Adobe After Effects CS4 - Manual (Page 76)

70 USING AFTER EFFECTS CS4
Importing and managing footage items
Last updated 12/21/2009
• QuickTime (MOV; 16 bpc, requires QuickTime)
Note: David Van Brink provides the qt_tools toolset on his
omino website . This toolset is useful for converting and
examining QuickTime files.
• SWF (continuously rasterized)
Note: SWF files are imported with an alpha channel. Audio is not retained. Interactive content and scripted
animation are not retained. Animation defined by keyframes in the main, top-level movie is retained.
• Video for Windows (AVI, WAV; requires QuickTime on Mac OS)
You can import 10-bpc uncompressed YUV AVI files created in Adobe Premiere Pro into 16-bpc RGB After Effects
projects. You can also render with 10-bpc YUV compression. (See “
Video for Windows compression settings ” on
page 717.)
• Windows Media File (WMV, WMA, ASF; Windows only)
• XDCAM HD and XDCAM EX
Note: After Effects can import Sony XDCAM HD assets if they were recorded to MXF files. After Effects cannot import
XDCAM HD assets in IMX format. After Effects can import Sony XDCAM EX assets stored as essence files with the
.mp4 filename extension in a BPAV directory. For information about the XDCAM format, see
this PDF document on
the Sony website.
Project formats
• Advanced Authoring Format (AAF; Windows only)
• Adobe Premiere 6.0 and 6.5 (PPJ)
• Adobe Premiere Pro 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, CS3, CS4 (PRPROJ; 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 Windows only)
• Adobe After Effects 5.0 and later binary projects (AEP, AET)
• Adobe After Effects CS4 XML projects (AEPX)
• XML Forms Data Format (XFDF; for importing of Clip Notes comments)
For information on importing Apple Motion projects into After Effects, see the Apple website .
Though you can't natively import Final Cut Pro projects directly into After Effects, you can import Final Cut Pro
projects into Premiere Pro and then bring that project's components into After Effects.
Richard Harrington provides an article on the ProVideo Coalition website that describes several methods for
importing Final Cut Pro projects into After Effects.
More Help topics
“ Supported output formats ” on page 690
“ Import assets in Panasonic P2 format ” on page 96
Import footage items
You can import media files into your project either by using the Import dialog box or by dragging.
Imported footage items appear in the Project panel.
If the Interpret Footage dialog box appears after you import a footage item, it contains an unlabeled alpha channel, and
you must select an alpha channel interpretation method or click Guess to let After Effects determine how to interpret
the alpha channel.