/CS6/CC?

Step 1: Load source AVI files
Launch the Video Converter on your Mac, and you can either click “Add” button to import .AVI files, or directly drag and drop the files into this program.

Step 2. Choose the output format

To import AVI files to After Effects, you can follow “Editing Software” column and select MPEG-2 (*.mpg) as output format.

Step 3: Start AVI to AE Conversion

Finally, press the convert button; it will start to transcode AVI files to MPEG-2 for After Effects CS4/CS5/CS6/CC immediately.

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