Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Adobe Premiere CS6 Will Not Recognize MP4 Files


Like so many before me, I was having issues with Premiere CS6 suddenly not being able to utilize the MP4 files it had been having no issue with previously (files already imported and utilized in a current project).  I tried to relink media and reimport the files to no avail.

MP4 is just a container.  Because of this, some would suggest just changing MP4 (the file extension) to M4V or MOV. (extensions sometimes more readily recognized by Premiere).  This can work, but it certainly is not a prefered or stable solution.

At first I thought it was a Quicktime problem (Quicktime is often annoyingly and persistently attached to the MP4 extension), so I updated Quicktime, but this had no effect.

Then I realized that all the problem files were shot with a Sony A7R3.  Even though they were MP4 files and not Sony’s proprietary RAW file format, I thought maybe there was something inside the MP4 container that might be Sony-driver-specific, so I updated the Sony drivers as well.  No change in Premiere.

Finally my internet search turned up another solution entirely… a really lame one.  Simply empty the Premiere CS6 media cache, and *poof* the problem is gone.  Thanks Adobe Forum user Miguel Chavez.  Thanks also, Adobe, for this known and frustrating issue, and for not ever solving it, even before CS6 had been depricated (though the issue is well documented and affected so many users).
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