Adobe AE CS3 (media core plugins)

[Bardon]

Ok so here's how the story goes:

I wanted to try out After Effects so a friend got me his portable version. (Yeah I know, pirated but it was only for a little test)

It didn't work though since it was portable which meant it couldn't recognize the system very well and the most common problem aka unicode file error kept coming up on me. I kinda liked the program though so I installed the full version.

Definitely heavy since it was full but it did work out for me. One thing I discovered that really bugs me...

Back when I was trying out the portable version it was able to import MP3/MP4 but in this full version it doesn't!

No idea why but soon enough I discovered something interesting: Media core plugins

I discovered that the portable one had more of those relating to the formats such as mpeg and mp3 while the full version didn't. So I did a little test by moving those extra plugins onto the media core folder of the full one and guess what happened? It worked! One problem though (ok maybe 2), for some reason I still couldn't import mp4 but that could be due to another missing plugin that I overlooked while another problem is that now everytime I close my AE It ends up crashing instead! Did a little googling and discovered that it may involve having a third party plugin that may be causing this but I uninstalled/reinstalled it when it first started happening yet it still doesn't fix the crash error. So I went right back where I started aka with the additional plugins moved.

I know I messed with stuff more than I should have but still I was quite curious on how this works and I'd appreciate if anyone could help me out in fixing up my AE plz.

~Thanks!

[Pwolf]

this is why you shouldn't use pirated and "portable" versions of software, shit doesn't work.

[Bardon]

this is why you shouldn't use pirated and "portable" versions of software, shit doesn't work.

Lol yeah thats why I got the full version! :/

On another note, can anyone help me resolve this problem any time soon?

Tbh I can still manage with my sony vegas but still I rather see if AE is indeed as good as ppl suggest. (In terms of 3D graphics/effects and such)

[Pwolf]

well, you shouldn't be editing with mp4s or mp3s. even if a program can import it, it's not advisable. convert your video to a lossless codec like lagarith or UTVideo and convert your audio to wav. (there's a FLAC import plugin if you have flac audio). alternately you can use avisynth to frame serve the mp4.

[MetamorphosisStudios]

well, you shouldn't be editing with mp4s or mp3s. even if a program can import it, it's not advisable. convert your video to a lossless codec like lagarith or UTVideo and convert your audio to wav. (there's a FLAC import plugin if you have flac audio). alternately you can use avisynth to frame serve the mp4.

What are you talking about mp4 is awesome if you know how to how to work with it.

[Pwolf]

well, you shouldn't be editing with mp4s or mp3s. even if a program can import it, it's not advisable. convert your video to a lossless codec like lagarith or UTVideo and convert your audio to wav. (there's a FLAC import plugin if you have flac audio). alternately you can use avisynth to frame serve the mp4.

What are you talking about mp4 is awesome if you know how to how to work with it.

It's awesome for distribution, not for editing.

[Kariudo]

eh, it's only been 2 weeks...I'd just like to clear stuff up about using mp3 audio.

MP3 audio doesn't present the same problems as xvid/h.264 does. All the information in each audio sample should be complete (there isn't any forwards or backwards referencing as far as I know). So you can edit the audio without having the sky fall down on you.

The main issue is that when you're done, you'll have to recompress the audio again if you made any edits...though if you're starting out with an mp3 file and then converting it to wav for editing and then converting back to mp3 (or AAC in .mp4) when you're done you still (effectively) end up recompressing an mp3 file...

Yeah...it's best for quality if your audio source is .wav or flac to begin with, but if you start with an mp3 there really isn't much reason to convert to .wav or flac for editing.

AAC-LC in .mp4 should be safe too. Not so sure about the other AAC profiles though.